Chapter 136: Five Years of Longevity, rice, wheat, millet, barnyard grass, taro, ancient crops of East Asia
"Maitreya Buddha! This is the taste of rice, the taste that can make you cry with happiness!..."
"Haha! Sukeichiro, this is the most delicious Etsu rice. It comes from the Tsuruga County of Echizen Province on the north shore of Lake Biwa, which is also the place where Renyoshou taught the Dharma! The water and soil there are good, and the rice grown there is also good.
It’s very fragrant. Not to mention in Hokuriku, even in the whole world, there is good rice!…”
"Buddha bless you! Watanabe-kun, I have only eaten rice from Hiraga County of Mutsu Province at the master's banquet before, and it is already more delicious than the rice grown in Katsuyamakan. I didn't expect that rice from Yue Kingdom is so glutinous.
It’s sticky, full of rice flavor, and has a sweet aftertaste!…”
"??! Delicious! So delicious!…"
Venison and rice porridge are tumbling in the iron pot, and fragrant white smoke is rising. The meat is reindeer meat from the snowy plains, and the rice is Hokoku rice from Hokuriku. The area around Tsuruga County, which later became Fukui Prefecture, has excellent water quality.
The soil is good, and it is the place where Koshihikari rice and Gyokuro tea are produced. As for Hiraga County in Mutsu Province, it is the place where Aomori rice is produced. It is also one of the few places in Mutsu Province that produces good rice.
At this moment, around the bonfire where the porridge was being cooked, four rice cooks were sitting around, including Watanabe Masumi, the monk soldier, Murakami Kitichi, the boat master, Sukeichiro the horse breeder, and Jin Shanshu, the boat builder. Everyone was gobbling up the food.
The hard-won meat porridge even made me cry with excitement. The rice was so good and the meat was fragrant. After taking a mouthful of the hot venison porridge, my whole body was instantly warmed up in the cold ice and snow.
"Phew! The master of the house is generous! I can eat such fragrant rice porridge for the rest of my life even without a big pickle and just eat rice!...Ah! How could lower-level warriors like us be able to do this if we were not sailing and trading?
Eat rice like this!”
"That's right! Maitreya Buddha has appeared! Ordinary villagers in the village cannot eat rice even once throughout the year!"
"Haha! Suichiro, you said that the villagers are poor and cannot eat rice even once throughout the year. I believe this..."
Hearing the sighs of the two retainers of the Uyizaki family, Watanabe Masumi, a monk soldier, had his eyes flashing and asked with a smile while eating venison.
"But, Murakami-kun, you are the captain of the Oyizaki family, don't you have rice to eat on weekdays?"
"Hoo! Witness the Buddha! Mr. Watanabe, you are a direct descendant of the samurai family and you have been staying in the prosperous Gyeonggi. How could you know the sufferings of us Ezo warriors... let alone our Oyizaki family, even the southern family that produces good rice
, Ordinary middle- and lower-level warriors cannot eat rice twice a month! What a luxurious family it must be to be able to eat rice every day? I am afraid that even the head of the family, Xin Guanggong, is reluctant to part with it!…"
After finishing the rice porridge and licking the pottery bowl in his hand clean, Murakami Jidong, the ship leader, exhaled a long breath of satisfaction, as if he had ascended to immortality. Then, he clasped his fingers and called him
Masumi Watanabe, the "adult", gave a good talk about the poor daily life of ordinary samurai.
"Watanabe-sama, in the poor Mutsu country, rice can be a valuable food for banquets. The rice of the Uyizaki family is strictly preserved in Takakura. In fact, there are some bitter cold in Katsuyamakan, and there are paddy fields where rice can be grown.
, not much…”
"Oh? Then if the villagers and samurai of Mutsu don't grow rice, what do they grow and eat on weekdays?"
"Witness the Buddha! What the villagers and warriors usually grow are wheat, millet, barnyard grass and taro!"
Talking about the work of farming, Murakami Jitsu suddenly became energetic. In the War Kingdom, it was impossible for poor lower-level samurai to leave their jobs. Even if they had a land of 50 shi and a salary of 20 shi, they had to support a large family.
He also had to pay tribute to the head of the family, and the days were tight, so he had to work in the fields.
It is Japan at the end of the 15th century. Water conservancy facilities are very lacking, and there are a lot of mountains, dry land, and saline-alkali land. There are not many paddy fields suitable for growing rice, and the output is also very insufficient. Rice is indeed a precious commodity that only the famous people are willing to eat often.
.Even a hundred years later, Date Masamune's wish was just "One day when the world is peaceful, I want to eat red bean rice, taro and radish soup and fresh sardines!"
