Advocating frugality and cherishing grain are the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation. The ancients realized the affairs of the world very early, often due to thriftiness and failure to extravagance. How did they save food and punish waste?
Qing Dynasty Chen Mei painted book "Cultivation and Weaving Map". The pictures are all infographics
A multicolored cultivated and woven vase treasured by the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The ripeness of the grain, is it easy to be easy?
In the Ming Dynasty's Yu Jideng's "Chronicles of Allusions", it is recorded that Zhu Di, the ancestor of Ming Cheng, inspected the imperial city one day after going to the early dynasty, and was furious when he saw the eunuch feeding the chickens with white rice, and he reprimanded: "This generation sits and enjoys anointing sorghum, and does not know the hardships of the people and is violent and cruel. As for the cost of raising livestock for a day, when the food of the hungry family is forbidden. Er and other positions, from now on dare to have a revenge, will not be punished! The eunuch who had wasted grain was then severely beaten twenty times and shackled for half a month as punishment.
In the "Aphorisms of the Court Training", the Kangxi Emperor also taught his descendants this way: "The birth of the husband and the earth, the strength of the peasants, the long nourishment of the wind, thunder, rain and dew, the diligence of the cultivation and harvest, the ripening of the grain, is it easy to be easy?" ...... But the people of the world know only precious gold and jade but do not know the weight of grain, or they are in the field garden, or they are abandoned to the road, and even those who are polluted by dung. Is it so despicable that it is respectful? The husband apologizes for the lack of valleys, and should be cherished, and the valley of the years is more, especially cherished. ”
Chinese have always revered nature and regarded heaven and earth as their parents, but the world is impermanent, and all things in heaven and earth have their own laws of natural development. After a good year, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be a year of disaster, and only if it is taken in moderation and used sparingly, it is not afraid of frost; if it is taken without moderation and use without moderation, it is inevitable that there will be a day of hunger and starvation.
According to the "Anecdotes of the Qing Palace", once, Daoguang went to the Xiangshan Jianrui Camp to inspect and found that many of the residences of the Eight Flags Soldiers raised cats and dogs and birds, and those cats and dogs ate birds mostly millet yellow rice, fish and meat bones, etc., which were very wasteful. Dao Guang was very angry when he saw it, and immediately reprimanded, "The Eight Banners soldiers should keep in mind the ancient precepts, practice acting bravery, and practice riding and shooting, but now they are raising cages to frame birds, playing cats and teasing dogs, and the money and grain distributed by the imperial court are so wasted." I really don't know the hardships of the peasants' labor, such as profligacy, and sooner or later they will lose their family business! Afterwards, Daoguang ordered: "From now on, the president of the Jianrui Camp, the wing leader, and the wing commander will be fined for half a year, and the soldiers will be halved in silver and rice!" ”
Su Shi "Hanging Money on the Beam"
Just as the so-called "people take food as the sky", Su Shi, a writer and gourmet in the Northern Song Dynasty, once called himself "the beauty of the gathering, to nourish my old food", in fact, he was very frugal in his diet.
In the "Dietary Sayings", Su Shi set rules for himself, "Since today, the Dongpo residents have eaten only one lord and one meat in the morning and evening", "There are honorable guests who feast on three, but they cannot be damaged or increased", "Those who have summoned me, I am expected to tell them that the master will not pass the time, but stop.". The gist of this is that Su Shi usually eats, but one meat and one wine; he cannot invite guests or others to eat, and there can be no more than three meat dishes, otherwise he will not go to the banquet. Su Shi's intention is: "One is to nourish the blessings of peace, the second is to broaden the stomach to nourish the qi, and the third is to save money to nourish the wealth." This kind of frugality is self-cultivation.
Later, Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou, and he not only personally cultivated it himself, but also implemented planned expenditure, which was the "house beam hanging money" that Zeng Guofan later emulated. It is said that Su Shi divided the money into 12 equal parts, one a month. Each portion is divided into thirty small portions equally, with only one small portion per day. The divided money is hung on the beam of the house in parts, and a small portion is taken every day as the living expenses of the day, and if there is a balance, it is stored in a bamboo tube for unexpected needs.
