China's earliest specialized schools can be traced back to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty Hongdu Menxue.
Hongdu Menxue was a higher specialized school for studying and researching literature and art in the Han Dynasty. It was founded in February, 178, the first year of Emperor Lingdi's Guanghe reign. Because the school site is located in Luoyang Hongdu Gate and named, is China's earliest specialized university. The Hongdumen School was a product of the internal struggle of the ruling class, i.e., the eunuchs' faction fought against the Taixue School, which was dominated by the forces of the scholarly clans, in order to cultivate intellectuals who supported them. It also took advantage of the fact that Emperor Lingdi of Han Dynasty was fond of rhetoric, fugue, calligraphy and painting to run this new type of school.
At the end of East Han, the earliest existing monograph on medicine in China,Shennong's Classic of the Materia Medica
From the end of the Qin Dynasty to the end of the Eastern Han DynastyAt the end of the Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revolted, and after the death of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, the army of the revolt was led by Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, and after the overthrow of the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu and established the Han Dynasty, which was called the Western Han Dynasty. Under the rule of Liu Bang and his descendants, China enjoyed a period of prosperity under the rule of Wen and Jing. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Wang Mang seized power and established a new dynasty. Liu Xiu, a descendant of the Han Dynasty, rose up to overthrow the new dynasty and re-established the Han Dynasty, known as the Eastern Han Dynasty. After the establishment of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a situation in which the power of foreign relatives and eunuchs alternated, and the government became more and more corrupt. By the time of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling of Han, the people were already suffering, so the Yellow Turban Uprising broke out, and the rule of the Eastern Han Dynasty collapsed, resulting in the emergence of a situation where the Eastern Han Dynasty was divided into various vassals. One of the vassals, Cao Cao, who was the prime minister of the Eastern Han Dynasty, basically held the real power of the emperor, holding the son of the emperor hostage and ordering the vassals. After Cao ***, his son Cao Pi abolished the Han Dynasty and established the Wei Dynasty, ending the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The earliest paint can be traced back to what ageThe origin of paint is not conclusive. In 6000 BC, China has used inorganic compounds and organic pigments mixed with baking to improve the paint. 1500 BC, in France and Spain in the cave, paint has been used for painting and decoration. In 1500 B.C., the Egyptians used dyes such as indigo and chamomile to make blue and red pigments, but these paints were still very imperfect. The earliest and more sophisticated paints in China were made from tung oil and lacquer, with pigments added in a simple process, and were widely used in the Tang and Song dynasties.
China's earliest long historical primary depicting Sun, Liu and Wu at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty is which novelObviously, it is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four great masterpieces of the Chinese Classics, and it is China's first full-length chapter-and-chapter historical novel, the full name of which is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Common, by Luo Guanzhong, a novelist of the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties.
Rengyi of the Three Kingdoms depicts nearly 105 years of history from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the early years of the Western Jin Dynasty, and focuses on war, reflecting the political and military struggles between the three political groups of Wei, Shu, and Wu. It reflects the transformation of various social struggles and contradictions in the Three Kingdoms era, and summarizes the historical changes of this era, shaping a number of heroic characters of the Three Kingdoms.
The book is divided into five major parts: the Yellow Turbans Rebellion, Dong Zhuo's Rebellion, the Horsemen's Rebellion, the Triple Triad, and the Return of the Three Kingdoms to the Jin Dynasty. A magnificent war scene is staged on a vast background. Luo Guanzhong, the editor, melted the 36 stratagems of the art of war into the words, both the plot and the art of war strategy.
