At 6 p.m. on the 15th, the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism released the news that the first batch of 12,000 processed Mongolian donated sheep had arrived in Wuhan Yangluo Port. On the morning of the 13th, the last batch of 1,800 donated sheep trucks had also entered the animal isolation field of Erenhot from the Zamen Ud port in Mongolia.
On February 27 this year, Mongolian President Khaletma Battulga expressed his intention to donate 30,000 sheep during his visit to China as a support for China's fight against the epidemic. Since it was still winter, the honest Mongols waited for half a year, waiting for the sheep to be fattened in the summer and autumn before they began to transport them to China.
Many netizens saw the news and shed touching saliva, always worried about their whereabouts, and even began to count these sheep when they were insomnia at night. But 30,000 sheep coming to China is not an easy task, from expropriation to quarantine, to processing and transportation, each link requires manpower and material resources. And the whole long process also left netizens with some questions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Why did Mongolia choose to send sheep? </h1>
Mongolia is not rich, with a population of just over 3 million, but sheep have. The 30,000 sheep were purchased by the Mongolian government from the people, which not only requires them to meet the epidemic prevention standards, but also to be fat and strong, so they are also jokingly called "beauty pageants". As for why they chose to send sheep, this is inseparable from the social and cultural conditions in Mongolia.
Chen Lei is a professional video creator who will Chinese more. He has a better-known name on today's headlines and watermelon videos - "@Adventure Detective Ray", with nearly 5 million fans. In 2019, he successively uploaded his travels in Mongolia, taking netizens to understand this inland agricultural and pastoral country.
At that time, Inspector Lei also entered Mongolia from Erenhot. At this border crossing, known as the "Land of The Dinosaurs," Mongolians can be seen pulling goods, still driving a dilapidated Gas 69, a Jeep produced in 1954 by the Former Soviet Gorky Automobile Factory. In Yiwu Trade City, Erenhot, you can see Mongolian people who come to purchase supplies everywhere.
In Mongolia, flocks of sheep can be seen everywhere. According to Inspector Ray, sheep are warm and have a meaning of sincerity and enthusiasm in Mongolian culture. And the sheep is full of treasures, which is the best choice for hospitality and gift-giving.
At a ranch, Inspector Ray saw herders skinning sheep in the cold wind and entertaining guests. In the capital, Ulaanbaatar, a Mongolian doctor treated Inspector Ray for a leg injury and invited him to his yurt. A healed herder picked a sheep from his sheepfold and gave it to a doctor to repay his life.
Cured herders are picking out gifts for doctors
Sheep form part of the daily life of the Mongols, become part of their social life, and are engraved into their memories. In a rural village in Mongolia, the daughter of the head of the household had learned Korean, and she took Inspector Lei to the ancient Turkic tombs near the village to see the cattle and sheep stone carvings outside the cemetery. Although weathered severely, it still stands.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" why use containers > sheep? </h1>
After being acquired, 30,000 sheep were transported to the Zamenwud port in Mongolia. After a 45-day quarantine period, it entered Erenhot and was processed in batches.
Careful readers will find that from Zamen Ude into Erenhot to Wuhan, Hubei Province, the sheep have changed to a "means of transport" and changed from Mongolian trucks to Chinese container cold chain trucks. According to professionals, this kind of container has good heat insulation, and can maintain a certain low temperature requirements, suitable for the transportation and storage of various types of corrosive food, can achieve long-distance transportation between countries. It can be seen that although the entry of sheep is only a simple transfer, behind it is a leap from the agricultural and pastoral era to the modern transportation industry.
Standardized container cold chain vehicle 丨Source: Xinhua net
In the impression of many people, containers are generally used for sea transportation. On steamships around the harbor, such huge devices like bricks or can boxes can often be seen. In fact, the container is considered one of the greatest inventions of the last century, second only to the Internet. As the key to standardized transportation systems, its universal application has a direct impact on economic globalization.
In 1956, a cruise ship that had experienced World War II was refitted and sailed from Newark, New Jersey. This was the first time in history that cargo on board a ship was loaded in a container, and in the past, it was customary to keep the cargo scattered in the cabin. Containers are transported from truck to ship, where they are transported by train or truck upon arrival at their destination.
Containers greatly improve the efficiency of transportation, enabling automation and standardization. In The Container Changes the World, the author writes, "Containers change the shape of the world economy by reducing the cost of transporting goods." "At present, the world's famous container shipping giants include Denmark's Maersk, France's CMA CGM and China's COSCO SHIPPING Group.
Li Min is an ocean captain who has dealt with containers for half a lifetime. He has worked on board the ship since 1992, from first class sailor to third and second mate, officially becoming a captain in 2006. He shared his sailing experience with watermelon video in today's headlines and named his account "@Captain Lee Notes".
