According to the records of provincial general records and prefectural and county records, corn was first introduced to China in Guangxi in 1531, less than forty years after Columbus discovered America. By the end of the Ming Dynasty (until 1643), it had spread to ten provinces, including Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Jiangsu, Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan.

Columbus discovered corn in Cuba in 1492, and later until the whole of North and South America are cultivated, in 1494 to bring corn back to Spain, and then gradually spread to all over the world, becoming one of the most important food crops. 16th century when the introduction of China, the earliest record is found in the Ming Dynasty, jiajing thirty-four years of the book "Kung County Zhi," called it "jade wheat," followed by jiajing thirty-four years of the book "Kung County Zhi.

The first record of this crop in China was in the Ming Dynasty's "Gongxian Zhi", written in the thirty-fourth year of the Jiajing reign, which called it "Yu Mai", and later in the thirty-ninth year of the Jiajing reign, "Pingliang Prefecture Zhi", which referred to it as "Fan Mai" and "Xitian Mai".

Toward the end of the Ming Dynasty, corn cultivation has reached more than ten provinces, such as Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Anhui and other places. The name "corn" was first used in Xu Guangqi's "The Complete Book of Agricultural Politics". Outside of the Americas, where it originated, China is one of the most popular regions for corn cultivation. Corn is also the world's most productive food crop.

Expanded Information:

Scholars generally believe that there are three ways to introduce maize into China in ancient times:

1. Northwest land route: first from Spain to Mecca, and then from Mecca through the Silk Road in Central Asia into northwest China;

2, the southwest land route into: first from Europe into India, Burma, and then into southwest China (the end of the 15th century, the Portuguese may be corn first into India Goa, and then all the way to Java; the other way into the near-neighboring Burma, and then from Burma into China).

3, the southeast sea route into: first from Europe into Southeast Asia, by Chinese merchants or the Portuguese by sea into China's southeastern coastal areas.

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