Have you ever eaten "sweet potatoes"?
For the vast majority of our Chinese, this is not a problem at all!
Especially for those of us who were born in rural and small towns, sweet potatoes are one of the most common crops.
But did you know that "sweet potato" is not a native crop in China, but an exotic species, and the time of introduction is only 400 years from now.
In today's abundant products, this mud-stained crop is not eye-catching, and even the most "lowly" crop in the countryside.
However, in that era of famine and famine, sweet potatoes did not know how many lives were saved, and their contribution was no less than that of rice.
Therefore, for those of us who have more than enough food and clothing today and waste a lot, we must know that grain is not easy to come by.
Sweet potato, also known as sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, red moss, white potato;
The reason why it is called 'sweet potato' may be because it is an "imported product", after all, "fan" means 'foreign' or 'foreign'.
According to legend, sweet potatoes were first planted in Mexico and Colombia in central America, and were carried by the Spaniards to the Philippines and other countries for cultivation.
Over the years, because this "imported product" is easy to grow and cheap, people have gradually forgotten its preciousness in foreign countries and the huge risk of introduction, so they only treat it as coarse grains and feed.
But in fact, the introduction of sweet potatoes has a legendary and tortuous experience!
According to relevant historical records, the earliest time when sweet potatoes entered China was about the Wanli period in the late Ming Dynasty, and it entered China in three routes - Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian.
Among them, the history of communication in the Fujian-Guangzhou area is very widespread, and the history of communication in Yunnan is relatively remote.
It is generally believed that sweet potatoes were introduced to China from foreign countries, originating in the twenty-first year of the Wanli Calendar, that is, in 1593 AD;
The person who introduced this species was Chen Zhenlong, a Ming Dynasty merchant and patriotic overseas Chinese who was later known as the "father of sweet potatoes"!
Chen Zhenlong was born into a middle-class family in Changle County, Fuzhou Prefecture (present-day Changle District, Fuzhou, Fujian Province), and was awarded the title of Xiucai in his youth.
However, at that time, it was the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the situation was turbulent, internal and external troubles, and it had become very difficult for the disciples of the world to change their fate by relying on the imperial examination.
In addition, at that time, the "business trend" pervaded the southeast coastal provinces, and many middle-class children chose to abandon their official positions and engage in business.
Chen Zhenlong was deeply affected, and I don't know when he began his business career, often traveling between Fujian Province and Luzon.
In fact, the reason why a large number of Fujian businessmen will go to Luzon (Philippines) to do business is not unrelated to the Spaniards. Prior to this, there were only more than 100 overseas Chinese in Luzon.
In 1571, after the conquest of the Philippine Islands by the Spanish fleet, it began to purchase a large number of Chinese products such as raw silk, cotton, and ceramics.
Under the influence of the Spaniards, in just 20 years, a large number of Fujian merchants began to go to Luzon to do business, and the number increased from more than 100 to tens of thousands.
This is clearly recorded in the Biography of Ming Shi Luzon:
"The Min people are close to the land and rich, and the merchants are tens of thousands."
Therefore, it can be seen that the arrival of the Spaniards has a relatively large impact on the southeast coast of China.
During this period, the Spaniards brought not only a steady stream of silver coins, but also some crops native to the Americas, among which sweet potatoes were located.
According to relevant historical records, sweet potatoes entered Luzon around 1565, that is, the forty-fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty;
After the Spanish conquered the Philippine islands, there was a serious shortage of food, so they began to promote the cultivation of sweet potatoes on a large scale, and achieved good results.
After decades of hard work, by 1593, this vine crop with small lilac flowers had been "wilded by the mountains" in Luzon.
Chen Zhenlong saw that the local people "dug up everywhere" and "ate with grain.".
From this record, it can be seen that at this time, sweet potatoes have been widely cultivated in Luzon and have become an ordinary food in the daily life of the people.
One year, Chen Zhenlong returned to China to visit his relatives, and it happened that the coastal areas of Fujian were hit by a huge flood disaster, the crops were flooded, the grain grains were not harvested, and hunger was everywhere.
Chen Zhenlong saw this scene, his heart was very sad, and he couldn't help but secretly think: Luzon's sweet potatoes are low in price, and they are very easy to introduce, just a few feet of potato vines can be "planted and live", why not introduce this crop into China for planting?
As a result, Chen Zhenlong decided to introduce Luzon's sweet potatoes to China. However, it was not easy to bring potato vines out of Luzon at the time.
At that time, the Luzon government clearly stipulated that sweet potato (sweet potato) seeds were not allowed to be exported, and smugglers were punished with death; in the "Golden Potato Transmission", it was also recorded that the Spaniards "cherished their seeds and did not Chinese".
Therefore, it is indeed very difficult for Chen Zhenlong to introduce sweet potatoes into China for cultivation.