In addition, Captain Lee often explains some transportation "cold" knowledge, such as the color of the container. The containers used for refrigerated transportation are uniformly white, while the general freight container color is consistent with the hull color of the company to which it belongs. This is also why from a distance, containers always give people a sense of flowers and greenery. Captain Lee calls the refrigerated shipping container the world's largest mobile refrigerator, which can not only be frozen, but also kept fresh.
Refrigerated shipping container in Captain Lee's video
From the sea container to the land container cold chain truck used to carry the Mongolian sheep this time, this modern device is still constantly upgraded, adapting to the requirements of more convenient and fresh transportation.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what route did 30,000 sheep take? </h1>
30,000 Mongolian sheep are not far away, from Ulaanbaatar and other places to zamen-Ude port, and then from Erenhot to enter, take a container cold chain car, and finally reach the table of the people of Hubei. It's an economic road, but it's also a cultural path.
In the 1990s, Erenhot became a hub for the lifeblood of the economy. At that time, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, and as the de facto satellite state of the Soviet Union, Mongolia's economy was also hit hard, with a weak industrial base and a shortage of social goods. Many people buy materials from China and sell them in the Mongolian and Russian markets, which leads to a lot of "backward masters".
Profile picture of the President of Mongolia when he was young
Among these many "fallen masters" also included the later Mongolian president Battulga. At the time, he was a retired wrestling world champion, struggling to find a new way out in the torrent of the era of great change. According to the Global Times, in the early 1990s, Batturegga also became a frequent passenger on trains between Beijing and Moscow, buying sun umbrellas and rain boots from China and reselling them in Moscow. After that, he started his own company, turned to journalism, and acquired meat factories and hotels, and gradually became a business giant. At the beginning of the new century, Battulega began to enter politics, serving as the Ministry of Transport and then the Minister of Industry and Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, and finally was elected president of Mongolia in 2017.
And now, on the initiative of the legendary president, 30,000 sheep have come to China along the route he fought in the past, and contributed their share of meat to this "sheep diplomacy".
After entering China, from Erenhot to Wuhan, Hubei Province, the route taken by these sheep coincides with the historical "Tea Road". Unlike the Silk Road, the history of the Tea Road can be traced back to the seventeenth century, starting from Yangloudong, Chibi Ancient Town, Xianning City, Hubei Province, under the transportation of Jin merchants, all the way north, from Erenhot, across the whole of Mongolia, terminated in the city of Kyakhta on the border between Mongolia and Russia. In the nineteenth century, Hankou, one of the three towns in Wuhan, was called the "Oriental Tea Port".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how should these Mongolian sheep be eaten? </h1>
Now finally comes the core question, that is, how to eat these Mongolian sheep from afar. Some netizens have repeatedly calculated how many plates of shabu lamb can be made into 30,000 sheep. Since the destination of 30,000 sheep is Hubei, the question becomes how the people of Hubei will eat. According to the data, the traditional dishes in Hubei include honey date lamb in Suizhou area, white cut lamb in Yidu area, and horse head sheep soup in Yunxi district of Shiyan City.
In addition, Hubei is rich in fish, and nowadays, cooking fish and sheep together has become the choice of many Hubei people. This practice has a special name, called fish and sheep fresh. In terms of chinese character combinations, fish and sheep merge to make "fresh". It is conceivable that after these tender Mongolian mutton arrive in Hubei, it is a very good choice to join forces with the local Wuchang fish.
"@Wei Chu You Cai" is a video account dedicated to making Hubei cuisine, with 600,000 fans on today's headlines and watermelon videos, often sharing food restaurants in various streets of Wuhan, inviting local celebrity chefs to introduce authentic methods, such as this fish and sheep fresh dish. Hubei locally prefers lamb with skin, hoping that these Mongolian sheep will not be peeled during processing.
The fish and sheep in the "Only Chu Have a Dish" video are fresh
Making these special Mongolian lambs requires not only authenticity, but also imagination. @Strange Xiaobei is a post-90s video creator with 1.4 million followers on Today's Headlines and Watermelon Videos. He has attracted a lot of attention by making creative food. Some of the food is the two-dimensional food in childhood cartoons, such as the real seabream continent map in "China's Little Boss".
Other foods are derived from historical allusions. In October, he restored a famous dish from ancient times through video, called Fish Belly Tibetan Sheep. According to legend, this was created by Yi Ya, a kitchen god during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. After the fish backbone is removed in its entirety, it is filled with half-cooked lamb pieces, wrapped in a layer of mesh oil, wrapped in aluminum foil and fried.
Strange Little North makes fish belly Tibetan sheep
This approach is worth trying, taking into account the deliciousness of Hubei fish and the fatness of Mongolian sheep. These Mongolian sheep have just experienced the autumn of the lush northern country, and when they open the belly of the fish, they may also be able to experience the breath of "the wind blowing grass low to see the Mongolian sheep".