In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Shi Xie (的士燮)
brother
Shi Yi (士壹), an official general and a vassal of Duxiang (都乡侯), was exempted from the common people's court because of Shi Hui's rebellion, and was later killed for breaking the law. Shi (Huang+Yu), an official of Jiuzhen Taishou, was also exempted from being a commoner because of Shi Hui's rebellion, and was also killed for breaking the law. Shi Wu (士武), who reached the rank of governor of Nanhai (南海太守), died early.Sons
Shi Zhi Zhi (士廞), was appointed as a governor of Wuchang, but was dismissed as a commoner because of Shi Hui's rebellion, and died of illness. He was killed together with Shi Hui. Shi Hui was killed together with Shi Hui. After Shi Xie's death, he claimed to be the governor of Jiaolui, and was killed by Lu Dai. Shi Gan (士干) was killed together with Shi Hui (士徽).Nephew
Shi Kuang, son of Shi Yi, was a lieutenant general who was exempted from being a commoner because of Shi Hui's rebellion.Liu Xi, Xue Cong, Cheng Bing, Xu Ci, Liu Ba, Xu Jing, Huan Ye, Yuan Hui, Mou Zi, and Kang Sheng Hui had defected to Shi Xie? Zhang Min, Shi Xie sent messenger Zhang Min sent tribute to Xudu,
China's earliest maritime academy and naval officers schoolFuijian Fuzhou Naval Academy was founded in 1866, China's first modern naval school, but also China's modern seafaring education and the birthplace of naval education. The school was founded by Zuo Zongtang, under the auspices of Shen Baozhen, the minister of shipbuilding, in Fuzhou in 1866. When it was first built, it was known as "Seeking the truth Hall Art Bureau". 1867, after the completion of the Mawei Shipyard was moved to Mawei, it was renamed as the School of Boat Politics. One of the shipbuilding academies was the former academy for shipbuilding and the latter academy for sailing; the other was the painting academy and art nursery, which was later renamed as the charting and calculating institute, apprenticeship academy, and craftsmen's head academy. After the Xinhai Revolution, the former was renamed the Naval Manufacturing School, Naval School, Naval Flying and Diving School; the latter was renamed the Naval Art School, and later renamed Chin-Kung, Merchant Marine, and Gao Hang. The full name of "Gao Hang" was "Fujian Provincial Vocational School of High-ranking Aeronautical Machinery and Merchant Marine", which lasted until after the founding of New China, and in August 1952, due to the departmental adjustment, Gao Hang was closed, and the original students majoring in aeronautical machinery and turbines were merged with the Higher Engineering School to establish the Fuzhou Industrial School; Students specializing in navigation were transferred to Jimei Aquatic and Merchant Marine College (Fujian Nautical College); students specializing in shipbuilding were transferred to Shanghai Shipbuilding Industry School.
What happened at the end of East Han DynastyYellow Turban Uprising, Southeast Peacock Flight
The earliest official documents in China's ancient times can be traced back to the oracle bone inscriptions?Oracle is an ancient Chinese script, an early form of Chinese characters, sometimes considered one of the calligraphic styles of Chinese characters, and one of the oldest surviving mature scripts from the dynastic period of China.
What to Eat in the Late Eastern Han DynastyIf you were to come to the Han Dynasty one day, what would you eat?
First of all, probabilistically speaking, you are a commoner, so what, two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, if you are an aristocrat, then at this time, you are three meals a day, if the extreme small probability, climbed up to the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, you can eat four meals.
In the Han Dynasty, the main cooking methods are basically there.
Frying, unlike today, this refers to dry frying or adding water, burning until dry, if there is still residual water at the end, then this is called boiling. Roasting, grilling meat, is probably the earliest cooking technique since mankind has had fire. Steaming, same as today. Frying, with boiling water or oil, although according to the Qin and Han volumes of the History of Chinese Folklore, solid animal oils were available at this time, but not yet used for deep-frying. Chopped fish, sliced finely with a knife, sashimi, raw meat, is made in this way. There was no mesquite at that time, so the accompaniment to raw fish was ginger. Xin Yannian has a poem, "on my request for rare dishes, gold plate chopped carp."
Pro, bacon.
And the main condiments are salt, vinegar, sauce, sugar (caramel, sugar cane sugar is imported from India in the Tang Dynasty), green onions, ginger, peppercorns, meat sauce, caviar, garlic. Oh, no spicy people can suffer, no way, pepper is from the South Seas, chili peppers are only after the discovery of the New World.
Staple food, people drink congee, wheat congee, rice congee, rice congee, rice congee, glutinous rice congee, yellow rice congee, millet congee, rice congee, of course, you can also drink soybean congee, it is the amoy water and beans boiled into. And you can also eat cake, before the Song Dynasty, cake is a general term for pasta, usually made with boiling water and noodles, or directly with noodles, and then steamed or fried into. Also you could eat soup cakes, similar to today's Katayakawa, but with dead noodles (pure and made into dough), though not cut with a knife, as Shuang Ci of the Jin Dynasty speaks of tearing them by hand in his Cake Fugue. Of course, there was also dry rice, all grainy, similar to today's rice, ah, yellow rice, ah. In the Han Dynasty, love to eat sticky rice, so in the south, often eat glutinous rice, the north is yellow rice, usually done, as today, always add a date. After the pass through the West, there is a hu cake, hu rice, also as a staple food, hu cake similar to today's sesame seed cake, huh, back then, the Han Lingdi very much love to eat this, "after the Han Book? Five lines of the record: the Han Dynasty, "Lingdi good Hu clothing, Hu tent, Hu bed, Hu sitting, Hu rice." , Hu rice, is with soy sauce melon, roasted fat meat, lettuce rolled in the noodles, rolled two layers, and cut into six sections of two inches in size.
