Editor's note: The medicine market is a trading market held regularly in the distribution center of Chinese herbal medicines. Since the late Tang Dynasty, some large pharmaceutical markets have appeared all over the country. Under the combined effect of various spatio-temporal conditions and social environment, some of the market towns where the large pharmaceutical markets are located have become well-known pharmaceutical capitals, while others have missed the name of pharmaceutical capitals. This series of papers provides an overview of several pharmaceutical markets and four recognized pharmaceutical capitals that were formed earlier and have regional characteristics, from a cultural perspective.
Nankoku Kami Sokin Fu
Sanqi Ancient Road Walking Horse Gang
Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province is located in the southeast of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, which is an important passage from Yunnan to the coastal areas of South China and from China to Vietnam and Southeast Asia. The scattered state of the medicinal material trading market gradually formed in Wenshan Prefecture for hundreds of years has played an irreplaceable role in the trading and distribution of authentic medicinal materials such as Wenshan notoginseng, sand kernel, grass fruit, Dendrobium officinale and Dendrobium nobile nobile hairpin.
From the herb doctor's stall to the medicine farmer's stall
Wenshan Prefecture is rich in drug resources, and the development and utilization of drug resources has a long history. Since the aborigines of Wenshan Prefecture have not left historical texts that have been handed down, there is no written record of the origin of the medicinal herb trading market. The cities and counties under the jurisdiction of Wenshan Prefecture were subordinate to Lin'an Prefecture and Guangnan Prefecture in the Ming Dynasty, and Kaihua Prefecture, Guangnan Prefecture and Guangxi Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty. In the 23rd year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1758), the "Chronicles of Kaihua Prefecture", which was compiled and revised by Tang Dabin, the prefect of Kaihua Prefecture, was the first comprehensive historical work in this region. Therefore, the situation of the medicinal material market before the Ming Dynasty can only be roughly inferred with the help of some relevant documents.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Xu Zhicai (492-572), a famous physician of the Northern Qi Dynasty, had a cloud in the "Medicine Dialogue: Narrative": "The ancient good doctors all collected their own medicines, judged their physical nature, and took the season early and late. "In ancient times, when there was no clear division of labor between medicine and medicine, the folk herbalists who grew up in ethnic minority areas through family inheritance and teacher inheritance also collected medicine and saw doctors. The modern version of "Wenshan County Chronicles" believes that from ancient times to the present, herbalists have seen doctors and sold medicines, and the patient's consultation fee and medicine fees were paid together, or the total cost of medical treatment was paid.
In the 50s of the 11th century, that is, during the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, Long Haiji, the leader of the Hani tribe in the southeast of Yunnan, was rewarded by the imperial court for assisting Yang Wenguang, the general of the Di Qing Department, to quell the rebellion. After that, iron farming tools and casting technology from the eastern coastal and Central Plains regions were introduced to the Liuzhao Mountains, including Wenshan, and on the basis of increased productivity, regular bazaars were formed one after another, such as Caopi Street or Caoba Street. Researchers speculate that after the emergence of the market in the Wenshan area in the Song Dynasty, the medicinal materials were brought into the turf street market because the ethnic herb doctor was in a hurry to see a doctor on the street. When the economic value of medicinal materials was recognized, and some mountain people mastered the knowledge of identifying and harvesting medicinal materials through various means, the number of people who went to the mountains to collect medicinal materials and those who sold them in the market gradually increased.
There are a number of turf street markets in each city and county under the jurisdiction of Wenshan Prefecture, and the street days (jiezitian) where the markets are held in adjacent villages and towns are usually arranged in order according to a certain interval date. Herb doctors appear in different markets every day, becoming "street doctors" in a certain area. Later, some drug sellers also moved their drug sales locations through the market every day, and became "street pharmacists" whose main business was to sell drugs.
There are many kinds of items traded and sold in the turf street market, and the trade in medicinal herbs is one of the major categories, and later formed a relatively concentrated area in the market. A small number of markets have evolved into medicine markets that mainly trade medicinal materials, such as Wenshan Hengfeng Pharmaceutical Market (part of the original Foshou Street Market) and Jinping Pharmaceutical Market in Qiubei County, both of which are the Chinese herbal medicine trading markets with the largest flow of local medicinal materials. Maguan County and Malipo County are adjacent to Vietnam, and the border people of the two countries carry various commodities in and out of the country on their shoulders and horses, and trade with each other in the form of rushing to the streets. Over the past few hundred years, a number of border people's mutual markets have been formed, such as Dulong. Every street day, the number of Vietnamese border residents entering the country ranges from a few hundred to thousands. The traded commodities include a wide variety of seasonal Chinese herbal medicines. The trading of medicinal materials has become a major feature of the border people's mutual market.
