Guo Yemin
There are thousands of delicacies in the land of Shenzhou, but there are probably not many people who are famous for their political and military changes. The "Wuchang fish" mentioned in Mao Zedong's poems is one of them.
A different "Wuchang"
As the name suggests, "Wuchang fish" is related to the place name "Wuchang". In the famous "Three Towns of Wuhan" in modern history, there is a "Wuchang". The first shot of the "Xinhai Revolution" was fired here, and Wuchang was also famous for the "Wuchang Uprising".
However, this "Wuchang" is not the other "Wuchang". It is also about the connotation of "Wu and Chang" that has attracted successive princes and generals, and on the map of China, there have been three "Wuchang". One is now Wuchang (now Wuchang District, Wuhan City), and the other is not far from here, "Wuchang County" during the Republic of China, which is now the Jiangxia District of Wuhan City. But neither place can be said to be the first "Wuchang" in history. This "honor" belongs to the city of Ezhou in Hubei Province, a hundred miles away from Wuhan – although today it is nowhere near as well-known as Huanggang across the river (because of the famous Huanggang Middle School).
Figure 1 Locations of the three "Wuchang"
Ezhou is considered to be "named after the country". In ancient times, there was a "Edo kingdom" here. There is also a "E Chongyu" in the "Fengshen Yanyi", the princes of the southern two hundred roads of the general town, with great power. Later, the "Eguo" became the "Eyi" of the Chu State, and after the Qin Dynasty unified the Six Kingdoms, it became "Exian County". Assuming that there was no dispute between the three kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, this "Exian County" would probably evolve into today's "Ezhou". The reason why there is an episode that turns into "Wuchang" in the middle of the way has a great relationship with Sun Quan, the founding emperor of the State of Wu.
At the end of the Han Dynasty, sun's forces rose from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the southeast, and in order to achieve the strategic goal of "baojiangdong" mentioned by the "little overlord" Sun Ce in his last words, it can be said that he is determined to win the Hubei area in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. This is because Hubei is in the upper reaches of the southeast, relatively speaking, there is no Sichuan in the southeast to establish a state, and conversely, since ancient times, there has been no loss of Jingxiang and can maintain the southeast. Sun Quan broke his alliance with Liu Bei and sent troops to kill Guan Yu and capture the whole of Jingzhou, for this purpose.
Figure 2 Guan Gong defeated Maicheng
In 221 AD, the year after Guan Yunchang's defeat at Maicheng, Sun Quan could not wait to move the center of his rule to Exian and change his name to "Wuchang", and since then, the name Wuchang has been used in Ezhou for nearly 1800 years.
Why Ezhou? The so-called "left control of Milu, right of Xianghan, Yu Shangliu, West Fan Jiankang", the eastern region of Hubei centered on Ezhou is the junction between the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Most of the main tributaries of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River flow into the Yangtze River in this area, and the local area has become a water transportation center in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Gu Zuyu of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties said when talking about the situation in Hubei, "The shape of Huguang is victorious... In the southeast, the emphasis is on Wuchang (referring to Ezhou)." Sun Quan sat here, naturally in order to better control Jingzhou, which was not yet fully annexed. It was precisely because Sun Quan changed "Exian" to "Wuchang" that there was an anecdote about "Wuchang Fish" during the following Three Kingdoms years.
Sun Shi "sat on the East of the Jiangdong" and mainly relied on the Taihu Lake and the Ningshao Plain economically. This situation lasted until the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasty, and the Biography of Wang Xi of the Book of Jin says: "In the case of Wu Yue, the longitude and latitude of the world are nine tenths." Therefore, Sun Wu built the capital of Wuchang, and all kinds of material transfer needed to go up the Yangtze River, which was a heavy financial burden. It was for this reason that after the situation in Jingzhou stabilized, Sun Quan moved the capital from Wuchang to Jianye (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), closer to the Taihu Plain, after officially becoming "Emperor Wu" in 229 AD.
However, in the lifetime of the Three Kingdoms, Wuchang was an important defense town of the Wu Kingdom. When Sun Quan was alive, he assigned the famous general Lu Xun to assist the crown prince Sun Deng to stay in Wuchang. After his grandson, Sun Han, the last lord of the State of Wu, came to power, because he listened to the jianghu warlocks' so-called "Jingzhou has a royal spirit", he moved the capital to Wuchang again in 265, leaving only the imperial master Ding Gu and the right general Zhuge Liangzhen to guard Jianye. As in Sun Quan's time, sun Wu's court still needed to provide for the state use of the yangzhou region downstream. The huge military and daily necessities were supplied from downstream, causing a heavy burden of servitude to the people of Wudi and causing widespread dissatisfaction. At that time, Lu Kai, the left minister of the left, quoted a nursery rhyme called: "I would rather drink Jianye water than eat Wuchang fish; Ning Jianye died, not only Wuchangju." This is also the first time that "Wuchang Fish" has appeared in the annals of history. Forced by the unanimous opposition of the whole state of Eastern Wu, the following year, Sun Han moved the capital back to Jianye. However, the name "Wuchang Fish" has since spread.
