As the saying goes, "the people take food as the sky", food is very important for everyone, after all, how to say that people have to eat, do not eat can not continue to maintain life, so people pay special attention to food, especially in ancient China, in order to be able to have enough national grain security, but also adopted a variety of methods, such as heavy agriculture and business, construction of large-scale granaries and so on.
"Heavy agriculture and suppression of commerce" is widely criticized today, but it was indeed necessary in the early days, and only when the majority of the people were engaged in production activities could the production of grain be guaranteed. After the production of enough grain, it is necessary to store, China's grain storage history is very long, as early as the new era of Hemudu civilization, people have the habit of storing grain.
By the Sui and Tang dynasties, grain storage has become a dynasty to spend a lot of effort to do things, there is a very typical example, Tang Taizong Li Shimin after many years on the throne, the grain eaten by the Sui Wen Emperor was still stored during the Sui Wen Emperor period, it can be seen that the Sui Dynasty has attached great importance to the storage of grain, around those large-scale cities, often built huge granaries.
These granaries can provide sufficient food for the military and the people when there is a war, so it is also a place where soldiers must fight, the first great battle of Guandu in the Three Kingdoms period, the reason why Cao Cao of 20,000 horses was able to defeat Yuan Shao of 100,000 troops, the most important turning point was that Cao Cao burned down Yuan Shao's granary.
When the Sui Emperor was building the Grand Canal, he built a "national granary" back to Luocang, which was built on the outskirts of Luoyang City, and as a result, when the rebel armies in various places revolted, they became the focus of contention, and Li Mi and Li Shimin fought fiercely in order to compete for this granary, and the Sui Dynasty officials and troops in Luoyang City did not dare to come out to fight.
In the end, Li Mi successfully captured Huiluocang, so the starving people all attached themselves to Wagang Village, making Li Mi instantly become a first-class force. In this battle, Li Shimin also summed up the law that "the granary must be repaired in the city", so after he became emperor, he repaired the "national granary" of the Tang Dynasty, Han Jiacang, to luoyang city, and the grain reserves of Han Jiacang once reached one-half of the grain reserves of the entire country.
A large reason why the later Wu Zetian often went to Luoyang was also because Luoyang had Han Jiacang, which could supply her and the accompanying team with huge grain expenditures, even after the Tang Dynasty, Han Jiacang was still used, but the Northern Song Dynasty died very hastily, so Han Jiacang was gradually abandoned, and there was still some grain in it that had not been used up.
HanJiacang was discovered by archaeologists in the 1960s, and after careful excavation, it was found that not only was the basic shape of Hanjiacang still intact, but also some grain was found in Warehouse 160, which had not decayed for thousands of years, especially some of the grains, which sprouted again on the second day of excavation, and successfully grew and produced results after being cultivated by the agricultural sector, which was not much different from modern normal grains.
After careful study, the historical biologist Fang Xiaolian believes that the most important reason why these grains can survive for thousands of years is that the geographical location of Hanjiacang is very high, and the soil is also very dry, so these grains are not easy to be damp and moldy; secondly, because the grain is not directly stacked together, but the grass and wood ash are laid at the bottom and then put on the wooden board, and the grain and the grain are also isolated from the grass mat with chaff between the grain, which ensures that the preservation time of the grain can be long.