The scenery of mountains and rivers in Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan Province
The vendors who come to the market to participate in the trading of medicinal materials are mainly local medicine farmers, including ethnic herbalists and a small number of medicine merchants who have been engaged in the medicinal materials business for a long time. According to researchers, Miao medicine farmers account for more than 70% of the vendors. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in order to promote the development of the pharmaceutical industry and protect the resources of medicinal materials, traditional Chinese medicine researchers and old pharmacists appeared in the Wenshan Prefecture Pharmaceutical Market. They exhibited pictures of medicinal herbs, specimens and medicinal plants planted in pots, explained the planting, harvesting and processing techniques of medicinal herbs, and the herbal medicine bazaar became an on-site teaching place to spread the knowledge of Chinese herbal medicines.
Sanqi: Southern Sacred Grass "Gold is not exchanged"
Wenshan Prefecture has one city and seven counties, all of which are located on the Tropic of Cancer, the junction of tropical and temperate zones in the northern hemisphere of the earth. The unique topography, landform, soil and low-latitude plateau climate here are particularly suitable for the growth and development of Panax notoginseng. Panax notoginseng, together with ginseng and American ginseng, is a genus of ginseng in the family Penticaceae, which originated in the Tertiary paleotropics in the southwest mountains of China 25 million years ago, and is an endemic species in China. Sanqi likes yin and is afraid of cold and cold, likes warm and avoids strong light, likes humidity and is afraid of stagnant water, only in Wenshan area grows best. After several centuries of arduous exploration and hard cultivation, Wenshan Panax notoginseng became the first Chinese medicinal material to obtain the national regional product protection (national geographical indication product protection) at the beginning of the 21st century, and Wenshan Prefecture became the world-renowned "hometown of Panax notoginseng".
The distribution area of the original notoginseng is relatively narrow, only at the junction of Yunnan and Guangxi. Here, due to the inconvenient transportation and little communication with the outside world, there is no record of Sanqi before the Song Dynasty. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the book "Secret Recipes of Immortal Surgery" (written by Yang Qingsuo), written in 1378, introduced the "Flying Dragon Killing Pill", which listed Sanqi in its composition. This is the first time that the name "Sanqi" has appeared in Chinese literature. The sixty-second chapter of the secular novel "The Golden Plum Bottle", written no later than the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty (1573-1620), once mentioned the three seven medicines for the treatment of gynecological diseases: "The three seven medicines brought by the town guard of Guangnan ,...... Regardless of women's illness, they use wine to mix five minutes, and stop eating it. This shows that in the late Ming Dynasty, many people in some inland areas were already aware of the hemostatic effect of Wenshan Panax notoginseng.
In 1578, the Ming Dynasty pharmacologist Li Shizhen (1518-1593) wrote the medical masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica", which for the first time gave the world a comprehensive understanding of the southern sacred herb "gold does not change" - Panax notoginseng. It is rumored that during the compilation of the "Compendium of Materia Medica", two officers of Guangnan Prefecture traveled thousands of miles to send some Panax notoginseng medicinal materials to Qichun, Hubei, and asked the well-known Li Shizhen to identify them. Li Shizhen had no chance to contact Panax notoginseng before, so in order to verify its external efficacy, he deliberately drew a wound on his arm, and then applied Panax notoginseng powder, and the wound healed quickly. Based on the information obtained at that time and his own research, Li Shizhen made a more detailed introduction to Panax notoginseng in the "Compendium of Materia Medica: Volume 12 of the Ministry of Grass": "[Indications] stop bleeding and disperse blood and fix pain, and if the blood does not stop coming out of the golden blade arrow wound and the cane sore, chew it and apply it, or mix it at the end, and the bleeding will stop." It is also the main to vomit blood, blood and diarrhea, collapse of menstrual water, postpartum blood does not fall, blood flow pain, red eyes carbuncles, tiger bite snake injuries and diseases. "This medicine has recently come out, and it is used as a medicine for gold sores in the Nanren army, and the clouds have miraculous achievements. ”
In the case that wild notoginseng could not meet the needs of society, medicinal farmers in Wenshan, Yunnan Province began to carry out artificial cultivation experiments of notoginseng, which was successful. Wu Qijun (1789-1847), who served as the governor of Yunnan during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, was the first to make an accurate description of the artificial cultivation of Panax notoginseng in the eighth volume of the book "Illustrated Examination of Plant Names": "When Yu was in Yunnan, he inquired about Guangnan Shou by book and replied to the clouds: three stems and seven leaves, afraid of the sun and rain, Tusi Lizhi, and also diligent cultivation,...... The cover is all planted, not wild. ”
Wenshan Prefecture Panax notoginseng artificial plantation
With the expansion of artificial planting area, notoginseng has not only become the protagonist of the turf street market transaction, "no notoginseng can not be a market", but also has become an ingredient for delicious dishes, entering restaurants and ordinary people's homes. The local folk popular custom of using Panax notoginseng stew, stewed chicken, soaking wine and raw food. The clay steam pot and a small amount of Panax notoginseng stewed local chicken - Panax notoginseng steam pot chicken has become a famous dish. After the early and middle Qing Dynasty, the popularity and reputation of Sanqi became higher and higher. During the Qianlong period, the "Chronicles of Kaihua Mansion" said: "Kaihua Sanqi is sold in the market and sells well all over the country. ”
A caravan walking on the Sanqi Ancient Road
The biggest constraint on the export of Wenshan medicinal materials such as Panax notoginseng is transportation. According to the "Chronicles of Kaihua Prefecture" during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Wenshan Sanqi had three main sales channels at that time: one was to sell in the local markets of Kaihua Mansion and Guangnan Prefecture; the second was to transport it to the west to Mengzi, Kunming and other places for sale; and the third was to the east through Si'en Mansion (now Baise City) in Guangxi, along the waterway into Lingnan, and sold in the south of the Yangtze River and the Central Plains. Wenshan transports medicinal herbs and other materials to the west and east, and many sections of the road have no roads for driving, so they can only rely on horse gangs to carry them. Horse gangs are a unique mode of transportation in the southwest region, where a group of horse drivers and their mule and horse teams are organized according to civil regulations to transport the daily necessities needed by the people.