Eating of course, on the vegetables to eat ah, first of all, vegetables.
"Winter sunflower", the main vegetable in the Han Dynasty. "Saying Wen": "Kwai, Kwai vegetables also." Cabbage, spinach, taro, radish, leek, cucumber, gourd, lotus root, beans and so on, today there are, in addition to potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, basically.
The passage to the west brought soybeans and grapes, and soybeans then led to tofu, bean sprouts, and other soy products like those of today.
Meat, basically the same as today, generally speaking, mainly the traditional Chinese "six animals", horses, cows, sheep, pigs, dogs and chickens. The Han Dynasty people have no taboos, eggs, this era also have, however, dairy products, the Han Dynasty people rarely eat. Fish, shellfish is also Han Dynasty people certainly love to eat. In the Shang Dynasty, fish was something that even ordinary people could eat regularly, while after the Warring States period, fish and meat were status symbols (refer to the story of Meng Chang Jun).
Much like today's people, the aristocrats of the Han Dynasty, who later considered meat as something that corrupts the body, promoted healthy eating and ate vegetables, while the poor, who put a great desire to eat meat, but meat is more expensive, so it was also popular to go down to the water (animal offal).
After the Han Wu Di salt and iron franchise, in the Han Dynasty to eat salt is more expensive, people with a light taste, if in the Han Dynasty, and today's feeling is similar.
It seems that the Han Dynasty rich people do "pro" more prevalent, what are sun, what are pickled. All kinds of wild birds (then wild game is really a lot of ah, environmental protection world), dried meat, beasts, fish, etc. ...... I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm sure I'm going to be able to do it. ......
It's no wonder that there is no refrigerator.
The Han Dynasty (I forget who the emperor was) had a "Zhou eight treasures", have you ever tasted it?
-- the earliest palace feast - Zhou Dynasty eight treasures
淳熬: meat soy sauce burned rice; Chun mother: meat soy sauce burned yellow rice; gun dolphin: simmered, roasted and fried stewed suckling pig; gun: simmered, roasted and fried stewed ewe lambs; pounded Jane: roasted beef, sheep, deer tenderloin; stains: Wine lees beef and mutton; simmering: similar to five-spice beef jerky; liver net oil: net oil wrapped roast pork liver.
"Chu Shi. The "Invitation to the Soul" has a product that can represent the famous dishes of the time, Guo Moruo once translated it into a modern text:
The family follows each other, the diet is really exquisite. Rice, millet, new wheat and sorghum. Sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, all delicious. The stew of fat beef tendons is the hot and sour soup made by the chef of Wu. Braised turtle, barbecued lamb mixed with sweet sauce. Boiled escaped Jiaozuo, braised water duck, with a little sour syrup. Marinated chicken and stewed turtle can be refreshingly large in flavor. Oil-roasted noodle cakes and rice crackers with beeswax. Frozen sweet wine is so refreshing to drink. In order to solve the wine and sour plum soup.
Medieval cooking methods
Ancient Chinese cooking methods, by the "Classic of Poetry" and other ancient books, about the fire baking, cooking, 甗甗steam, baking placed on the fire, not to mention the genus of the 鬲, are supported by the foot of the vessel, placed on the fire, since the Warring States period, cooking kettle, steaming food cauldron, there is no foot of the vessel, that is, it is necessary to be placed in the stove on the eye. Mengzi - Teng Wengong, "Xu Zi to kettle cooking," that is, it can be seen that the kettle retort is the most common cooking utensils at that time. Han Dynasty Ming ware and tomb brick portraits, the most common cooking utensils, but also on the stove at least two stove eyes, respectively, kettle cauldron sitting on the stove eyes. Kettle retort lower bottom deep inside the stove, the fire area is large, the efficiency should not be evil. Roughly arranged, steaming something retort near the fire door, kettle or pot placed behind, near the smoke bulge, can only be used to the heat of the remaining fire. Grain and millet food, to steam food as the main way, the time required for a long time, the fire; vegetable food cooking or frying is the main, it is handled with kettle cans.
