Soft-shelled turtle, also known as group fish and foot fish, is a reptile and soft-shelled turtle family, which is produced all over the country, and the quality of soft-shelled turtle in Dongting Lake area is the best. Mozi described Chu as "fish and turtles are the richest in the world".
The geographical records of the Tang Dynasty recorded that "Yuezhou was a public house". There are soft-shelled turtles in the recipes unearthed in Ma Dui, Changsha, indicating that Hunan people had cooked soft-shelled turtles as early as the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago.
Hanshou, located in the west of Dongting Lake, is a famous "hometown of soft-shelled turtles" in China. Its unique landform of "rising water is a lake and falling water is a continent" makes it a typical water-crossing lake in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. There are mussels, fish and shrimp, plankton and everything, which brings convenience to the predation of turtles and is very suitable for their growth and reproduction. The soft-shelled turtle growing here has a big skirt, fresh meat and no disease or pollution.