However, in order to benefit the people of his hometown, Chen Zhenlong is still determined to take the risk of introducing sweet potato seeds, even if he is crushed to pieces.
But the question is, how do you bring sweet potato seeds out of Luzon?
Chen Zhenlong found after observation that although the sweet potato vine withered, as long as it was planted in the soil, it would return to life in a few days.
This means that Chen Zhenlong can take some "special" measures to avoid customs inspections and thus bring sweet potato vines back to China.
Therefore, Chen Zhenlong immediately took action, he bribed the local natives, and finally bought a few feet of sweet potato vines.
In the spring of 1593, Chen Zhenlong returned to China with a ship of goods and twisted the sweet potato vines that had been prepared long ago in the cables of the cargo ship.
Before the ship started, the customs officers boarded the ship for inspection, but searched the entire cabin, but did not find the wet and dirty cable.
After the ship left the port, Chen Zhenlong took the sweet potato vine off and put it in a cool place to keep.
After seven days and seven nights of sailing, Chen Zhenlong and his party arrived in Fuzhou smoothly. As soon as the ship docked, Chen Zhenlong couldn't take a break and immediately got busy.
Chen Zhenlong dedicated sweet potato vines to Jin Xuezeng, who was then the governor of Fujian, and gave him a detailed introduction to the methods of growing sweet potatoes.
After Hearing this, Jin Xue was very happy and immediately ordered a trial planting in Zhangzhou, and sure enough, sweet and large sweet potatoes grew.
In the winter of that year, the "zhu potato" from Luzon was officially named "sweet potato". The name has a distinct meaning of "imported product".
In the early summer of the following year, the southeast coast suffered a huge flood, Jin Xue once ordered the whole province to rush to plant sweet potatoes, all of which obtained a good harvest, and tens of millions of disaster victims relied on sweet potatoes to survive the disaster year.
In the fourteenth year of qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, Chen Shiyuan, the fifth grandson of the Chen clan, was doing business in Shandong, and he introduced sweet potatoes to the Shandong area.
Subsequently, Chen Shiyuan's descendants introduced sweet potatoes to Henan, Hebei and other places, and later gradually spread throughout the country.
During the Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty, Mr. He Zexian of Fuzhou, on behalf of the will of the people, built the "Xianshu Ancestral Hall" and "Xianshu Pavilion" on the Lingshi Peak of Wushi Mountain to commemorate Chen Zhenlong, who made meritorious contributions to the introduction of sweet potatoes, and Jin Xuezeng, who promoted the cultivation of sweet potatoes.
After the founding of New China, in 1957, the people's government came forward to rebuild the "Xianshu Ancestral Hall". Sweet potato is also known as "golden potato".
It is worth mentioning that in the Guangdong region, there are also legends of sweet potatoes introduced to China.
According to records, there are two places where sweet potatoes were first introduced, one is Dongguan and the other is electric white;
There are legends in both places, and although the two places are far apart and the protagonists involved belong to different surnames, the content of the legends is strikingly similar.
Among them, the legend of the Dongguan area first appeared in the "Dongguan County Chronicle and Property" during the Xuantong period of the Qing Dynasty; the general history of the legend is as follows:
During the Ming Dynasty, Chen Yi, a native of Dongguan, reached Annam (present-day Vietnam), where the local chieftain served him sweet potatoes.
Chen Yi felt that this thing could not only fill the hunger, but also be very sweet and delicious, so he asked the chief about the cultivation method of sweet potatoes, and hoped to bring it back to China for planting.
However, the local government does not allow sweet potatoes to be exported, and it is clearly stipulated that if the smugglers are found, they will be punished with capital punishment.
Therefore, Chen Yi tried to bribe the slaves around the chief, and after getting the sweet potato seeds, he quickly sneaked back to China.
After returning to China, Chen Yi quickly popularized the cultivation method of sweet potatoes...
Of course, this legend does not come from the official record, but was compiled from the "Fenggang Chen Clan Genealogy" when compiling the Xuantong County Chronicle to confirm the folk legends.
As for the legend of Dianbai, it is found in the "Chronicle of Dianbai County" compiled by Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty;
Similarly, in this legend, sweet potatoes are also from Vietnam, but the character is not Chen, but from a doctor in WuChuan, 'Lin Huailan'.
In the early years, Lin Huailan traveled to the jiaotong country (Vietnam) and was recommended to enter the palace to heal the king's daughter because of his medical skills.
One day, the king gave cooked sweet potatoes, but Lin Huailan asked for raw sweet potatoes. He ate half of it, took the other half in his pocket, and even asked the king to resign and return home.
When passing through customs, the raw sweet potatoes brought by Lin Huailan were searched out by the guan general, and Lin Huailan pleaded with the guan general, hoping that he could turn a blind eye and let himself return to China.
Because Lin Huailan healed the general, the general was grateful for his kindness, so he let him go. Guan Will:
"In today's affairs, I eat the king, and even though I am disloyal, I feel that mr. virtue is not righteous, and I am unrighteous."