"Wuchang fish" in poetry
Judging from the content of this "famous" nursery rhyme that was included in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", since it is a textual confrontation and comparison between "Wuchang fish" and "Jianye water", it is essentially to show that "Wuchang fish" is better than "Jianye water". In other words, "Wuchang fish" has become synonymous with "food" 1,800 years ago. In the Ming Dynasty, some people wrote poems to ridicule Sun Quan, "The head of the Han River outside Wuchang City, the ancient Qiankun and the ancient times." It is ridiculous that Sun Lang fish does not eat, and every year he fights bloody battles to take Jingzhou. The meaning here is that in order to retake Jingzhou from Liu Bei, Sun Quan could not even enjoy the delicacy of Wuchang fish.
This is probably also "wronged" this "Emperor Wu". It is recorded in the Yongle Dadian Shouchang That after Sun Quan came to Wuchang, he sent someone to fish up the fish to make sashimi (脍). Its evaluation is "taste is better than elsewhere". The Song Dynasty poet Su Tong therefore came to a reverse thinking, and attributed the reason for Sun Quan's move to the capital to "Wuchang Fish": "Purple hair and what happened to move the capital, should only recall the Wuchang fish." ”
Fig. 3 Sashimi was called 脍 in ancient times
Regardless of whether Sun Quan likes to eat "Wuchang fish" or not, it is also an indisputable fact that Wuchang fish has shined in the poetry world since then. The great poet Yu Xin of the Southern and Northern Dynasties was born in Jiangling (present-day Jingzhou, Hubei), and later served as a driver in Wuchang. After defecting to the Northern Dynasty (Western Wei and Northern Zhou) in the "Rebellion of Hou Jing" at the end of Liang, he lamented in the "Southern Fu of the Wai River" that "the king's qi will not be expressed in the river, and finally three hundred years", and on the other hand, he borrowed yu Yanzhi in the poem "Ten Poems of The Words of His Highness Fenghe Yongfeng" to express his homesickness: "I still think of Jianye Water, and finally remember the fish of Wuchang".
As for the literati inkers in Hubei in the past, they often can't help but chant the Wuchang fish. For example, in the autumn of 1177, Fan Chengda, a pastoral poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, was invited to a banquet via Ezhou on his way back from Chengdu to the east, and in the poem "Ezhou South Building", he chanted "But laughing at the anglers of the perch, the Wuchang fish will drown when it is good", and he praised the "Wuchang fish".
Of course, the most famous "Wuchang Fish" is Chairman Mao Zedong's immortal work "Water Tune Song Head Swimming". In 1956, when Mao Zedong inspected central China, he came from Changsha, Hunan to Wuhan, Hubei. After swimming in the Yangtze River, Mao Zedong improvised to write "Water Tune Song Head Swimming", which used the nursery rhyme allusion in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and the opening chapter was "only to drink changsha water, and eat Wuchang fish".
Figure 4 "Water Tune Song Head Swimming"
What is sacred?
What kind of fish is "Wuchang fish"? The Warring States Policy Song Wei records that "the Jianghan fish turtle and the shrew are the world's rao". The Chu Ci Fisherman also says, "I would rather go to Xiangliu and be buried in the belly of a river fish." It can be seen that the Hubei area has been famous for its abundant aquatic products since ancient times. Sima Qian and Ban Gu therefore invariably recorded: "The land of ChuYue, the land is sparsely populated, rice and soup fish"; "Chu has the rao of the mountains and forests of Jianghan, Han, Ze... People eat fish and rice. According to the aquatic products of the contemporary "Ezhou Chronicle", there are 21 families and 106 species of native fish. Some fish are available here and elsewhere. From this point of view, the records of many "Wuchang fish" in ancient times may not be generic names for local freshwater fish. After all, there are "Wuchang fish" everywhere, and there is no such thing as "Wuchang fish".
Then again, there are the famous four major fish in China's freshwater fish, namely green, grass, silver carp, and bighead carp (fathead fish). In addition, there is another sentence in the Book of Verses called "Will it eat fish, and it will be the bream of the river?" Will he take his wife, and he will be the ginger of Qi? The poem actually compares the bream in the Yellow River with the beautiful women of the Nobles of the Qi State (surnamed Jiang), which shows that the bream has long been a treasure on the table. According to Guo Pu, a famous exegetician of the Two Jin Dynasties, when he annotated "Erya Shiyu", "Jiangdong called bream as bream", indicating that the "bream" and "bream" in the eyes of the ancients were the same thing.
