The winemaking industry in northern China has long sacrificed the "wine-making immortals", but the specific deeds and divinity have been annihilated, and there are only two dionysus that people still have to remember, that is, Du Kang and YiDi, of which Du Kang's fame far exceeds that of Yidi, and the reason for this imbalance is Cao Cao's "Short Song Line", which "should be worried and unforgettable; how to relieve worries?" Only Du Kang" famous sentence highly evaluates the fine wine invented by Du Kang. For this reason, Du Kang became a household name for Dionysus, while the goddess Di di was forgotten by most people and was hidden under the dust of time.
Regarding Du Kang's identity, some people say that he was a courtier of the Yellow Emperor, others say that he lived during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and some people say that he was a local official of the Han Dynasty. I personally agree with the view that Du Kang is the Xia Dynasty shaokang, and Du Kang's life, with its twists and turns, can fully deduce a thrilling novel.
Du Kang was originally a descendant of the King of the Xia Kingdom, because of the foreign invasion, the Xia Kingdom was destroyed, the whole family was forced to flee, and on the way to exile, his mother gave birth to Du Kang, who was named Shao Kang at that time. When ShaoKang grew up, he crossed the border and fled to the neighboring kingdom of Yu, where the king appreciated his cooking and winemaking skills, sent him to be the head chef of the court, married his two daughters to him, and later gave him a piece of land within a radius of ten miles and five hundred soldiers. Based on these resources, Shaokang launched his plan to restore the country, and finally defeated his opponents and realized the revival of the Xia Kingdom. History has called this earth-shaking event "Shaokang Zhongxing". 1
Let's switch back to the topic of winemaking. The Jin Dynasty scholar Jiang Tong's "Wine Curse" records that when Du Kang was in disgrace, because he was very poor, he was reluctant to throw away the leftover sorghum rice, so he poured it in the tree hole of the big mulberry tree, and after a long time, it began to ferment and emitted a charming fragrance. Du Kang thus had an epiphany about the principle of winemaking, and as a result, he brewed the first altar of fine wine in the Central Plains. This kind of wine made of sorghum was called "rice wine" by the ancients. 2
Completely different from Du Kang, YiDi is a beautiful woman, the word "Yi", in ancient Chinese, "E", that is, the meaning of "girl", so the name Yidi translated into modern vernacular, is the meaning of "Di girl". Some people believe that Yi Di was a priest in the Dayu era, because "Yi" can also be interpreted as a sacrifice. She was also said to be an official in charge of winemaking. It is also said that she is the daughter of Sun God Shun, so she is a sibling of Xia Ming and Candlelight. 3
If Yi Di was Shun's daughter and Du Kang was the king of the Xia Kingdom, then Yi Di's rank was undoubtedly much higher than That of Du Kang. In terms of inventing time, Yi Di is the real God of Wine. In order to avoid the conflict between the two, the ancients put forward a moderate saying that "Yi Di made sake mash, and Du Kang made straw wine"4. This means that the measure of the contribution of two people should not be the order of time, but the variety they invented. Yi Di invented the mash, and Du Kang invented the sorghum wine, because of this, the two contributed, equally divided, can be listed as the Chinese dionysus, so that there is nothing to argue.
The rice wine made with sorghum, in the fermentation process, was initially no essential difference from the mash, but later, the sorghum wine introduced the distillation method, which can produce high-purity liquor, the most famous of which is Maotai, which is a liquor brewed with a single sorghum variety and has become the favorite of modern Chinese drinkers.
Speaking of this kind of "sake mash", which is what the official dialect area calls mash, which is called sake brewing in the south, it is a kind of food made of glutinous rice boiled and fermented, with a layer of liquid on it, light yellow color, sweet taste, with a slightly drunken wine aroma, after filtering out the rice grains, it becomes rice wine. The rice is soaked, steamed, mixed and pressed to make yellow wine with a dark red color.
I don't know when it began, some people actually used this dark red wine syrup to metaphorically describe the phenomenon of bleeding in the first night when the daughter was married, and also called it "daughter red". In order to satisfy the "virgin complex" of the world, the daughter's parents will bury a pot of yellow wine (preferably brewed by hand) on the day of her birth, and it will not be drunk until the daughter is married and the wedding banquet. It is a symbolic ceremony of ambiguous semantics designed to proclaim to the groom, his family and all his guests that our daughter is physically and morally pure.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, yellow wine was the drink of the nobility, and the wine banquet described in "Dream of the Red Chamber" was actually yellow wine, which was mild and nourishing, pleasant and not hurtful, making people not easy to lose their attitude on the spot, more in line with the norms of Confucian ethics, so it was the first choice for the educated nobles.
Liquor, on the other hand, has always been the pulp of the poor in the past. I have visited Zunyi, Guizhou many times to conduct folklore research, and found that the Chishui River, as an important commercial and trade channel between Sichuan and Qian, has been a popular organization of the "Eighteen Gangs" in history, and in the food industry alone, there are salt gangs, sugar gangs, tea gangs, rice gangs, oil gangs and wine gangs. These gang members work hard during the day and party and drink at night, seeking joy with spirits and expressing their pride, while also driving away cold and pain. It is precisely because of this demand that liquor brands such as Langjiu, Luzhou Laojiao, Dongjiu and Maotai will come into being.
