In the hot summer, modern people continue to live with air conditioning, plus a variety of cold drinks.
I remember when I was a child, every summer night, in the evening, carrying a bamboo bed, holding a fan, bathing in the cool south wind, watching the stars and watching the moon catch fireflies, listening to the adults say that the rural life of the ancient road is now long gone, not to mention, the way of cooling off and cooling down for the ancients that is even older than this is more and more elusive.
The twenty-ninth time in the Dream of the Red Chamber, Bao Yu Daiyu was embarrassed because Zhang Daoshi mentioned his family affair, and it was in the middle of summer, and then it was written in the book that Dai Yu, who was mixing with Bao Yu, could not hold his body, and spit out all the fragrant herbs he drank to relieve the summer soup.
For today's people who only know how to use all kinds of ice cream to relieve the heat, this summer soup is really unheard of, but this fragrant drink, in ancient times, it was a summer relief artifact that had been red for nearly a thousand years.
This fragrant drink, first recorded in the Song Dynasty's "Taiping Huimin and Pharmacy Bureau Fang", is composed of herbs of xiangxue, magnolia and lentils.
Its production method is also simple, but it is to crush the three herbs, then add rock sugar to boil for 1 hour, and when it cools, a cup of cool and sweet anti-summer drink is finished.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the ancients had the custom of taking fragrant drinks in the autumn season to get rid of the summer moisture accumulated in the body since the middle of summer, while preventing colds.
The "Ji Sheng in the Age of Emperor Jing" records that Chen Ice Melon, steamed eggplant, fried fragrant herbs, until the autumn day of the family to drink.
The ancients would generally go to the medicine shop the day before the autumn to buy the chinese herbal raw materials for the good scented drink, return home and boil it, and then place it overnight, waiting for the second day of the autumn, the family size now people drink drinks generally cold drinks.
Why wait until it has cooled before drinking?
Chinese medicine believes that it is better to drink fragrant herbs with cold clothes, because this is not easy to cause vomiting, so in the novel, Lin Daiyu writes that vomiting after drinking fragrant herbs is also the most common adverse reaction of taking this traditional Chinese medicine drink. Of course, the novel that Dai Yu takes a fragrant drink is also a true reflection of people's summer life in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The medicinal principle of this fragrant drink is that the fragrance is warm and aromatic, which can dissolve the cold and dispel the heat and dampness; the Magnolia line is full and internalizes the wetness; the white lentils are healthy and spleen, and the humidity is dispelled.
When the three things are combined, they have the effect of externally relieving the cold and internalizing the heat and humidity.
It corresponds to the treatment of summer cold drinking cold, external wind chill, internal injuries caused by summer and dampness.
This yin and heat disease, in fact, in layman's terms, is what we call hot cold today, which is similar to today's air conditioning blowing cold.
Just imagine, such a weak and sickly Lin sister, in Jia Province, who dared to let her heat up and spoil her body, so she took the scented drink, of course, because of the small cold caused by the cold, not the heat stroke caused by the outdoor workers we think today.
Sister Lin, who is afraid of heat and cold, this incense drinking and heat relief artifact, in the hot summer, of course, must be prepared for her at all times.
In addition to the fragrant drink, the thirtieth time of the book, Writing Baoyu also has a summer relief artifact, which is always placed by him in the purse he carries with him, that is, Xiangxue Runjindan.
This Xiangxue Runjindan, unlike the Xiangxue Drink, is a famous prescription that is clearly found in medical records, and in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was very popular, while the Xiangxue Runjindan is more like a fabrication by the author.
The usual explanation for this elixir is that it is a traditional Chinese medicine, which can relieve the heat and clear the fire when taken in the summer, and then there is no following.
Its specific Chinese herbal ingredients and preparation methods are unknown. Its dosage method is described in detail in the novel:
When Bao Yu saw him, he was a little infatuated, and quietly probed to see Madam Wang's eyes closed, so he pulled out the Xiangxue Runjindan that he had brought in the purse next to him, and sent it to Jin Jun'er's mouth. Jin Jun'er didn't open her eyes, just pouted.
