When was the sweet potato introduced into China
According to historical records and research, the sweet potato was introduced into China from the late Ming Dynasty.
Before the introduction of China, sweet potatoes were first planted in Central America, and then the Spaniards from their conquest and colonization of Mexico, Colombia, etc. brought the sweet potatoes to be colonized by the Philippines and other places for planting, and then to the Ming Dynasty in the Wanli years began to be imported into China.
The earliest record is that in 1582, Chen Yi, a native of Humen Beijie, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, risked his life with a merchant ship to secretly hide the sweet potato in a copper drum, and brought it back to his hometown of Humen for trial planting after a few weeks of trouble and success, and then it was widely spread by his seed.
The sweet potato became a particularly important famine ration, and since then it has become one of the most important sources of food in China.
So Chen Yi, a Guangdong man, became the first person in China to introduce sweet potato, which has a history of more than 400 years.
Last year, the Guangdong Provincial Government listed Chen Yi's family tomb as a provincial cultural relics protection unit to highlight and commemorate Chen Yi's great contribution as "the first person to introduce sweet potato in China".
Another family that has made outstanding contributions to the widespread cultivation of sweet potatoes in China is the family of Chen Zhenlong, a native of Changle, Fujian.
According to records, Chen Zhenlong and his son Chen Jinglun went to the Philippines in 1593 of the Ming Dynasty to do business and found the never-seen, locally-grown sweet potatoes, so they wanted to introduce them to their hometowns in order to solve the problem of lack of food.
Then under Spanish colonial rule, the Philippines regarded the sweet potatoes brought by the Spaniards as a fruitful treasure, so it was strictly controlled and "forbidden to leave the country".
And Chen Zhenlong was racking his brains and coming up with ideas to bring this product to the country to help people's livelihood. In the end, the sweet potato vines were twisted into hemp ropes, dipped into water, smeared with mud and finally brought to his hometown of Fujian in the fifth month of the lunar calendar.
In this way, the vine into the soil knot _ potatoes, potatoes seedling seedlings inserted seedlings, sweet potatoes year after year renewed planting.