After Lin Huailan returned to China, he immediately spread sweet potatoes in his hometown. Because of this, Lin Huailan also enjoys the "Sweet Potato Lin Gong Temple" in his hometown, which also has the image of a Vietnamese Guan general.
In addition to Dongguan and Dianbai, Yunnan also has similar legends about the introduction of sweet potatoes into China.
For example, in the "Chronicle of Dali Province" compiled by Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty for forty-one years, there is a record of "purple, white and red".
According to mr. He Bingdi, a famous contemporary historian, the so-called "purple, white and red" refers to sweet potatoes.
Of course, with the passage of time, people have more and more research on the source of sweet potatoes, and they have become more and more detailed.
According to research, the property part of the "Guangdong Tongzhi" written during the Jiajing period records that the Guangdong potato plants include sweet potatoes, sweet potatoes, field potatoes, and mountain potatoes.
The sweet potatoes mentioned at that time were not the sweet potatoes of today, but the sweet potatoes most likely referred to today's sweet potatoes.
From the perspective of time, "Guangdong Tongzhi" was written in 1558, if the sweet potato in the book refers to sweet potatoes, then Chen Zhenlong has introduced sweet potatoes from Luzon in 1593.
It is interesting to note that Su Yan, a famous historian of the Ming Dynasty, once wrote such a passage in "Ode to Zhu Shu":
"Between JiaShen and Yi Unitary, at the intersection of Zhang, and Chao, there are islands known as Nan'ao, Wenling Yanggang Daozhi, and their seeds are returned to the five capitals of the Jinjiang River, and the township is known as Lingshui, and the garden of seeds is sown." A noon, B Weijian, Wenling hunger, he valley is expensive, but the potato is alone, the villagers live potatoes 78 out of 10. ”
What does that mean? That is to say, between the twelfth year of the Wanli Calendar and the thirteenth year of the Wanli Calendar, when the Maritime Merchants of Quanzhou in Fujian Province were resting on Nan'ao Island, they found sweet potatoes on the island, so they introduced it to Lingshui Township in Jinjiang County, and then promoted it to other neighboring villages.
Between the twenty-second year of the Wanli Calendar and the twenty-third year of the Wanli Calendar, there was a flood in Quanzhou, the grain harvest was not harvested, the price of other grains increased, only the sweet potato was still productive, and most of the victims in Quanzhou relied on it to fill their hunger and survive the disaster year...
So you see, in terms of time, the introduction time of sweet potatoes recorded by Su Yan is earlier than the time when Chen Zhenlong introduced sweet potatoes from Luzon.
In short, the introduction of sweet potatoes to China may not be the legendary year of 1593, and the biggest contributor to the introduction of sweet potatoes does not seem to be Chen Zhenlong.
It is likely that it is the 'Chen Yi' recorded in the "Dongguan County Chronicle". Of course, it is also possible that there is an ancestor earlier than this.
But whether it is Chen Zhenlong, Chen Yi, or an unknown ancestor, they have risked what we do not know to bring back such an inexhaustible precious wealth for future generations.
The introduction of sweet potatoes is not only to add a name to the mainland's food table, but also to play an immeasurable role in the year of catastrophe, saving hundreds of millions of victims.
Of course, we also need to pay attention to the fact that although sweet potatoes have been introduced to China for a long time, the real promotion of planting nationwide is after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, and even during the Republic of China, sweet potatoes have always been sporadically grown and have not formed a large scale.
For example, during the Qianlong period, sweet potatoes were introduced to southern Shaanxi and jiaqing were introduced to Weinan.
According to the Records of Qianlong, in 1785 (the fiftieth year of Qianlong), the Qianlong Emperor said to the military ministers:
"In recent years, Henan has suffered from repeated droughts, crops lack of water, no harvest of grain, disaster victims everywhere, hunger and death, this is the sin of degeneration, but also the sin of your military ministers. I heard that Fujian is rich in a thing called sweet potato, which can not only fill hunger, but also tolerate drought, I don't know if I can promote it in Henan. If the promotion is successful, it may become a life-saving food for the people of Henan and alleviate the disaster situation there. I have ordered the Inspector of Fujian to cultivate a batch of sweet potato seedlings, send people to urgently transport them from the waterway to Henan, and hand them over to the Inspector of Henan to send to the people..."
Judging from this record, during the Qianlong period, no one in Henan should have planted sweet potatoes. If there were, it would be small.
In fact, at the beginning of the founding of New China, more than 90% of farmers in Shaanxi had never even heard of sweet potatoes.
It was not until the 1950s, in order to solve the problem of food shortages, that sweet potatoes were officially promoted from top to bottom, and then quickly spread to the northern provinces.
Although sweet potatoes are very common nowadays, when we enjoy it, we must remember to drink water, be respectful, and do not waste.