Yongzheng made two holy decrees for leftovers
"With grain in hand, there is no panic in the heart", China is a big country, if it cannot think of danger in times of peace, it is inevitable that there will be worries about the future. The ancients wrote poems saying, "Plant one grain of millet in the spring, and harvest ten thousand seeds in the autumn." There are no idle fields in the four seas, and the farmers are starving to death. "Only when a good year does not forget the hunger and cherishes every grain of grain can we be prepared." Another example is "When the day of hoeing is noon, the sweat drops down to the soil." Who knows that chinese food on the plate, the grains are hard" These verses are all aphorisms of the ancients to attach importance to food security.
In order to deal with the problem of leftovers, Yongzheng specially issued two holy orders. The first time was in the second year of Yongzheng (1724), when Yongzheng issued a decree to the imperial dining room: "Whoever eats porridge and food, etc., and has more than enough to eat, must not abandon the ditch." or cannibalize with people under service. If people cannot eat, they feed cats and dogs. If it is no longer available, it will be dried to feed birds and must not be abandoned. If they still do not change their ways, they will be punished with a crime. "The gist of it is that leftovers are not allowed to be discarded and can be given to people in service; if people do not eat, they are used to feed cats; if cats do not eat, they are dried and fed to birds, in short, they cannot be wasted." Yongzheng also warned in particular, "I will send people to check from time to time, and if anyone violates it, he will be punished." ”
Perhaps because the implementation was not good, Yongzheng once again issued an edict on the waste of grain three years later: "From time to time, the heavens have been born with five grains, nourishing sentient beings, and life depends on survival, and not a single grain should be discarded lightly." That is, when Ru'er and other eunuchs cooked rice, they would reduce the rice, preferring to make it less insufficient, and not to cook more, so that the remaining leftovers were thrown into the ditch, and they did not know how to cherish it. It has been passed on again and again, not just once. Fearing that they would slacken off for a long time, the general manager of Er and others would carry out strict transmission to the leaders and eunuchs everywhere, and when they saw grains of rice, they should pick them up. In this way, not only does it look up to the body to cherish the meaning of blessing, that is, Er and so on are also free from violent destruction of heavenly things. It should be checked from time to time, and if there is a slight abandonment of the rice valley, regardless of the leader or the eunuch, the forty plates are heavily responsible. Ru'er and others still connived, and after being detected, they took charge of Er's weight. ”
Repeated prohibitions save food
As the saying goes, people are not thrifty. People grow grain and feed people, cherishing grain is the embodiment of respecting labor and respecting nature, and cherishing grain is cherishing happiness. In the "Zhu Zi Family Training", it is said, "A porridge and a meal are not easy to come by; half a silk and half a wisp, and the constant thoughts and material resources are difficult." This admonition should become the motto of the people of the country and be passed on from generation to generation.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, most of the grain eaten in the capital was transported from the south through the Grand Canal, which was called "Cao Grain". Due to the high cost of transportation, a stone of grain often costs two silver, and some eight flag soldiers "do not know the difficulty of transporting grain, and have obtained grain and rice, because they have surplus for the time being, they sell silver money for several full meals and drunken drinks." When the rice did not follow, the wife was hungry. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty strictly forbade the sale of rice and luxury expenses, but some people thought that this was just an ordinary trivial matter and there were annoying remarks, and Kangxi retorted, "The rice breeder is the foundation of the people, the person who is superior, does not pay attention to introspection, can it be?" ”
The Qing Dynasty attached great importance to food security and security, which was also reflected in the prohibition of pot brewing. In the twenty-eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1689), due to a drought outside Shanhaiguan, and "the people who steamed shochu there paid a lot of money for rice and grain" (the people wantonly brewed wine and caused food waste), Kangxi specially ordered the household attendant Sai Bihan to go to Fengtian and strictly prohibit it with the generals and deputy governors. For more than 20 years, the Qing Dynasty banned the nine provinces of Zhili, Huguang, Jiangxi, and Shaanxi from making pots and making wine.
In the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1715), Kangxi specially summoned Zhao Hongxie, the inspector of zhili, to once again emphasize that it was strictly forbidden to burn pots and make wine, and to impose a heavy punishment on officials who had neglected to make wine, and there were two reasons for strictly prohibiting pot brewing: First, a large amount of grain was wasted, which was contrary to the social atmosphere of advocating frugality and forbidding luxury; second, it was believed that this was a manifestation of the small people's pursuit of the last profit, which was not conducive to agricultural production. It was not until the last years of the Kangxi Dynasty, after the food problem was relatively safe, that the prohibition was relaxed. (Jin Man Lou)
Source: Hainan Daily