■Li Xinsheng
1492 Columbus arrived in the New World, which is an epoch-making event. The Americas are integrated with the world for the first time. Some people call this the era of globalization 1.0. The saying " ancient civilizations of the four ancient civilizations " that appeared only after the 20th century did not involve America. There are complex reasons for this. In fact, America also created brilliant and brilliant civilizations.
Generally believe that the most important influence of geographical discovery is the emergence of colonialism and the development of industrial capitalism. More and more scholars believe that " Columbus Exchange " is its most important influence, which has changed the face of the whole world. The "Columbus Exchange" was proposed by American environmental historian Alfred W. Crosby. It is the most influential idea proposed by the environmental historian community to date. It provides a new explanation of the major historical turning point of the Old Continent conquering the New Continent from an ecological perspective and has been widely written into the world history textbook at home and abroad.
"Columbus Exchange", in short, refers to the extensive exchanges between animals, plants, microorganisms, economics, and cultural areas that began in 1492 and in the following centuries, the Old World and the New World. The Columbus exchange was two-way. For example, in the past, there was no fourth of the "six animals" of the big livestock (horse, cattle, sheep, and pig), nor our traditional grain crops "grains" (rice or hemp, millet, sorghum, wheat, and beans). Americans mainly rely on the "three sisters" crops - corn, beans and pumpkin to make a living. The three are mutually beneficial and symbiotic, which is quite similar to the intercropping intercropping in traditional China.
The plants in the "Columbus Exchange" are American crops, with about 30 species. In addition to the familiar grain crops corn, sweet potato, and potato, typical ones are vegetable crops (including both vegetables and grains) such as pumpkin, vegetable beans, lagoons, zucchini , cassava , chili, tomatoes, chauvine , banana taro, oil crops such as peanuts, sunflowers, , hobby crops such as tobacco and cocoa, industrial raw materials crops such as land cotton, medicinal crops such as American ginseng , fruit crops such as sausage, guava , papaya, pineapple, oil pear, cashew, egg yolk, human heart nuts, etc.
Since the names of some crops also exist in Chinese literature before 1492, people often write articles that some American crops originated in China, and construct various evidence to prove that nouns such as "sweet potato", "peanut", and "pumpkin" appeared in literature before 1492, and use this to prove that these crops originated in China or that Chinese people had visited the Americas long before Columbus (such as Zheng He ). In fact, this is caused by narrow nationalism and is false. China has a vast land and a wide range of objects. Due to various reasons, the phenomenon of plant names with the same name and the same name is very common. In addition, the works of later generations often appear in ancient Chinese books, so if you are not careful, you will make mistakes. When we judge that a certain plant originates from a certain place, we should meet three conditions: first, there are conclusive ancient records; second, wild species of this cultivated plant were discovered; third, there are proofs of archaeological excavation. None of the three is indispensable, otherwise it will be an isolated evidence. Even if there are archaeological excavations, it seems very authoritative, but it is not entirely credible, because there are many examples of errors in archaeological reports. For example, "peanuts", "broad beans" and " sesame " were found in the Qianshanyang site in Zhejiang in the 1960s, and they were later falsified.
American crops quickly spread throughout China. The Chinese people became the biggest beneficiaries of early globalization from their mouths to their tongues. Various American food, fruits and cash crops came one after another, triggering changes in the entire agricultural structure and the transformation of economic forms. It can be said that half of the food on our table today is from the Americas, and it is unimaginable that daily life without American crops participate.
How did American crops come to China? After the discovery of the New World, the climax of European colonization, exploration and religious spread to the Americas was set off. As early as 1494, Columbus asked the people who returned first to bring the seeds of various American crops collected by Cardinal A. Sforza. According to statistics, from 1492 to 1515, at least dozens of expeditions and hundreds of European ships flocked to Caribbean , and most American crops were originally introduced from the Americas to Europe in this form. With the "Black Triangle" trade, New World crops have entered the vision of the old world many times.
In the 16th century, Europeans began to establish colonies in Southeast Asia, and some crops from the Americas and Europe began to be introduced into Southeast Asia and further introduced to East Asia and South Asia. This was the Ming and Qing dynasties in our country. The introduction of a large number of American crops constituted an important feature of Sino-foreign exchanges during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Among them, Portugal was the vanguard. The Portuguese arrived in India in 1498 and conquered Malacca in 1511. After that, European countries arrived one after another.
American food crop
Almost every American crop is introduced through the southeast coast, but the introduction of some crops is not limited to sea routes. For example, corn has southwest land routes and northwest land routes. In particular, the records of corn on the front line of the northwest land routes are first seen in Jiajing Gansu "Pingliangfu Chronicle", which is the earliest documentary record of Chinese corn.
