The food supply of ancient soldiers is also very characteristic of the times, and the military food supply of Han and Tang Dynasty soldiers, Song and Song Dynasty soldiers, and Ming and Qing Dynasty soldiers is very different, and even the supply of nomadic armies has changed greatly.
The best spokesperson for millet military rations, Mr. Lei, no, Chief Yan said that Shanxi millet raisers, about this statement, the kings of the Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties and even the Mongolian khans have to praise it, because the main military ration of these dynasties is millet. The mainstream varieties of military grain in the Qin, Han and Tang dynasties were millet, and there was also a special official position called Zhisu Duwei during the Qin and Han dynasties, which was dedicated to managing the production and transportation of military grain, and Han Xin and Sang Hongyang served as this official. In addition, there are also sayings such as the westward movement of millet and the shortage of border millet, which shows that millet was synonymous with military food at that time. The soldiers of the Han Dynasty took two stones, 9 buckets and 3 liters of millet from the government every month, and the food standard of the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty was 2 liters of millet a day, and the food standards of the soldiers of the Qin Dynasty were relatively complicated.
Millet was able to become the mainstream of military food in these dynasties because of its shelf-stable shelf, wide cultivation area, and lack of wheat. Millet can be stored for nine years as a military ration, but rice can only be stored for three years, and only in the south at that time the rice production was far inferior to millet, so millet became the mainstream of military rations. As for noodles such as pot helmets and knife-cut noodles, although they often touched porcelain military rations, the cost of wheat grinding noodles was very high at that time, and the noodles were not popularized. Liu Xiu's wheat rice is only to knock off the outer shell of the wheat, and then directly put it in the pot to steam and cook.
Mongolians also eat millet because millet is drought tolerant and can be grown in the steppe. As early as the Han Dynasty, the cavalry of the Han Dynasty discovered that the Huns would plant millet on their nomadic roads and harvest them in addition to grazing. The Huns also accumulated a lot of millet, and they also lost these millet to their opponents in the Han Dynasty. The way Mongolians eat millet is to drink millet porridge, Marco Polo, Western missionaries have left a record of them drinking millet porridge, Shanxi is also the Mongolian Khan valued area, the Yuan Dynasty imperial physician compiled the "Drink Meal" also believes that millet "...... The main nourishing kidney qi, removing the heat in the spleen and stomach, invigorating qi, Chen Zhiliang, curing the heat in the stomach", it is estimated that they have not eaten less millet for the people who raise people in Shanxi. The Mongols in the Ming and Qing dynasties also liked to grow millet and eat millet, and the daily food of the Manchu prince and monk Grinqin in the army was two meat and two vegetarian plus millet porridge and steamed buns.
In the Song Dynasty, the military rations of the Central Plains Dynasty became wheat and rice, and the official military ration standard of the Northern Song Dynasty was "each person gave wheat two buckets of surplus", and in the Song Dynasty Shenzong period, the rice in the military rations began to increase, and Sima Guang left a record of "each person gave two and a half liters of rice every day, and his monthly ration was seven buckets and five liters". Rice and wheat were the mainstream of the two Song Dynasty army rations, and millet did not disappear in the two Song Dynasty armies, it only became a substitute for rice and wheat. This is because during the Song and Song dynasties, grain production in the south surpassed that in the north, and wheat cultivation in the north also exceeded millet.
The soldiers of the two Song Dynasty also did not eat noodles such as knife-cut noodles and braised noodles (braised noodles were a large-scale popular food after the founding of the People's Republic of China), and they ate the cooking cakes sold by Wu Dalang, that is, steamed cakes (the name of Song Renzong was changed to the name of the Northern Song Dynasty), and the practice of cooking cakes in the Northern Song Dynasty military was "soaking vinegar for a liter, exposing it to drying, taking vinegar as much as possible, and cooking it after eating a large sycamore." The soldiers of the Song Dynasty seemed to be addicted to eating cakes, and they even had to eat rice cakes, and they put "rice with one stone,...... Cook and pulp, remove water from water, expose to dry, dust removed, and steam. After ten times, you can get two buckets", boil it with water when you eat it and then eat it, and the soldiers of the Two Song Dynasty can be regarded as the pioneers of fast food for military rations.
Even the Mongolians, who were the opponents of the Southern Song Dynasty, also ate fried rice as military food, because they occupied the Central Plains and the south of the Yangtze River, the Mongolians transported a large amount of grain to their hometowns, and the Mongolian soldiers also contracted the "problem" of eating fried rice, and Mongolian milk tea with fried rice is still the main diet of Mongolians. The Chinese soldiers in the Ming and Qing dynasties ate very similar to today, and the Eight Banners Army, like the chief helmsman, "grew up eating Han rice". Even Monk Lingqin knew that cabbage leaves were a good thing, and took the initiative to pick up vegetable leaves that the soldiers didn't want in the barracks and educate the soldiers to be thrifty.
The food of Chinese soldiers is no different from that of civilians, what the people have eaten in the past generations, the soldiers have eaten, unlike a certain island country, where the samurai have regarded white rice as an exclusive food.