Cooking with Han Dynasty cookware, the staple food is steamed millet, beans and rice, wheat rice, if cooked in kettle pots, it is like porridge soup, if cooked and dried, stored as dry food, it is糒. As for the food, can be Changsha Mawangdui Han Tomb No. 1, for example, according to the excavation of forty-eight pieces of bamboo covered basket, fifty-one pieces of ceramic pots in the storage of food remains, can be identified, meat, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs and rabbits, birds have chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and some finches, fish and carp perch of the genus. Another three hundred and twelve pieces of bamboo slips of the remains of the album, recorded with the name of the burial objects, recorded food, has been the name of cooking. Although there are roasted a class, most of the soup, many are two ingredients with cooking.
"Rituals - within the rules" recorded meal types, rice, including millet and rice sorghum, especially white millet and sorghum for more. Meals include cattle, sheep and boars cooked separately "meat broth", cattle hot, cattle minced meat, cattle chopped meat, sheep hot, sheep minced meat, boar hot mustard sauce, chopped fish, pheasants and rabbits, quail chicken. In addition, there are various ways to use ingredients, such as scorpion minced meat with jian (i.e., carving hu), pheasant soup with wheat, ...... and "moistened dolphin wrapped in bitter polygonum" (sweaty pork with bitter tartar and spices) ... ... all kinds of dried meat (dried meat) are required to be equipped with vegetable leaves ...... have all kinds of details, and soup from the vassal to the common people, all of them.
These foods in addition to the chopped minced meat, cut large pieces of the so-called Xuan, so-called diced meat, cut small pieces of the so-called chopped, so-called sliced meat, there is no cut into fine pieces of knife skills. This method of cutting, used to cook soup, basically require fire. Roasting with an open fire, extremely expensive fuel; open fire just set up the charcoal, no other measures can be improved. The structure of the stove can still be improved to save fire for making soup on the stove. Luoyang burning ditch han tomb, is the early discovery of recent decades of large-scale tomb group, **** unearthed a hundred and fifty-five pieces of pottery stove. Pottery stove are rectangular, with stove body, stove surface, stove door, fire eyes, kettle, cauldron and other components. Other details vary greatly. The age of these tombs ranges from the middle of the Western Han Dynasty to the late Eastern Han Dynasty. The pottery stoves of the middle Western Han Dynasty are simple and childlike in form, with only one fire eye on the stove, and the use of residual heat is not known. In the late Western Han Dynasty, after the big fire eye, before the smoke bulge, add a small eye, it has been known to utilize the residual heat, usually there is a water kettle placed on the small fire eye. Wang Mang and before and after, the number of small fire eyes increased to two to three, some in front of the big fire eyes on both sides, some in the big fire eyes behind. The middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, two small fire eyes are quite large, side by side in front of the face of the large fire, the stove carved on the surface of the fish and food and fork hooks. Late Eastern Han stove, small fire eye is bigger, often a fire eye, located in front of the large fire eye, stove surface is also engraved with fish and cooking utensils graphic. From this series of evolution, it can be seen that the location of the kettle, from the back of the cauldron gradually moved to the front, the heat used, but also by the residual heat gradually transformed into a direct use of the fire door of the main heat. This change shows that the Han people on the use of kettle is increasingly important; fish and cooking utensils are scattered around the kettle, but also explains the cooking activity is no longer simply chopped under the kettle to cook.