Horse Gang (Painting)
At the beginning of the 21st century, Mabiantang Village, Liujing Yi Township, Wenshan County, carried out new rural construction, demolished a decaying old house, and found a cloth account book that had been blackened by smoke in the hole in the wall. Its owner is Ren Shubo, who was born in a family of folk Chinese medicine, and the account books record his experience of leading the horse gang to transport and sell Panax notoginseng medicinal materials several times.
In 1907, Ren Shubai formed a horse gang for the first time, led the horse driver and 13 mules and horses, set off from Liujing Township, Wenshan County, and transported about half a ton of Wenshan Sanqi to the Sino-Vietnamese border. Some sections of the road are full of thorns, no one has walked on the primitive dense forest, the horse gang along the way to eat and sleep, encounter mountains and climb slopes, cross streams and wade water, risk encountering fierce beast attacks, bandits intercepting the road, endure food starvation, mosquito bites, diseases and other hardships, to transport medicinal materials to Hekou County on the banks of the Red River. After crossing the border and entering Vietnam, the caravans still have to walk hundreds of kilometers of rugged and winding mountain roads. Before entering the city, Ren Shubai left a few horsemen behind to rent a house in rural Vietnam to feed mules and horses, and then hired horse-drawn carts to transport medicinal herbs to the port of Haiphong via Hanoi. In the last section, Ren Shubai and a few people accompanying him loaded the medicinal herbs onto the ship, crossed the Qiongzhou Strait, and arrived at their destination Hong Kong. Ren Shubai's Wenshan Sanqi in Hong Kong was a huge hit and quickly sold out, fetching an unbelievably good price.
Horse Gang (Sculpture)
In March 1910, after the opening of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, Ren Shubai and his assistants first led the caravan to transport the Wenshan Sanqi to the Laofanzhai Railway Station in Hekou County, loaded onto the train, and transferred it along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway to Haiphong Port in Vietnam, and then loaded onto a ship and transported to Hong Kong. Some of them were resold to Southeast Asia and other places through Hong Kong medicinal herb dealers. Ren Shubai and others set out from Wenshan to Hong Kong via Vietnam, and then returned to Wenshan from Hong Kong via Vietnam, back and forth, at least three months, and at most about half a year. This set of caravans, trains, ships in one, with the caravan as the lead, starting in Wenshan County, transit station in Vietnam, ending in Hong Kong in the Wenshan Sanqi foreign trade channel, continued until September 1940 on the eve of the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. Today's Wenshan people compare this "business road" that records the spirit of adventure and inspirational stories with the "Ancient Tea Horse Road" in western Yunnan, and calls it the "Sanqi Ancient Road" in southeast Yunnan.
About the Author:
Wang Xukun is a professor and doctoral supervisor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Dalian University of Technology
From 1961 to 1966, he studied ship design and manufacturing at Dalian Institute of Technology (now Dalian University of Technology), and from 1981 to 1982, he studied at the Natural Dialectics Research Class of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In 1999, he enjoyed the special government allowance issued by the State Council.
Since 1979, he has been engaged in the teaching and research of natural dialectics, science, thinking science, creation, general management, urban science, leadership science and other disciplines. By the end of 2022, he has published more than 320 academic papers and translations, and published more than 10 monographs, reference books and textbooks, including Dictionary of Scientific Method, On Science Discipline and Education, Dictionary of Interdisciplinary Science in Social Sciences, Evolution of Management Science Discipline, Interdisciplinary Scientific Structure Theory, and Introduction to Science Science.
Since July 2017, we have been cooperating with TCM to carry out interdisciplinary research, trying to analyze TCM and TCM from the perspective of scientific disciplines, and explore some cultural phenomena in the field of TCM.
Editor: Perrin