Obviously, through the description in the novel, we learn that the way to take this elixir is similar to today's mint throat lozenge tablets in the mouth to treat throat diseases, which is a chemical drug.
This elixir should also be sweet and delicious, and can be eaten as a snack of candy, because from the word Xiangxue in its name alone, we know that there should be a white plum blossom in it.
Because the fragrant snow here is actually not snow, but white plum blossoms.
The ancients used the metaphor of fragrant snow to refer to plum blossoms, so fragrant snow naturally became the elegant name of plum blossoms.
Qing Liquan said in his "Miscellaneous Records of the Lake": There are three resorts in Hushu, and the plum of Xixi is called Xiangxue. Yu Huai's "Banqiao Miscellaneous Notes and Lipin" also writes: Xuan Zuo planted an old plum tree, and when he was flowering, he whisked a few beds. Gong Zizhen's plum blossom words are also well written: when the flute calls out the tired soul, it flies over a thousand branches of mengmeng fragrant snow.
Li Shizhen said in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" that white plum blossoms enter the lungs and liver meridians, which can be fragrant and appetizing, dispersing depression and stasis, and helping qi, especially in summer heat, heat and irritation, dizziness and headache.
Therefore, we can boldly guess that this fragrant snow runjindan with white plum blossoms as the king's medicine should be dried after the white plum blossoms are dried, and also like a fragrant drink, adding several herbs that purify the heart and relieve the heat, strengthen the spleen and dissolve phlegm, as well as sweet and cool and spleen spices, rock sugar, and mixed with sweet pills.
The white plum blossom in this Dan medicine also makes us think of Xue Baochao's cold incense pill, and its formula also has white plum blossom twelve or two research ends, and this cold incense pill corresponds to the treatment of the disease, which is the heat poison brought by Baochao from the mother's womb.
I once saw a novel that wrote that Bai Yutang took a few sips of cold tea and said: I have always been like this, as soon as I get to the summer, I will be on fire, and my sister-in-law said that I am the hot poison brought by the fetus, so every summer she will give me some fragrant snow runjindan, so that I can contain it at any time.
I feel that this novel is obviously influenced by the Dream of the Red Chamber, and the author also makes his own claim, so that Xiangxue Runjindan can not only cure the fire of ordinary people, but also cure the heat poison of Baochao, directly let the production process is extremely cumbersome and complicated and difficult Cold Incense Pills out of class, a small Dan medicine that can be contained at any time, whether you are on fire or hot poison, all of them are done.
However, who would have thought that such a miraculous Xiangxue Runjindan would eventually take the life of Jin Jun'er's youth in the Novel of the Red Chamber.
On that very ordinary summer afternoon, a frivolous remark by a rich prince and a joke by Jin Jun'er finally made Madame Wang, who has always been compassionate and soft-hearted, angry, and said, "Be a little prostitute, good grandfathers, all call you bad", and then put three or two jokes from the children's families who were only teenagers directly on the line to the big event of expelling Jin Jun'er from Jia Province, and finally forced Jin Jun'er, who was humiliated and fierce, to throw herself into the well and die.
Although later in shuixian nunnery, Baoyu also had sincere tributes and repentance to her, in the end he could not save the life of Jin Jun, who was forced to throw himself into the well because of his own temporary Menglang.
Because Zhang Daoshi mentioned his relatives, the fragrant drink that Dai Yu used to cure the disease of yin and summer was spit out; because of her own flirtatious words, the xiangxue runjindan that had been fed into Jin Jun'er's mouth eventually became her hypnotic.
This special summer, for Baoyu, was really thrilling.
Author: Lord of the Afternoon Dream Hall, this article is to read less of the original works of the Red Chamber. Welcome to my headline number: Read less about the Red Chamber and tell you a different story of famous books.