Many times we will be curious, how did ancient people spend a long day without electricity, mobile phones, internet, movies and television?
In addition to these high technologies, many fruits and foods we eat now are also imported from abroad. For example, grapes, pomegranates, figs and other fruits come from the western regions. Before Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions, these things were not available in China.
There is also a common and often eaten fruit, which is also an exotic species. This fruit is watermelon.
From where? Watermelon? This name, we can easily associate with it, it may have been introduced into the Central Plains from the Western Regions. This is not the understanding of modern people. As early as the Ming Dynasty, the scientist Xu Guangqi said in his book Agricultural Administration. Watermelon, planted in the western regions, is named after it. ? Also in the Ming Dynasty, the famous doctor Li Shizhen recorded the origin of watermelon more clearly in Compendium of Materia Medica. According to Hu Hu, a melon seed called watermelon was obtained in Uygur language. Watermelon entered China from the Five Dynasties; There are both north and south today. ?
Li Shizhen's record involves a historical allusion.
Hu Jiao mentioned in Li Shizhen's article is from five generations. He was the magistrate of Heyang County in the late Jin Dynasty, and later served as the secretary of Han Xiaojun in Xuanwu Army, and joined the Khitan with Han Xiao. After Han Xiao was killed, Hu Jiao fled back to the Central Plains after many twists and turns.
After returning to the Central Plains, he wrote a book called "Sleeping in the North" based on his own experience, which recorded in detail what he saw and heard in Qidan (Liao country). There is a paragraph about watermelon. The article says:
It's forty miles from JD.COM to Zhu Zhen Village, and I started to eat vegetables. Going east tomorrow, the terrain is getting higher and higher, and the pine forest in the west for dozens of miles looks gloomy. Then I went to Pingchuan, where there were many plants and trees, and began to eat watermelon. Yun Qi Dan broke into Uighur and got this. Cow dung was planted here and a shed was built. It is as big and sweet as China wax gourd. ?
According to historians' research, the time recorded in this paper is between the 12th year of Tianfu in the later Han Dynasty (947) and the 3rd year (953).
The visit to Beijing mentioned in the article was the capital of Khitan (Liao State) at that time. Watermelon was originally introduced here from the Uighurs in the south of Lindong Town, Balinzuoqi, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia.
This is the most accurate record that historians believe that watermelon was introduced into China. Through this record, we can clearly know that watermelon was first introduced into the Liao country to go to Beijing by Uighur, and then entered the Central Plains.
However, some people hold different opinions. They think watermelon should be introduced to China earlier.
Tao Hongjing in the Southern Dynasties wrote in Notes on Materia Medica:? Yongjia has a big cold melon. Every time you eat it, you can eat it after New Year. ? Later scholars thought it was here? Melon? Watermelon. Yongjia, as Tao Hongjing said, is today's Wenzhou, Zhejiang, with the sea in the east. Therefore, some scholars speculate that watermelons may not come from the Western Regions, but may be imported from the sea to China, then planted in the coastal areas of China, and then gradually introduced to the mainland.
Where and how watermelon was introduced into China is still inconclusive. But Hu Jiao's record is clear and more credible than other statements.