In addition, not all the subjects introduced are foreigners, and overseas Chinese also play a very important role. Now some people attribute all the introduction of American crops to foreigners, which is not advisable, because foreigners' visits do not have the advantage in quantity. A large number of overseas Chinese who are not easily noticed are those who travel between the motherland and Southeast Asia. For example, Fujian Changle Overseas Chinese Chen Zhenlong is known as the "first person to introduce sweet potatoes". Guo Moruo has special poems to praise it. Chen Zhenlong secretly brought potato seeds and seeds back to Changle during his trade in Philippines . In addition, there are Chen Yi from Vietnam to bring sweet potatoes to Dongguan, Guangdong, and Lin Huailan from Vietnam to Dianbai, which happened in the 5 years of Wanli html, so descendants of his hometown said that they were "the first person to introduce sweet potatoes in China", and relatively speaking, Chen Zhenlong had the greatest influence on the front line.
potatoes were introduced to China a little later. The latest academic research believes that the Guangxu "Hunyuan Prefecture Xuzhi" records that at the latest in the 47th year of Qianlong (1782), potatoes were introduced from southern Shaanxi to Hunyuan Prefecture, Shanxi, instead of the Ming Dynasty "Chang'an Kehua" and Kangxi "Songxi County Chronicles" that Chen and Xiangyin used to be. Their so-called "potatoes" and "potatoes" were actually Tuya (Apios fortunei Maxim.) or Dioscorea bulbifera L.), so the history of potatoes needs to be traced back again.
Corn, sweet potato and potato are known as the three major grain crops in the Americas. Their importance has been endorsed by tens of millions of people. Although their advantages are not very obvious in traditional agricultural areas, they can be called "high yield" in mountainous areas and have strong stress resistance. They have made full use of some marginal land, which has indeed increased grain output. However, perhaps the status of American food crops should not be too high. Some views are often seen, saying that corn and sweet potatoes created the Kangxi and Qianlong periods, and American crops caused the population explosion in the Qing Dynasty, etc., and even metrological historiography scholars accurately defined the contribution of American crops to the Qing Dynasty population to 30%. I call this kind of view "American crop determinism." In fact, the promotion of crops in the Americas is not the main factor that stimulates population growth, but a measure to actively respond to population pressure. The population peak reached the Chinese imperial era in the mid-19th century, with 430 million people. According to personal research (Estimation of Grain Crop Production Indexes in the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, "Qing Dynasty History Research" Issue 3, 2017), corn and sweet potatoes were able to feed 24.73 million to 27.98 million people, with corn accounting for 2.75% of the sowing area and sweet potatoes accounting for 0.67%. At least the population growth before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (population peak) did not originate from American crops, that is, American crops were not the main factor that stimulated population growth. As for the whole country, the period when American crops played a greater role was not the stage of population surge since modern times.
So what about potatoes? Its status is even lower, just one of the many grains . The reasons are that potatoes themselves were introduced late, and the second is that potatoes are not suitable for growing in high-temperature environments. In China's densely populated areas, most of them are in warm and humid environments in the same season of rain and heat. Third, the problems of potatoes such as "degradation phenomenon" and "late epidemic disease" are difficult to solve in traditional society, which is the biggest reason that restricts its development.
American vegetable crop
0The introduction of American vegetables also had a significant impact on China's food culture. The most typical case is Sichuan cuisine. It is precisely because of the introduction of American vegetables that Sichuan cuisine was formed in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. The two American crops that contribute the most to Sichuan cuisine are the two major American crops - chili and tomato.
pepper, ginger, green onion, mustard , dogwood are spicy ingredients in China. Dogwood eating is the most common spicy ingredient in ancient China. Chili peppers were introduced to Zhejiang during the Wanli period ( Gao Lian : " Zunsheng Bajian "). They were originally ornamental plants, but people soon discovered that chili peppers could replace seasonings such as peppers. However, there was no tradition of accustomed to spicy food in the southeast coast, so chili peppers were not valued. However, the southeast is not bright, and the southwest is bright, which is related to the geographical environment of the southwest. Partly because of the superstition that eating spicy food can "removing dampness", partly because chili peppers are used instead of the scarce well salt , and partly because chili peppers can be eaten in large quantities, the southwest region has begun to eat a lot of chili peppers.
from Zhejiang to Hunan, with Hunan as the secondary center, and then spread to Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan and other places respectively, which is inconsistent with the trend of " Huguang filling Sichuan ". During the Kangxi period, Hunan had recorded " sea pepper ". There were many prefectures and counties recorded during the Qianlong and Jiajia period. Hunan was the largest among provincial units. Therefore, it is speculated that Hunan was the first province to eat spicy food in my country. Jiaqing html may have eaten spicy food in the 5 years. Guizhou had already eaten spicy food as early as the Kangxi period, and Guizhou generally ate spicy food during the Daoguang period; it was not until Tongzhi that Sichuan began to eat chili peppers widely, and the most important seasoning in Sichuan cuisine - Pixian Douban appeared in the mid-19th century; the large amount of pepper consumption in Yunnan began during the Guangxu period. "Qing Bai Lei Chao" shows that "Dian, Guizhou, Hunan, and Sichuan people are fond of spicy foods" in the late Qing Dynasty, and they formed a chili culture and chili community.
Although tomatoes were recorded in the Wanli period (Wang Xiangjin: "Qunfangpu"), they have always been an ornamental plant. During the Republic of China, the cultivation scope of tomatoes continued to expand, but they were mainly concentrated in the suburbs of large cities (such as Beijing and Shanghai), and there were not much cultivation. After the founding of New China, tomatoes ushered in the heyday of cultivation and consumption, so the scrambled eggs that we often eat today was popular across the country after 1949. Important vegetable crops include green beans , pumpkin, etc., which ultimately led to the formation of a vegetable crop pattern of "melon, eggplant, vegetables, and beans" in the Qing Dynasty.
[The author of this article Li Xin was promoted to a professor in the Department of History, School of Humanities, Southeast University, and authored "History of Chinese Pumpkins"]
