Among China's major online novels, the traversal essay can be said to occupy half of the country, and in the traversal essay, the figure of the infrastructure essay and the imperial examination essay is not uncommon, and most of this kind of online essay is mainly counterattack.
In the counterattack text, whether the protagonist of the crossing is a man or a woman, he will always try to find foreign seeds, such as potatoes and sweet potatoes, so as to get rid of the state of low grain production with these high-yielding seeds.
So, what kind of food did the Gentiles bring to China involve? Take a closer look and you'll be amazed!
1. Before the opening of the Silk Road, foreign seeds were introduced into China
Most people think that after Zhang Qian opened up the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty, foreign seeds began to enter the country, but in fact, as early as the pre-Qin period before the opening of the Silk Road, the mainland began to introduce foreign seeds, among which, the most surprising is the introduction of wheat and barley.
Barley and wheat originated in West Asia, and were introduced to the mainland during the Xia Dynasty, but until the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, soybean was the staple food of the people.
In the beginning, people just made soybeans into soybean rice, and also picked the leaves of soybeans and cooked them into soup to drink, but soybeans are coarse grains after all, and for the aristocracy, it was more or less a bit of a mouthful, so everyone learned to use a stone mill to grind soybeans into soybean milk and soybean flour, and soybeans became much more delicious.
At this time, rice cultivation in the south had not yet been popularized, and until the Tang Dynasty, it was difficult for rice cultivation to form a certain scale.
At present, the mainland has formed an agricultural model in which wheat cultivation is the mainstay in the north and rice cultivation is the mainstay in the south, and it can be said that it has gone through quite a long period of time.
In addition to barley and wheat, other crops were also introduced in the pre-Qin period, such as oats from Europe, lotus root from South Asia, and ginger from Southeast Asia.
The first road is the northern steppe passage and oasis passage, the food from Europe, Central Asia, and West Asia is this road, and these foods are either introduced from the grasslands to the north of the continent, all the way to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, or from the Pamir Plateau into the Tarim Basin of the mainland, and after passing through the Hexi Corridor, into the Loess Plateau.
The food that was introduced to the mainland from Southeast Asia went through the southern channel, but because it was introduced too early, there was no written record in the south, so it is difficult to research.
In addition, there are watermelons that entered Xinjiang during the Tang Dynasty, and the origin was Africa, which was introduced from Xinjiang to the Central Plains during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.
In fact, cotton was planted in the Qin and Han dynasties, mainly from India and Africa to the mainland, but at the beginning, it was regarded as an ornamental flower, and it was not planted on a large scale until the Tang Dynasty, and it was not planted on a large scale until the Northern Song Dynasty, and at the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, cotton cloth became the main textile material.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, American cotton with better quality was introduced to China, gradually replacing African cotton and Asian cotton, which were relatively poor in quality.
During the Tang Dynasty, the national style was open and tolerant, during this period, the mainland actively did business with foreign friends, and introduced a lot of food, such as figs, pistachios, and loofahs, but during the Tang Dynasty, it mainly relied on foreign friends to do business in the Tang Dynasty, and many foods were brought back to China as early as Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions, so the food and seeds introduced by the Tang Dynasty did not form a large scale.
2. There have been two large-scale food introductions in the history of the mainland
When it comes to the large-scale introduction of food in the history of the mainland, there is no doubt that everyone will think that after Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions, he opened up a Silk Road and brought a large amount of food from abroad.
Zhang Qian brought a wide variety of food, including grapes, cucumbers, pomegranates, garlic, broad beans, coriander, peas, green onions, etc.
Now many people on the Internet complain that coriander is not delicious, and vow to trample on every coriander field in the world, and the "culprit" is Zhang Qian.
The food introduced to China during this period has a characteristic, that is, the names all have a "Hu" character on the name, such as courgette, pepper, flax, etc., the main reason is that these foods are brought by the Hu people.
Courgette is cucumber, during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a northern Xiongnu overlord named Shile, because he hated his tribe very much and called the Huren people Huren, so he ordered to prohibit the whole country from speaking and writing articles with the word "Hu", and the courgette was renamed cucumber, so to speak, most of the food at the beginning of the word "Hu" was renamed in this way.
In the history of the mainland, it was not only this large-scale introduction of food, but also during the Ming Dynasty.
The introduction of food during the Ming Dynasty was not brought by Zheng He during his voyage to the West, as everyone thinks, but was related to Columbus.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, drawing the attention of a group of Europeans to a land they had never set foot in.
Europeans and Americans first established early colonies in Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines, so crops from the Americas began to be introduced to the Philippines, then to the South Seas, and to China with the caravans that went to the South Seas.