Baijiu was originally only the life partner of the low-level grass people, but during the Zunyi Conference in 1935, Moutai liquor was discovered and greatly appreciated by Zhou Enlai, and since then it has been able to turn over and leap into the qiong pulp at the state banquet after 1949, which has led to a sharp rise in the status of liquor as a whole. On the contrary, the status of rice wine has dropped sharply and has become an ordinary drink for the common people. Although in recent years, Zhejiang merchants have begun to speculate on rice wine and strive to increase its price, but it is still not comparable to Moutai. This reversal of fate was something that the inventors of the year never dreamed of.
Let's look again at the fate of Yi Di. According to the "Warring States Policy", after Yi Di invented mash, he offered it to King Dayu to taste, and after Dayu drank it, he felt that it was mellow and delicious, but instead of rewarding Yi Di, he began to alienate her, and even beat her into the cold palace, and released words, saying that there will be a king who drinks and misleads the country in the future. This account caused Yi Di's image to plummet, becoming a witch who seduced the king with fine wine. 5
Was Dayu's warning alarmist? Of course not. This is an accurate prophecy from the gods of the earth. The last king of the Xia Dynasty, Ji Ji, was deprived of his entire kingdom because of his excessive drunkenness and abandonment of the government. Six hundred years later, the King of Shangyi repeated the same mistakes and indulged in wine, only to lose the country again. 6
In view of these bitter lessons, at the beginning of King Wen's reign, he promulgated a national prohibition on alcohol, requiring that alcohol should only be used for sacrifice, and that all offenders should be arrested and the heads of those who were severe should be beheaded. On the other hand, Confucianism also tries to constrain the proliferation of alcohol in daily life on a moral level. Therefore, of all the gods in China, only Dionysus does not have his own temple and priesthood. Their treatment, even inferior to that of the salt god, was even more incomparable to the honor of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus.
Nevertheless, as with the gluttony of the god of food, Chinese built their wine temples on the tip of their tongues, and worshipped the two great inventors with the practical action of drinking. In most dynasties in China, drinking alcohol has always been a virtue of the literati. The famous Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest in the Wei and Jin Dynasties were all known for their alcoholism. Even Cao Cao, the tyrant of the State of Wei, took the lead in drinking wine and issued an exclamation of "singing about wine, the geometry of life". The Sheng Tang poet Li Bai is also known as the "Eight Immortals in Drinking", and between his wild and wanton words, he is filled with fanatical poetry and smoked wine. Ouyang Xiu was relegated to Chuzhou to be too punctual, and drank and reveled every day, leaving behind the famous wine line "Drunken Pavilion Record".
Wine is the sworn enemy of monarchs and royal power, but it is the eternal lover of the writer.
concentrate:
1 "Bamboo Book Chronicle": "Hou Sheng Shaokang, who is long, is still muzheng, pouring, and can abstain." Pouring the pepper to ask for it, it will still be there, and Shaokang will flee and run away, and correct it to eliminate its harm. Yu Si then took his wife as Er yao and Yi Zhulun as well. There are fields and one brigade, and there are many brigades, who can spread their virtues, and zhaoqi plots to collect the Xia people and care for their official positions. Xia's widow, Bo Jing, has his own embers to harvest the embers of the two to cut down. Huan Gong poured all the amusement, forgetting his evil day and not being prepared, Shao Kang made Ru Ai spy pouring. In the beginning, Huan married a pure fox clan, had a son who died early, and his wife was known as Nuqi and widowed. Pouring strong yuan, going to its household, yang has something to ask for. Nuqi sewed clothes for it and slept together. RuAi Ye made people cut off their heads, nai nu Qi ye. Pouring is both powerful and harmful, Ai Naitian hunts, lets dogs chase away beasts, because of the pouring, it is chopped and poured to return to Shaokang. Therefore, xia zhong was destroyed, and Feng Shaokang returned to Xia Yi. The princes began to hear it, and established themselves as the Son of Heaven, and the summer was matched with heaven, and the old things were not lost. ”
2 "All Ancient Three Dynasties Qin and Han Three Kingdoms Six Dynasties Wen Quan Jin Wen Wine": "The wine is flourishing." It is the Emperor. Or Yun Yi Di. Du Kang. There is no end to the meal. Commissar Yu Kongsang. This is why. Not by odd squares. The ages are long. The mouth is long. The Five Emperors of Jigu. The Three Kings of Shangmai. Although it is known as the sage. Also tasted by The Salty. ”
3 "Eight Kinds of Works of shiben ( Zhang Shushu Collection Supplementary Notes)": "The imperial daughter Ling Yi Di began to make wine mash. Change the five flavors. Song Zhen's note: 'Yi Di. Xia Yu's courtiers. Wang Yue, "Wine Endowment": "Emperor Daughter Yidi, the purpose of wine is to offer."
4 "Explanation of The Sayings": "The ancient Yi Di made wine mash, Yu tasted it and was beautiful, so he shu Yi Di." Du Kang made straw wine. ”
5 "Warring States Policy Wei Ce II": "The Liang king Wei Infant asked the princes to yu Fantai, drunk, and asked Lu Jun to raise it." Lu Junxing, who avoided the seat and chose the words: The former emperor's daughter Yi Di made wine and was beautiful, entered the Yu, Yu drank and was willing, Sui Shu Yi Di, Qi Zhi wine, said: 'In the future, there will be those who will destroy their country with wine.' ’”
6 "Han Shi Wai Biography": "The pond of wine can be transported by boat, and the bad hill is enough to look ten miles, and the cattle drinker is three thousand." "History of Yin Benji": "With wine as a pool and hanging meat as a forest, men and women are naked and chased each other, for the drink of the long night." ”
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