Chapter 1036 Long Live for Five Years, Rice, Wheat, Millet, Barnyard Barnyard Taro, Ancient Crops in East Asia

"Maitreya Buddha! This is the taste of rice, the taste of being able to cry happily!..."

"Haha! Suichiro, this is the most delicious rice from the Echigo Kingdom. It comes from the northern shore of Lake Biwa, Tsuruga County in the Echizen Kingdom, which is the place where Master Lianju taught the Dharma! The water and soil there are good, and the rice grown there is also delicious. It’s very fragrant. Don’t say it’s in Hokuriku, even in the whole world, it’s good rice!…”

"Buddha bless! Mr. Watanabe, I only ate rice from Hiraga County in Mutsu Kingdom at the banquet of the head of the family before, and it was already better than the rice grown in Katsuyamakan. I didn't expect the rice from Yue Kingdom to be so glutinous. It's sticky and full of rice fragrance, and it tastes even sweeter!…”

"! Delicious! So delicious!..."

Venison and rice porridge rolled in the iron pan, emitting fragrant white smoke. The meat is reindeer meat from Snowfield, and the rice is Etsukoku rice from Hokuriku. The area around Tsuruga County is the later Fukui County, with excellent water quality and good soil. It is the place where Koshihikari rice and Gyokuro tea are produced. As for Mutsu country's Hiraga County, it is the production area of ​​Aomori rice, and it can be regarded as one of the few places in Mutsu country that produces good rice.

At this moment, by the bonfire where the porridge was cooked, there were four cooks who were working hard to eat porridge, the monk Watanabe Masumi, the shipmaker Murakami Kidori, the horse breeder Suichiro, and the shipbuilder Jin Zenki. Everyone wolfed down the hard-won meat porridge, and even shed tears with excitement. And the rice is good and the meat is delicious. After eating a mouthful of hot venison porridge, the whole body is warmed up in this cold world of ice and snow.

"Huh! The owner is generous! I can eat such delicious rice porridge for the rest of my life even if I don't have a big root of pickles and only eat rice!...Ah! How can low-level warriors like us do it if they don't go to sea to sail and trade? Eat rice like this!"

"That's right! Maitreya Buddha has appeared! Ordinary villagers in the village can't eat rice once a year!"

"Haha! Suichiro, you said that the villagers are poor and can't eat rice once a year. I believe it..."

Hearing the emotion of the two retainers of the Oysteraki family, the monk Watanabe Masumi's eyes flickered, and he asked with a smile while he ate the venison.

"But, Murakami-kun, you are the Funamori of the Oysteraki family, don't you have rice to eat on weekdays?"

"Huh! Witnessed by the Buddha! Master Watanabe, you are a descendant of the samurai family, and you have been staying in the affluent Gyeonggi. How would you know the sufferings of us samurai from the Ezo region...not to mention our Oysterzaki family, even the Nambu family that produces good rice. , Ordinary warriors of the middle and lower ranks would not be able to eat rice twice in a month! How extravagant a family must be to be able to eat rice every day? I am afraid that even the owner of the family believes in Guanggong, and he is reluctant to bear it!..."

Chuan Fengxing Murakami Jitong ate the rice porridge and licked the pottery bowl in his hand clean, and then he let out a long breath of satisfaction, as if he had ascended to immortality. Afterwards, he snapped his fingers and told Masumi Watanabe, who was already called "Master", about the poor daily life of ordinary samurai.

"Master Watanabe, in the poor Mutsu country, rice can be a valuable food for banquets. The rice of the Oysterzaki family is strictly preserved in Takakura. In fact, the Katsuyamakan is a bit bitter cold, and the paddy field where rice can be grown , not much…”

"Oh? Then the villagers and warriors of Mutsu, if they don't grow rice, what do they grow and eat on weekdays?"

"Buddha's testimony! Villagers and warriors, they usually grow wheat, millet, barnyardgrass, and taro!"

Speaking of farming work, Murakami Jitong suddenly became energetic. In He country, it is impossible for poor low-level samurai to be out of production. Even if it is 50 shi to seal the land and 20 shi to pay rice, to feed a large family and pay tribute to the head of the family, the days are tight, and you have to work in the fields.

Right now is Japan at the end of the 15th century. Water conservancy facilities are lacking, and there are a lot of mountains, dry land, and saline-alkali land. There are actually not many paddy fields suitable for growing rice, and the output is also very insufficient. Rice is indeed an expensive item that daimyos are willing to eat often. Even a hundred years later, Date Masamune's wish is nothing more than "one day the world will be peaceful, and I will eat red bean rice, taro and radish soup and fresh sardines!"