As for the daimyo's standard meal, Oda Nobunaga had one meat and two vegetables, a bowl of soup, and his favorite Ochazuke rice. Tokugawa Ieyasu was more frugal, with pickled radish and rice, and even very little fish. This kind of meal
The most fundamental reason for the standard is that the country has more people but less land, more mountains and less fields, and very scarce materials! Needless to say, compared with the rich Ming Dynasty, even North Korea, which is separated by a river, is completely inferior.
"On weekdays, you grow wheat, millet, barnyard millet, and taro? Murakami-kun, please tell me carefully! Is the wheat the kind of wheat that is ground to make flour in Tang Dynasty?..."
"Ha! Are you talking about wheat for eating noodles? Oh, no! Wheat, like rice, is also expensive and generally cannot be eaten... The wheat that villagers usually grow is barley or highland barley!..."
"Barley or highland barley? I have drunk ale wine, and the taste is quite refreshing. But I remember that this crop does not produce much!..."
"Haha! Mr. Watanabe, I'm afraid you have never farmed before, right? The most important thing in farming is to be able to plant and produce seeds, and not to lose harvest! ...Wheat is slightly better than rice, but it requires more water.
There are still too many, too picky, and delicate, and if you don’t do it properly, you will lose the harvest! On the contrary, barley is very drought-tolerant, and highland barley can especially be grown in the mountains, adapting to cold and barrenness... No matter how much water there is this year,
When it’s cold or hot, there’s always a harvest!…”
Looking at the confused Watanabe Masumi, Murakami Yimichi smiled and continued to explain patiently.
"As for growing millet, that's millet! Ordinary warriors eat the most millet. Millet can be grown in mountains and plains. It is drought-resistant and has low farming requirements. In a word, it is not picky.
The land is much easier to grow than wheat and rice! And the yield of millet is higher than that of barley and barley, and it is also easy to store... In the entire Ezo region and Mutsu country, most serious fields are planted with 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!..."
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Well! When I was in the temple, the big monks ate rice, and the little monks ate millet. I was a monk soldier, and I also lived on millet!..."
Watanabe Masumi, a monk soldier, touched his chin and reminisced about the taste of millet porridge. It was the most common taste of his hometown and the taste he had been accustomed to since childhood. He thought about it for a while, then sighed quietly and continued the previous topic.
.
"Bodhisattva bless you! Tell me again about planting barnyard grass and taro!"
"Oh! Planting barnyard grass and growing taro!..."
Murakami Kidomi rubbed his full belly, pressed it down hard, and then filled up another bowl of fragrant venison porridge. Then he looked at Sukeichiro and gave instructions.
"Sukeichiro, your family grows barnyard grass and taro, come and tell Mr. Watanabe!"
"Yes! Taro and taro are the food rations for the villagers... taro is the wild wheat that has few children, and taro is the aquatic grass that can be eaten by its roots in the planting water..."
Sukeichiro looked respectful, lowered his head and thought for a moment, then explained with gestures.
"Mr. Watanabe, compared with wheat and corn, the advantages of tares are that they are easier to grow, are less picky about the land, and are tolerant to salty soil! In the salt land by the sea, you can only grow tares, and nothing else... It is relatively easy to grow.
There is less, but there is a lot of chaff. Villagers are very lucky to be able to eat chaff without starving to death because they have been favored by gods and Buddhas and Maitreya Buddha has appeared!…"
"As for taro, it can be grown in the mountains around the lake, but it is almost impossible to grow it in Ezo. It needs a warm place in the south. There are people growing it in Mutsu... That thing is very easy to grow, so you don't have to worry about it at all. You just need to plant it near the water.
Wow, even though it’s small, it tastes delicious…”
The taro here is naturally not the high-yielding sweet potato that only exists in the Americas, but the water taro cultivated by the Chinese dynasty since ancient times. The "taro" in the "Book of Han" says "I eat beans, eat soup, and eat taro." The water taro is small in size and has many seeds.
It likes water and warm temperatures, and was a staple food before the Han Dynasty. As for the reason why "taro" was later withdrawn from the staple food, it was naturally that the yield was too small. After the agricultural technology of the Chinese Dynasty fully developed in the Tang and Song Dynasties, all the warm waterside fields were replanted with higher yields.
of rice.
"That's it!...In addition to these, is there anything else?"
"Buddha Maitreya bless you! Of course, in addition to barley, millet, taro, and taro, the countryside will grow various other crops and eat all kinds of edible things... such as the soybeans and peas that are brought to the boats to feed the horses. Those are all villagers.
It’s such good food that we are drooling over. Oh! You can’t grow rice and wheat all the time in the fields. You have to plant beans in rotation to maintain the fertility of the soil. Soybeans prefer warmer temperatures, while peas are more tolerant of cold. Ezo lands are mostly planted with peas..."