The crops introduced to China during this period mainly include corn, sweet potato, potato, cassava, pumpkin, pepper, tomato, pineapple, tobacco, American ginseng and so on.
Just like most of the food from the Silk Road has the word "Hu", during the Ming Dynasty, those Caucasian people who looked different from us were called Fanren, so the food from the Americas also brought the word "Fan", such as tomato, guava, papaya, custard, etc., and even chili peppers were called peppers at that time.
During this period, the food introduced into China also took two routes, the first is the previous one, from the Nanyang area to the mainland, and the other is from Central Asia to the northwest of the continent, and then eastward to all parts of the country, during which there are also many stories.
For example, the introduction of sweet potatoes has a different story.
During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, a Fujian merchant went to Luzon to do business, and accidentally discovered the sweet potato crop, which was not only delicious, but also had a large yield, so he thought about bringing this food back to the motherland.
However, at that time, Luzon, that is, the Philippines, was a Spanish colony, and the colonists knew that the yield of sweet potatoes was large and could save many people, so they thought about suppressing the spread of sweet potatoes, so as not to strengthen the power of other countries, so they strictly forbade everyone to spread sweet potato seedlings to the outside world.
But this businessman refused to accept his fate, so he stayed in the local area with his son, learned how to grow sweet potatoes, and hid the sweet potato sprouts in a cable when he returned to China.
The Ming Dynasty was encountering the Xiaoice River period, the winter wheat harvest failed, the spring was another big drought, the people lacked food, when the sweet potato seedlings were planted, it was completely a dead horse as a live horse doctor, but unexpectedly, when it was harvested in the autumn, a lot of sweet potatoes were dug up, and there were countless people who lived on sweet potatoes at that time, and sweet potatoes spread in China.
3. Under the trend of globalization, food from all over the world is being imported into other countries
During the Qing Dynasty, the mainland began to close itself off from the country and refused to interact with other countries, but whether it was then or now, globalization is the general trend, no matter how closed the country, the Western powers can still use artillery fire to open the door of the Qing Dynasty, coupled with the existence of customs smuggling in the coastal areas, the closed country can not stop the introduction of foreign food into the mainland.
For example, after the Opium War, zucchini, which originated from the American continent, entered the country, and with the opening of Guangzhou, onions, cauliflowers, cabbage, and strawberries were also introduced to Guangzhou from Macao.
Among them, the most noteworthy is probably Apple.
In fact, apples are also grown in Xinjiang on the mainland, but the taste is relatively poor, and after the Opium War, apples from the Americas entered the mainland, immediately replaced Xinjiang apples, entered thousands of households, and began to be planted on a large scale, and now, apples have become a standing fruit for the public.
In fact, the food of this period also has a characteristic, that is, it has the word "foreign", after all, these are the food of foreigners, such as onions, artichokes, cabbage, peaches and so on.
It can be seen that by looking at which character Hu, Fan, and Yang are included in the name of the food, we can roughly infer the period in which this food was introduced to the mainland.
So, do you think that's all there is to it? Miss by a mile! The spread of food has never stopped its global pace!
In the mouths of contemporary netizens, it is often heard that some species that are flooding abroad have disappeared without a trace after being introduced to China, for no other reason, the power of foodies is terrifying! And the first is the crayfish that everyone loves in the summer!
Crayfish was first introduced by the Japanese in 1929, and it can be said that Japan became a springboard for crayfish to enter Asia, but the Japanese could not deal with this creature, and Japan's black crayfish had to be killed by crayfish.
After being introduced into China, in the 1990s, crayfish in Hubei, Anhui, on the table of food stalls, fresh and spicy taste made crayfish quickly win a group of fans, the number of people who sold crayfish counted to hand cramps, to now, crayfish must rely on artificial breeding to supply.
In addition, there is tilapia that is rampant in Africa, because of its fast reproduction rate and high survival rate, which seriously disrupts the local ecological balance, and after being introduced to the mainland, it has become a delicacy because of its prickly meat and low price.
Hairy crabs are so rampant in Germany that they can be seen on the roads, and Germany spends more than 80 million euros a year on them, and after packing them and sending them to China, this trouble disappears.
Bullfrog was introduced to the mainland from Cuba and Japan in the 1960s, because of its fast growth rate and delicious taste, it was made into a variety of delicacies, and now it is basically farmed, but after all, it is an alien species, and the mainland has also given it due respect, stipulating that breeding can be, but release cannot.
In addition, there are oysters and tumbleweeds, which are basically rampant abroad, but when they reach the mainland, they immediately become a delicacy.
Think about it, in the south of the mainland, small dandelions can be seen everywhere, but in the north, especially in the northeast, people affectionately call it mother-in-law, and in the spring, it is taken away directly by someone with a sickle and becomes a home-cooked dish.