Figure 5 Bream
It just so happens that the waters of the Yangtze River (and its tributary, the Han River) in Hubei are producing bream. The "Xiangyang Fu Zhi" records that "the bream in the Han River is very beautiful". In the early days of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Southern Dynasty (Liu Song) was in civil strife, and Zhang Jing'er, as the defender of Xiangyang of the Liu Song Dynasty, in order to curry favor with Xiao Daocheng (Emperor Qi Gao), who was about to win the civil war, specially hired a fast boat equipped with six poles to send 1800 heads of bream to Nanjing as quickly as possible, and dedicated it to the emperor of the new dynasty. The Tang Dynasty poet Meng Haoran, who was also from Xiangyang, Hubei Province, also gave "Wuchang fish" to Du Fu as a local product and gift from his hometown. The "Chronicle of Wuchang County", which was rebuilt in the 15th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty (1885), specifically pointed out that among the bream everywhere, "those who produce Fankou are in the world". There are also folk songs in eastern Hubei praising local delicacies, which also mention "Fankou bream" - "Huangzhou tofu Echeng wine, Fankou bream Padang lotus".
Fankou is five miles northwest of Wuchang (Ezhou) County, and is the mouth of the Tonggang Dajiang River. Legend has it that Guan Yu once led an army to camp here. In fact, the bream caught in Fankou does not grow here, but comes from Liangzi Lake. Liangzi Lake is located 45 kilometers west of the urban area of Ezhou City, with an area of more than 300 square kilometers and a water area of about 280 square kilometers, making it the second largest freshwater lake in Hubei Province. After the bream grows and matures in Liangzi Lake, it follows the lake water that leaks out after autumn, along the long port that winds for more than 90 miles, cruises to Fankou into the Yangtze River, and winters in the depths of the river trough. Because of this geographical condition, Fankoucai has become the main fishing ground for bream.
Figure 6 Liangzi Lake
100 years ago (1921), the "Hubei Tongzhi" published in the decade of the Republic of China was the first time to explicitly identify "Wuchang fish" as the "old name" of "Wuchang Fankou bream". Chairman Mao Zedong later explained the "Wuchang Fish" in "Water Tune Song Head And Swimming" that in May 1975, Mao Zedong also said in his speech at the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee: "Wuchang fish is not to say that today's Wuchang is the ancient Wuchang, between the current Wuchang and Daye, what county I forget, that place is out of the bream." So I said, 'Only drink the water of the Yangtze River, and eat Wuchang fish'. The "county" between Wuchang and Daye, which was "forgotten" by Mao Zedong, was Ezhou, and the bream produced was undoubtedly "Fankou bream".
The view of "Fankou bream", or "Wuchang fish", gradually became mainstream in the 20th century. It seems like it's time to end here. However, the bream produced in Liangzi Lake also has "three sisters" - triangular bream, tuantou bream and periwinkle bream. Which of them is the authentic "Wuchang fish"? From January 1955 to July 1956, the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences formed a task force of more than 20 people to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Liangzi Lake. Ichthyologist Professor Iberu found in this expedition that "there are actually two different species of bream commonly called 'flat-breasted bream', one commonly known as 'triangular bream (bream)' and the other commonly known as 'tuantou bream'". After careful and meticulous research, Mr. Iberu officially named the "tuantou bream" with "one more thorn on the ribs on both sides than other bream" as the "tuantou bream". Because the triangular bream and the periwink are also distributed in other parts of the country (from Heilongjiang in the north to Guangdong in the south), "if you name it from a local name, it loses its meaning", except for the Tuantou bream, which is unique to Liangzi Lake. Therefore, Mr. Yi officially put the "laurel crown" of "Wuchang fish" on the body of "Tuantou Bream" - "If you want to 'correct the name and determine the score', then Wuchang fish should be exclusive to Tuantou Bream".
Fig. 7 Tuantou bream
In this way, the "Wuchang fish", which was famous for 1800 years from the Three Kingdoms era, was not considered a clear object until the mid-20th century. Fortunately, the taste of "Tuantou bream" is also worthy of the diners who have praised "Wuchang fish" in the past. Its flesh is tender and tender, and its taste is delicious and plump. In the words of contemporary writers, "The way to eat Wuchang fish (that is, Tuantou bream) is mainly steamed, and the fish must be fresh and stocked, steamed in one breath, original, smooth and tender, fragrant, and indeed a very tempting dish."
Fig. 8 Steamed Wuchang fish
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