As for the standard meals of the daimyo, Oda Nobunaga has a bowl of soup with one meat and two vegetables, plus his favorite ochazuke. But Tokugawa Ieyasu is more frugal, pickled radish is rice, and even fish is very little. The most fundamental reason for this kind of dining standard is that there are so many people and so little land, so many mountains and so few fields, and the supplies are very scarce! Needless to say, compared with the rich Daming, even North Korea, which is separated by a river, is completely inferior.

"I grow wheat, millet, barnyardgrass, and taro on weekdays? Murakami-kun, please tell me carefully! Is the wheat the kind of wheat that is ground in the Tang Dynasty to make noodles?..."

"Ha! Did you mean the wheat for eating noodles? Oh, no! Like rice, wheat is also an expensive commodity, and it is generally unavailable...The wheat that villagers usually grow is barley or highland barley!..."

"Barley or highland barley? I've drank ale, and the taste is refreshing. But I remember that this kind of crop doesn't produce much!..."

"Haha! Mr. Watanabe, I'm afraid you have never planted the land, right? The most important thing in farming is to be able to grow, to produce seeds, and not to fail! ... Flour is slightly better than rice, but the water needed There are still too many, the land is too picky, and it is delicate, otherwise the harvest will be lost! On the contrary, barley is very drought-tolerant, and highland barley can be planted especially on mountains, adapting to cold and barrenness... No matter how much water there is in this year, It’s cold and hot, but there’s always a harvest!…”

Looking at Watanabe Masumi with a blank face, Murakami Jitong smiled and continued to explain patiently.

"As for planting millet, it's millet! Ordinary warriors eat millet the most. Millet can be grown in mountains and plains, not to mention drought tolerance, and it doesn't have high requirements for farming. In a word, just don't be picky." The land is much easier to grow than wheat and rice! The yield of millet is higher than that of barley and highland barley, and it is also easy to store...In the entire Ezo and Mutsu countries, most of the decent fields are millet. This time I went north , Part of the food brought by the fleet is the rice prepared by the merchant Morino Kiyoshi, and the bulk is the millet that the owner took out from the warehouse!..."

"Well! When I was in the monastery, the big monks ate rice, and the young monks ate millet. I was a monk and soldier, and I also lived on millet!..."

Soldier Watanabe Masumi touched his chin, savoring the taste of millet porridge. That is the most common taste of hometown, and it is also the taste that I have been used to since I was a child. He thought for a while, then sighed quietly, and continued the previous topic.

"Bodhisattva bless! Tell me again, plant barnyardgrass and taro!"

"Oh! Plant barnyardgrass and taro!..."

Murakami Jitong rubbed his full belly, pressed it down hard, and then filled a bowl of delicious venison porridge. Afterwards, he glanced at Sukichiro and ordered.

"Zukichiro, your family grows barnyardgrass and taro, come and tell Mr. Watanabe!"

"Yes! Weeds and taro, those are the rations of the villagers... Weeds are wild wheat with young children, and taro are water roots that can eat roots in the water..."

With a respectful expression, Suichiro lowered his head and thought for a while, then explained with gestures.

"Master Watanabe, compared with wheat and millet, the benefits of weeds are that it is easier to grow, less picky about the soil, and it is tolerant to salty land! In the salt land by the sea, we can only grow weeds and nothing else... It is relatively Less, but more bran. The villagers are very lucky to be able to eat the bran and not starve to death. Gods and Buddhas have blessed us, and Maitreya Buddha has manifested his spirit!..."

"As for the taro, it is found in the mountains by the lake, but it is almost impossible to grow it in the Ezo land. It needs a warm place in the south. There is a species in Mutsu... It's very easy to live, and you don't need to worry about it. As long as it is planted by the water, it will grow. Receive, although it is small in size, it tastes delicious..."

The taro here is naturally not the high-yield sweet potato that only exists in the Americas, but the taro cultivated by the Chinese since ancient times. Calla taro is small in size, has many seeds, and likes water and temperature. It was a staple food before the Han Dynasty. As for the reason why "taro" withdrew from the staple food later, it was naturally because the output was too small. After the agricultural technology of the Celestial Dynasty developed in an all-round way in the Tang and Song Dynasties, all the warm waterside lands were replanted with higher-yielding rice.

"That's it!... Besides these, is there anything else?"

"Blessed by Maitreya Buddha! Of course, in addition to barley, millet, weeds, and taro, the village will grow various other crops and eat all kinds of edible things... like the soybeans and peas that come to feed the horses on the boat, those are all villagers The good food that people drool over. Oh! You can’t grow rice and wheat all the time in the field, you have to plant beans in rotation to maintain soil fertility. Among them, soybeans like warmer, peas are more cold-tolerant, and there are more peas in Ezo…”