The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were a magical era. In other time periods, the scholars and doctors were all classic, elegant and dignified. But they are addicted to drugs, run naked, drink like life, like to learn how to bark as a donkey, and how to come willfully. It's a lot of deviant, but it's not over yet. They also like to eat jade.
The children of nobles in other dynasties, feudal scholars, and even people with a little status like to wear jade, gentlemen such as jade, gentle as jade, jade for virtue, etc., are all good words.
But in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the jade that was sought after by countless people turned out to be food, and after being processed by various means, it was eaten into the stomach.
Although jade is beautiful and endowed with all kinds of beautiful meanings, in terms of composition and structure, it is a stone, a beautiful ore to be seen. It's definitely not okay to eat stones directly, the big ones can't swallow them, the teeth are broken, and the smaller ones also pull their throats, and the taste experience is too bad, and it's like a punishment.
As a result, the cattle people of the Wei and Jin dynasties have developed a lot of new ways to eat.
They grind jade into flour, but it can't be called like white flour cornmeal, it's too ordinary. The surface of jade grinding is called jade shavings. Hold a bowl of this kind of noodles, called eating "jade crumb rice". When you are tired of eating jade crumb rice, you will process the powder into granules the size of rice grains, and put a few pieces in it when you drink wine, which is the elixir jade liquid.
Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty also has a more detailed way of eating in "Hug Puzi", "jade can be turned into water with black rice wine and elm wine, and it can also be consumed with green onion pulp, or it can be used as a bait as a pill, or it can be burned as a powder." People not only eat jade, but also know how to put green onions to enhance the taste. You can also turn jade into a small snack and eat it as popcorn in your pocket when you travel.
The way to eat is so advanced, the emperor also went down in person after hearing about it. It is said that there was an emperor in the Northern and Southern Dynasties who was particularly fond of eating jade crumb rice. But you can't eat this stuff like eating rice, it's easy to choke and you have to swallow slowly. The ancients also paid special attention to breakfast, so he chewed and swallowed two bowls of jade crumb rice slowly in the morning, and was often late for the court.
When it is popular to wear jade, the consumption of jade is not large, because there are very few people who have nothing to do with jade at home. It's hard to get a piece of jade, not to mention keeping it as an heirloom, you have to keep it carefully. However, after the rise of the trend of eating jade, the daily consumption is too large, and the jade on the market is obviously insufficient.
In order to be able to continue eating jade, someone knocked the idea underground. Jade has been a luxury since the pre-Qin period, and nobles often bring a large amount of beautiful jade to the tomb to be buried, so why don't we dig up these jade and eat it.
As a result, the number of tomb robbers increased exponentially during this time, and many high-ranking officials joined the ranks.
There was a general in the Northern Wei Dynasty named Li Pre, a military general, who had someone in his hand and had a natural advantage in robbing tombs. He sent his soldiers to rob tombs many times, and hollowed out the ancient tombs within a radius of many miles, just to be able to eat jade.
After eating for a year, he became seriously ill and hung up directly. Before he died, he also told his family that those who eat jade should cultivate their self-cultivation, live in seclusion in the mountains and forests, and do not ask about the world. I indulged in lust while eating jade, drank wine and ate meat, and worked on military affairs, so I became seriously ill. There's nothing wrong with eating jade!
I feel brainwashed, just like the old man who is now being fooled by some unscrupulous health products.
So why is it popular to eat jade in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties?
In fact, the matter of eating jade has existed for many years.
Qu Yuan once wrote, "Deng Kunlun eats jade, lives with heaven and earth, and shines with the sun and the moon." It means that he wants to go to Kunlun Mountain to absorb the essence of jade, hoping to live with the sky and the sun and the moon.
It is probably Qu Yuan's words that brought inspiration to people who pray for immortality in later generations, so many immortal cultivators eat jade. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty cultivated in his later years, so he ordered people to polish jade into powder, stir it with dew and drink it.
However, there were very few people who ate jade in the Han Dynasty, and in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, eating jade became a national health vane. The main reason should be related to the situation at that time.
Now many people say that the Wei and Jin dynasties are demeanor, but in fact, at that time, the politics were high-pressure, and the room for rise was very small, and the seven sages of the bamboo forest could only appear under extreme oppression. Similarly, the political pressure is high, there is no way out in the real society, and the children of the powerful and talented people of the Wei and Jin dynasties want to change the track. If the real world is not good, then let's advocate Taoism and pursue immortality.
There is a saying in the "Jade Sutra": "Those who serve gold live like gold, and those who serve jade live like jade." Now they all know that this is poison, and they will kill themselves directly by swallowing gold. But the ancients believed that swallowing slowly not only did nothing happen, but also helped to become immortals.
"Baopuzi Inner Chapter ·Immortal Medicine" said that taking jade can make people fly lightly, take it for more than a year, do not get wet in water, do not burn in fire, do not hurt the blade, and do not commit a hundred poisons. This is to train the unbreakable body of King Kong, and isolate all the poisonous gases of water, fire, knives, guns and guns from the body. This effect can only be matched by miracle medicine.
In this case, the people of the world who are upset in their hearts naturally begin to eat jade and pin their hopes on the next life.