However, the kettle form, most of the kettle is still {佥欠} mouth deep belly, good for cooking, not conducive to frying, cooking utensils in the spoon, is also a crank crank tongue, good for stirring and sending soup, can not be used for frying, the most characteristic of the Chinese cooking method of fast frying, it seems that has not yet been seen in the Han Dynasty, fast frying in the use of heat point of view, it is almost the most cost-effective method. In ancient China, woodcutting and firewood were the main fuels, and it was important for children to grow up to be able to carry firewood as a symbol. In order for the ancients to keep cutting wood for fuel, China's natural ecology has suffered serious damage since ancient times. According to Mencius, the Ox Mountain, which had the beauty of grass and trees, finally became a mountain of children because of the axes and cattails of people from the neighboring capitals. During the Han Dynasty, in order to increase the cultivated land, the public land was constantly opened up to the public, and the local governors also made it their business to increase the number of acres of land. With four hundred years of reclamation and expansion, China's forested area must have been greatly reduced. During the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the northern lands were constantly invaded by waves of foreigners. Before these foreigners finally assimilated into Chinese culture, they often converted large tracts of farmland into grazing land. The pastureland was not long enough to hide the rows and the forests were not rich in trees. The agricultural activities of the Han Chinese and the Sinicized foreigners in the north, because of the sparseness of the war-torn land, were conducive to the development of rough agriculture, and the operation of nomadic farming also required frequent and large-scale burning of hazelnuts. As a result, the northern wilderness did not increase in wooded area (relatively speaking) as a result of population decline. Since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, until the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the population of the north is a large number of southward, first settled in Jianghan, and then to develop the Yangtze River Basin and its tributaries and lakes, and finally developed the coast of Fujian and Guangdong. The population of the south, the growth of several times; arable land area and the capital of the road with the increase, the forest area is sharply reduced.
Forests can also burn charcoal, the Han Dynasty, there is a large-scale charcoal burning industry, a large number of workers, deep into the mountains and forests, tapping wood charcoal, supplying the iron industry and general household fuel. In the Historical Records of China, the younger brother of Emperor Wendi's Empress Dou, Shaojun, was a charcoal-burning laborer, and there were as many as a hundred of them working together. However, in the Middle Ages, charcoal was already a valuable commodity, and was even a gift for princes and nobles. Liu Xiaoqi wrote "Thank you for a gift of charcoal from the Eastern Palace", and SUREGO also wrote "Thank you for a gift of charcoal from the King of Xiangdong", so charcoal might not be easily used by commoners as a daily fuel. Ordinary people's fuel is still roughly wood as a salary, so the "qimin yaojutsu", planting elm, in addition to the wood can be used as utensils, "year after year, section briefly stripped the workers, refers to the firewood hired, ten bunches of hire a person, the unemployed compete to make the sale of firewood for the benefit of the self-cost, according to the original note estimates, a bunch of three, 10,000 bunches of 3,000 kan, pods and leaves, but also can be sold for money. In addition, the planting of poplar, its evil branches are also sold as firewood. Willow planting, in addition to the rafters, a hundred trees to get a load of firewood, each load of money worth a hundred wen. Compared with the price of elm firewood, one load can have thirty-three bundles, about the load of a small car. According to the same book cited Tao Zhu "public art", planting a thousand willow trees will be enough firewood, the age of two hundred trees, a year of firewood that is enough. According to these sources, the cost of burning firewood is 20,000 wen a year, the price of goods, oak roof rafters, ten years in the rafters, a price of 10 wen, 20 years in the rafters, a value of 100 wen. By analogy, the price of firewood was quite expensive. General family about the use of dried animal feces and straw as a salary, for example, "Qimin Essentials" for the sauce method, the fuel used is "to take dry cow feces, round tired, so that the center of the empty, smoldering, the potential for good coal-like, can be more commonly used for food, neither dust, but also do not lose the fire, better than the grass is far away". Signs of life in China now, the north with dung dry wheat skin, the south with straw chaff grain, still in the memory of many people.
Grain is the main food of the Chinese people in the Han Dynasty, but also the Han Dynasty people rely on the staple food.
There is historical evidence!
------1 In 1972, when the famous "Mawangdui No.1 Han Tomb" was excavated in the eastern suburb of Changsha, Hunan Province, China, it was found to be the first tomb of the Han Dynasty. During the excavation of the famous "Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb" in the eastern suburb of Changsha, Hunan Province, China, an important archaeological discovery was made regarding the diet of the Han Dynasty. Inside the esophagus, stomach and intestines of the body of the tomb's owner, 138 melon seeds were found. Several sacks of produce were also found in the ear chamber of the tomb. In addition to the food left behind, 312 bamboo slips provided additional information on food and cooking. The archaeological discovery also provides an important basis for inferring the food culture of the upper class nobles in the Han Dynasty.
