According to Meng Xi's written conversation, people are responsible for six meters, and they carry their own food for five days. This means that everyone needs six barrels of rice and five days of dry food. Wherever you March, you have to bury a pot to cook. The most common thing is to stew a pot, pour water and oil into it, and once the messy ingredients are put in it, start stewing and frying. If you feel weak, add some garlic and sprinkle two handfuls of salt.

Military emergency, too late to prepare hot meals and hot dishes, just take out dry food from my pocket. Among them, there is a very common fried noodles, which is different from the fried noodles we are familiar with now. It is real fried noodles, made into dry food, stuffed into your mouth when you are hungry, and you will feel full after pouring a few mouthfuls of cold water. And when the army marches, there are often many vendors to follow. They sell whatever the army needs, mainly some necessities, such as fruits, vegetables, cattle and sheep, meat, poultry and eggs. On the one hand, the army can reduce the load, on the other hand, it can also make these small traders make money.

But most troops still have to supply themselves. Sometimes plunder and preemption are the main factors, but this will always cause instability, because sometimes in tug-of-war or unfavorable conditions, soldiers' food can not be guaranteed. In order to prevent the army from running out of food, the army grain and grass officials have to hoard a large amount of dry food in advance, which is convenient for soldiers to carry with them and has a long shelf life.

Some troops even eat people and kill each other when there is no food, and some abnormal generals even use people as rations. This happened in the Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties. Although disgusting, many soldiers chose to suppress their nausea and eat a few bites of human flesh instead of being killed when they were hungry.