Millet, the earliest staple food, was used as both food and money - the history of eating (2)

The CD-ROM operation we called for last time is not far away, and it should still be fresh in everyone’s memory. Although it has passed like a gust of wind, it reflects our spirit and vision of cherishing food and not wasting it.

The reason why we have always said that saving is glorious and waste is shameful is because we have solved the food problem and ensured that everyone can have enough to eat. The history is actually not long. Young people born in the 80s and 90s don’t feel it, but people born in the 50s and 60s still have deep memories of the hungry years they experienced.

First of all, eating enough was the simplest desire of the Chinese people in the past.

Since it is a matter of eating enough, the staple food is very important. What is the earliest staple food of our ancestors: rice? Noodle? Or steamed buns?

"Suguo" can only mean none of these: starting from the Shang Dynasty, people have been eating millet as rice for hundreds of years. Although the Shang Dynasty was a relatively mature farming era, and there was no need to eat hair or drink blood, our old ancestors were far from comfortable in that era of low productivity, and millet was the main ration for the Chinese people at that time.

There are two words, Ji (jì) and millet (sù), which are very important words from the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the pre-Qin and Han dynasties. "Suguo" If you were educated in that era, even if you couldn't "carve" these two words, you must have heard it, because it was the most important staple food of that era: millet, that is, millet.

There is a saying that people eat whole grains, but what are whole grains? There are slightly different opinions in ancient times, but generally speaking, there are Ji (jì), millet (shǔ), wheat, and beetroot (shū). ,numb. When it comes to ancient things, especially in the ancient pre-Qin period, unfamiliar or weird names or words will often pop up, so just get used to them.

In the Qing palace dramas, Jiangshan Sheji is often talked about. Among them, Sheji is two things. She refers to the god of society, which is the land, and Ji refers to the god of grain, which represents food. Ji means millet, which is millet. There are many names related to millet, such as Ji, Su, Gu, Liang, and He, which basically all refer to millet, or the name also contains millet.

Traces of millet can be found in various cultural sites, such as the Banpo site in Xi'an. Our ancestors have a very long history of growing millet, so it is neither rice nor wheat. Our ancestors mainly relied on millet. alive.

If "Suguo" can really live for thousands of years, then it will basically be based on the same food, millet, for a long period of time, and its taste may not change for thousands of years.

So, is it really good to live this long?

It’s no stranger to say that until a few decades ago, Xiaomi was still an important presence in the daily lives of Chinese people. Some film and television blockbusters, such as "Assembly" directed by Feng Da, have this reflection. One day shortly after the war, the protagonist Gu Zidi squatted down with the villagers and chatted: a soldier died, how many kilograms of millet did the government subsidy to his family? If he was listed as a missing person, the subsidy of millet would be several hundred kilograms less.

So until modern times, millet was not only used as food, but also had monetary properties. Speaking of the salary of a certain official in ancient times, for example, the prefect's salary was 2,000 shi. It was not all cash, but this much millet.

The salary of ancient officials was called salary, which included two parts: salary and salary. Salary refers to the money received every month, while salary is relatively diverse, including grain, silk, cloth, carbon and other common living materials, which together are called salary.

For example, from the Yongle to Chenghua years of the Ming Dynasty, due to the prosperity of tribute activities from the early to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, a large amount of pepper, hematoxylin, etc. from foreign tributes piled up. The Ming government used these stocks of pepper, Sumu wood is worth the official's salary.

In the ninth year of Xuande reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, that is, 1434 AD, the specific ratio of pepper and sappan wood was stipulated: 100 strings of banknotes per catty for pepper and 50 strings of banknotes for each catty of sumac. The Ming Dynasty had a two-capital system, with officials in Beijing and Nanjing drawing money from their local treasury. This situation lasted until the seventh year of Emperor Xianzong's Chenghua reign in the Ming Dynasty. In 1471 AD, it stopped due to insufficient tribute in the treasury.

There is a proper name for this in history: "Pepper Sumu Discounted Salary". Originally, the salary was cash and the salary was stuff, but now everything I got became stuff.

In movies and TV shows, people in ancient times often spend dozens of taels of silver. In fact, it rarely happens, because silver has always been very scarce in ancient China. It was not until the Age of Discovery that China's shortage of silver changed. With the import and export trade of some foreign silver, the situation changed.

If "Suguo" had been a civil servant in ancient times, he would have carried large and small bags and pushed a small cart to receive such salary on the days when wages were paid. The most likely scenario is that you receive your salary in the morning and then go out to the streets to exchange things for other things in the afternoon, such as exchanging ten pounds of millet for one pound of eggs or something.

Don’t be surprised, bartering has a long history and existed until just a few decades ago. In an era when money is scarce, it is not easy to achieve a developed market economy.

Let me say one more thing here, Liang, in ancient China, did not refer to sorghum, but to better millet. There is an idiom known to all women and children, called Huangliang Yimeng. There is still some controversy as to what the beam here is, but it refers to either yellow rice or millet, and it is definitely not sorghum stalks. This cannot be taken literally and it makes a joke.

When young people today sometimes talk about Xiaomi, they are not talking about virtuous people who want to go home and cook porridge for their parents. They are more likely to be talking about the famous IT brand founded by Mr. Rebus.