For a long time, the diet of the ancient army was relatively simple, that is, the level of eating. The earliest military food was actually boiled millet porridge. Before the Song Dynasty, the diet of the army was mainly thick porridge. But there was no iron pot at that time, and pottery was used. Pottery is best for porridge, but it is not suitable for cooking or cooking other delicious food.

During the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, when the army cooked millet porridge, chefs sometimes added various wild vegetables, wild fruits, beans or some meat from hunting. As soon as the meal was served, the soldiers who marched in the war began to set up clay pots to cook porridge.

From ancient times to the Tang Dynasty, millet was a very important military food, and the reason is actually easy to understand.

Millet originated in the Yellow River valley in northern China. Before the Tang Dynasty, the political and military center of China was in the north, especially in the northwest, and the choice of rations was often based on the principle of proximity. Besides, millet is easy to keep. For example, Tang literature says that millet can be preserved for nine years, while rice can only be preserved for five years. As a result, millet, which is convenient to obtain and easy to preserve for a long time, has become the most common military food in the ancient army.

In ancient marching operations, besides millet, rice and wheat were also common rations.

2. Song Mingjun: Dry food.

In ancient times, the so-called dry food was actually steamed bread and pie. Steamed bread and pie became military food very late, because the processing of flour was difficult and ancient people could not ferment technology, so the dry food made by people at that time was dead noodles. Song and Ming armies preferred to eat big cakes, which only appeared in the Han Dynasty, but the Han army did not regard big cakes as military food.

It was not until the Tang and Song Dynasties that pies gradually became military food.

During the Tang Dynasty, a special cavalry unit was established to fight against the nomadic peoples in the northwest, such as Turks and Uighurs. In order to reduce logistics transportation, this cavalry unit transported dry food and other food to Wan Li for a long distance.

Soldiers in the Song Dynasty often marched with rice cakes, miscellaneous cakes, wrinkled rice, hard salt and soy sauce.

In the Ming dynasty, the way of eating big cakes was somewhat similar to that of compressed biscuits today. At that time, in order to make it easier to fight in mountain woodlands, soldiers of the Ming Dynasty baked the round cakes with charcoal fire until they were crisp and salty, poked a small hole in the middle of the round cakes, and then strung them together with ropes, which was very convenient for soldiers to carry.

3. Non-staple food

Whether it is millet or pie, it is a staple food, that is, food that can only fill the stomach. In ancient times, in addition to staple food, there were also non-staple food. It's just that the ancient army had few non-staple foods, usually only soy sauce and pickles.

Only before the war and after the victory, the soldiers were lucky enough to drink a bowl of good wine and eat a few pounds of good meat. As for the process of marching and fighting, the food is very simple.

4. Nomads' rations

The most important military food for nomads is air-dried meat. Cattle weighing more than 100 kilograms are dried and turned into dried meat of more than ten or twenty kilograms. Soldiers carry these ten or twenty kilograms of dried meat, just like carrying the beef of a cow to fight.

The protein content of air-dried beef jerky is several times that of ordinary beef, and a small piece can meet the needs of human survival, so this 20 kg air-dried beef can be eaten for several months.

At rest, nomadic cavalry can also use small pieces of dried meat to cook soup, plus a little milk food, so the overall nutrition is rich and comprehensive, so nomadic cavalry rarely need logistics to transport food, and do not need to prepare non-staple food such as soy sauce and pickles.

Generally speaking, when marching and fighting in ancient times, food was relatively simple, but it was no problem to fill your stomach.