In ancient times, people survived by hunting, but because of the rudimentary tools, the captured beasts were often not enough to eat. When the times developed into the world of Shennong, it was no longer possible to maintain the increasing population needs by fishing, hunting, birds and beasts alone.
How to solve the problem of eating? Legend has it that there is a person who teaches everyone to cultivate the field and sow crops, plant grain for everyone to eat, he also led everyone to make all kinds of agricultural tools, daxing water conservancy, teach the big guys to identify grains, plant hundreds of fruits, teach everyone the natural laws of spring and summer, autumn harvest and winter, so that human beings can survive for generations, so people call him Shennong.
To plant crops in large quantities, it is first necessary to select suitable plant species and domesticate them into crop varieties, such as rice, millet, millet, wheat, and grain; secondly, there must be agricultural tools, such as rice; third, we must master agricultural time. All of this requires long-term technological progress and knowledge accumulation, which can never be achieved overnight, and it is difficult for a person to do it throughout his life. In this sense, the Shennong clan is not only a clan leader who has been sanctified by later generations, but also a collective name for the "Shennong" clan that has explored agricultural experience over the years, representing a rather long era.
The description of Shennong in the Warring States literature is rooted in his invention of farming technology, which is the basis for the survival of the people in the farming society, and further nurtures the ethics and order under the ecology of agricultural civilization. The appearance of shennong from the beginning is not only a teacher who teaches the people technically, but also a sign of the beginning of an entire traditional civilization based on farming.
The improvement of productive forces has made people's lives relatively stable, and people no longer migrate around for life, but have begun to live and work in peace and contentment, which has led to the development of social civilization. In the legends of later generations, the world of Shennong is also a peaceful and prosperous world in which men and women weave, love each other, the people live and work in peace and contentment, and the monarch rules in inaction, which is an example that future generations of monarchs should learn from.
Shennong taught people to cultivate the fields and grow grain and saw that people often got sick and even died because of random eating. In the face of disease, human beings have no way at all. Shen Nong's heart was very anxious, and he was determined to taste all the plants himself, so that he could know what could be eaten, what could not be eaten, what was harmful, and what could cure the disease. After making up his mind, Shennong made two large pockets, one hanging on the left side of his body and one hanging on the right side of his body. Every time he tasted something, he put what he felt could be eaten in his left pocket and gave it to people to eat in the future; and what he felt could cure was placed in his right pocket, and he would use it as medicine in the future.
One day, as soon as Shennong went out, he saw many cute little young leaves growing in a short green bush in front of him, Shennong picked a piece, just put it in his mouth and slid it into his stomach, and those small young leaves also floated around in Shennong's stomach, scrubbing his internal organs clean and refreshing. Shen Nong felt very comfortable, so he put it in his left pocket and named it "Tea". The next day, Shennong found many small reddish flowers, their shapes like flying butterflies, Shennong picked a flower and put it in his mouth, only to feel sweet and fragrant, named it "licorice", and put it in the right pocket. In this way, Shennong kept walking and walking every day, his footprints were all over the rivers, mountains, mountains, and mountains, he tasted all kinds of flowers and herbs, and he also knew many medicines, and saved countless lives with them. Because he vowed to taste all the grass, Shennong finally died by tasting the intestinal grass, and before he died, he still hugged his two bundles of herbs. Shennong was solemnly buried and honored as the "ancestor of farming and medicine".
As early as the Western Han Dynasty, some people recorded this matter, and in the book "Huainanzi" they compiled, it was mentioned that Shennong had tasted hundreds of herbs and ate more than seventy kinds of poisonous grasses, and after he distinguished whether various grasses were poisonous or not, the basis of medicine was also there. In the "Lu Shi Wai Ji" also mentioned this matter, Shen Nong in the Duguang Nonoden Jianmu Heaven and Earth Garden to take Yao grass, and the Emperor of Heaven gave the god whip, this whip is called "ochre whip", the function is used to whip a variety of grasses, in order to understand their color, sexual taste, familiar with whether they are toxic, non-toxic can be, poisonous should avoid. In another book, "Han Feizi Wuyin", there is another way of saying this matter, saying that in fact, Shennong alone went to identify herbs, but under his leadership, people discovered the efficacy of some herbs in the exploration of life, and slowly accumulated experience to write the "Materia Medica". It is also this spirit of Shennong's practice and exploration that has laid the foundation of Chinese medicine and created the Chinese national culture of Chinese medicine. In order to commemorate him, later generations named the first medical work in China "Shennong Materia Medica".
Of course, the above is only a folk legend, but it can also be seen from the origin of the development of the material civilization of the Chinese nation. After the rise of primitive agriculture, out of the need to find better crop species, people will pay more attention to understanding the characteristics of plants while tasting plants, not only pay attention to the toxic and non-toxic, edible and inedible, but also pay attention to understanding the bitter, spicy, sour and sweet taste of different plant species, different parts, different organs, and the characteristics of cold and temperature, so as to combine the original herbal knowledge to form a medical concept and begin medical exploration. That is to say, the concept of medicine was formed along with the original exploration of the process of domesticating plants into crops, and is a "unintentional willow shading" type of invention. This should be the historical truth of Shennong's invention of medicine.
There is also an interesting derivation of the story of Shennong and tea: it is said that Shennong's body is a glass jade body crystal heart, and he can see his heart, liver and five internal organs. When Shennong tasted the non-toxic grass, the whole body was crystal clear; when he tasted the poisonous grass, the black water came out of his body, and the more toxic it was, the more black water in his stomach. One day, Shen Nong was hit by more than seventy kinds of poison, and he saw that his internal organs were first blackened, and soon after, they spread throughout his body and his mind was dizzy. Just when he was about to fall, he inadvertently saw a lovely bush, pulled two young leaves with his hand, put them in his mouth, and unexpectedly, a fresh fragrance penetrated his heart and lungs. He then took a few more slices, and as the leaves flowed from the throat, the esophagus, and to the gastrointestinal tract, the leaves flowed there, and the black water disappeared there, and after a while, Shennong's whole body was transparent and shiny again. This leaf was tea, and later Shennong used it to detoxify. This folk tale of Shennong's discovery of tea also starts with medicinal use and then switches to drinking, which also has a certain truth.
Shennong can be famous throughout the ages and is still well known, relying on the oral transmission of generations, successive generations of scholars or stripping away the cocoon to sort out the story line, or on the basis of the original story to carry out new creations, these vast documentary records are mixed with the fun and curiosity of folk tales, true and false mixed in, forming a huge and complex story system.