The archaeological findings from Mawangdui clearly depict to modern people the dietary structure of the Han aristocracy. Soup was the most common staple in aristocratic families from ancient times to the Han Dynasty, and soup was generally made from a mixture of ingredients, often with large pieces of cooked vegetables or meat or both made into a liquid diet. According to the eleventh bamboo slips recorded cattle white soup, has been identified as beef and rice stew, visible meat and grain stew Han Dynasty aristocrats a very major common soup. Bamboo slips also mentioned the Han Dynasty people with different animals to make food scenes, in addition to the common pig, sheep, cattle, dog meat, ninety-eight bamboo slips also listed the horse meat, although from the textual information, horse meat is a popular dish in the Han Dynasty, but did not find the legacy of the horse meat to this day, this fact shows that, as the Han Dynasty, China's transportation and military on the valuable strategic materials --- horse, at least the Han Dynasty, the Chinese transportation and military on the valuable strategic materials --- horse, at least the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty. --Horse, at least at that time, was not a common food. Much less likely to do for the common people's food.
The archaeological findings add another important dimension to the study of Han diet. Han Dynasty murals compared to bamboo slips, there is another special significance, because usually in the Han Dynasty murals, banquet scenes often appear. For example, a famous mural in the Han Dynasty, such as the Tiger Pavilion, in addition to the general banquet scene outlined in the mural, the mural also expresses the significance of the event, which also proves that the content of the mural to be recorded in addition to the delicious food, but also usually to express the political events of the time that had been widely publicized.
Because of the nature of the Mawangdui bamboo slips and the Han murals, we can get a sense of what the upper classes at that time ate and ate, but the historical records usually do not reflect the food that was eaten by ordinary people in their daily lives during the Han dynasty. After all, the political figures and the people in Han tombs were only a small part of the 60 million Chinese people who lived during the Han Dynasty. Therefore, we must try to find out what the majority of the Han people ate in their daily lives, and explain the food culture of the Han Dynasty from a historical perspective. This task is a great challenge for the author, because it takes a lot of time and hard academic research to find out the relevant archaeological evidence directly. Although the information is very limited, we can also take the characteristics of ancient Chinese culture and combine some historical data to make some rough imagination.
It is well known that ancient Chinese civilization was characterized by farming, and the farming economy of the Han Dynasty was an important basis for maintaining the order of the Han Empire. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that grains were the staple food of the Han Chinese, and even more so, the staple food on which the Han people depended for their livelihood. Though theoretically, meat was reserved for the elderly and nobles over 80 years old. (Lu Simian & gt;, pp. 571-572), meat was not as readily available to the average Han Chinese as it was to the wealthy. From the military logistics of Emperor Wu's northern attack on the Xiongnu, we can learn that the main food supply of the Han army was grain, with one soldier needing 18 ducats of dried rice in 300 days of marching. (> Vol. 94, p. 10) The daily consumption reached 0.6 liters. When Li Ling's army was surrounded by the Xiongnu in 99 B.C., he gave each of his soldiers 2 drachms of dried rice and a piece of ice, so that they could stand out one by one. Apparently, the Han Dynasty *** often stocked up on large quantities of dry rations for military purposes, and in addition to wars, large quantities of dry rations were used as a political gift to the Xiongnu for submitting to the Han Dynasty. Indeed, it is safe to say that the average Han Chinese ate dry food almost every day. Although it is difficult to find direct historical details about the meals of the poor during the Han Dynasty, it is highly probable that scallions, garlic and leeks were included in the recipes of the poor according to >. In 33 B.C.E., the Emperor of the Han Dynasty supported the closing of the royal anti-seasonal "greenhouses," where green onions and leeks were planted among the cooked vegetables. The result was to save tens of millions of dollars per year for the Han Dynasty ***. (> Vol. 89, p. 10) As you can see from the above, the food of the common people in the Han Dynasty came mainly from the plantation industry in the agrarian economy.
An important feature of the Han dynasty was its openness, and an open society made it inevitable for China to come into contact with foreign things, including, naturally, food. According to historical records, these foods included grapes, alfalfa, pomegranates, walnuts, sesame seeds, onions, cilantro, peas, and cucumbers from the West. Seeds of grapes and alfalfa, for example, were introduced to China from Dayuan around 100 BC. By the 2nd century AD, wines imported from the West were extremely popular. As food diversified, cooking techniques improved. For example, during the Zhou Dynasty, the people knew only wheaten rice but not cake, and the appearance of the cake dates back to the Western Jin Dynasty. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, a variety of pasta dishes appeared in China, including boiled noodles, steamed buns and sesame cakes. Some ancient tombs from the Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties have been found to contain scenes of kneading. From a historical perspective, it was the Han people's incorporation of foreign products into the most common food ingredients, coupled with their willingness to learn from others' cultures, that ultimately opened up a whole new chapter in the history of Chinese cuisine.