In the hot summer, a piece of sweet watermelon can quench the heat and quench thirst. Now it's very common. But do you know when watermelon was introduced into China? Today, let's follow Xiaobian to see how watermelon came into China.
It is said that watermelon was discovered when Shennong tasted a hundred herbs. Its original name was thin melon, which means watery and succulent melon, but later it became watermelon.
Another saying is that it did not come from China, but from the western regions, so it is called watermelon.
As early as 4000 years ago, Egyptians planted watermelons. Later, they gradually moved northward. At first, they spread from the Mediterranean coast to northern Europe, and then southward to the Middle East, India and other places. In the 4th and 5th centuries, they introduced watermelons from the western regions to China, so they called them 'watermelons'.
According to the Ming Dynasty scientist Xu Guangqi's agricultural administration book: "watermelon, planted in the western regions, hence its name. Li Shizhen of Ming dynasty recorded in compendium of materia medica: "according to Hu Qiao, we got a melon variety in Huihe, which is called watermelon. Watermelon has been introduced into China since the Five Dynasties, and now it exists in both the north and the south. This shows that watermelon cultivation has a long history in China.
In the past, some people quoted Ouyang Xiu's appendix to the new history of the Five Dynasties in the Song Dynasty as saying that Hu Qiao, the magistrate of Yingyang County in Tongzhou of the Five Dynasties, entered Qidan to "eat watermelon first", "Qidan broke Huihe to get this kind of watermelon, and planted it in a shed covered with cow dung, which is as sweet as Chinese wax gourd", "three years of Zhou Guangshun (953) & hellip; & hellip; qiaogui". Therefore, it seems to be a conclusion that watermelon was introduced into China from the western regions in the Five Dynasties. In recent years, articles about watermelon in newspapers and periodicals hold this view. In 1981, Hunan people's Publishing House published the middle school students' extracurricular reading history of clothing, food, housing and transportation, in which there was the section "watermelon began in the Five Dynasties". In fact, this statement is not accurate.
Li Shizhen of Ming Dynasty pointed out in compendium of Materia Medica that watermelon is also called cold gourd. "Tao Hongjing (from the northern and Southern Dynasties) noted that Yongjia (the year of emperor Huaidi of the Jin Dynasty) has a very big cold gourd, which can be stored until spring. Before the Five Dynasties of Gai, melon species had been planted in eastern Zhejiang, but they did not have the name of watermelon and did not spread all over China. According to the biography of Teng Tan Gong in southern history, Tan Gong was five years old. His mother Yang was suffering from fever and wanted to eat cold gourd, which was not produced by local customs. Tan Gong can't get a visit, but he is sad. I met a sangmen and asked why. Tan Gong told me. Sangmen said: & lsquo; I have two melons, one is left behind. &"I was surprised by my mother's visit to sangmen, but I didn't know where it was.". In the 19th volume of Youyang Zazu written by Duan Chengshi of Tang Dynasty, it is recorded in the poem Xingyuan written by Yin Hou (Shen Yue), "the cold gourd lies on the ridge, the autumn Pu is full of the pond. Purple eggplant is rotten, green taro is uneven. 'from the poem, we can see that the time of winter melon lying on the ground is just like watermelon. In addition, in old Beijing, the watermelon that first appeared on the market was called "water melon" and the watermelon that later appeared on the market was called "cold melon"; in today's interview with the old farmers, it was also said that the watermelon that came on the market later did have the name of "cold melon". It seems that the above-mentioned literature can be confirmed by Li Shizhen's statement.
Watermelon, as the name suggests, is a melon from the western regions. Before the Five Dynasties, since it had been introduced into the southeast coastal areas of China, it was not called watermelon, but because of its cold and antipyretic nature, it was called cold melon. Therefore, it seems doubtful that watermelon was introduced into China from the western regions. So, from what route did it come to China?
It is speculated that it was introduced into China by the maritime Silk Road. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty once sent a "translator" to collect merchants, carry silk, and take a sea boat to the Pearl, Bi, strange stones, and foreign objects in the western countries. The ship sailed from Leizhou Peninsula, along the west coast of Beibu Gulf and the coast of Vietnam, around the southern tip of Vietnam, then along the Gulf of Siam, down the coast of Malay Peninsula, to Singapore, then turned west, crossed the Strait of Malacca, and reached the destination along the bay of Bengal.
Most scholars think it's Sri Lanka. Some say it's Abyssinia in East Africa. Either way is right, it shows that the sea route between China and Africa has been opened in the era of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. Because in the Han Dynasty, the Arabs had mastered the secret of trade winds in the Indian Ocean and were able to cross the Indian Ocean from east to west. In this way, Sri Lanka and the Nanyang islands are likely to become transit stations for China and Africa. African watermelons can be introduced to China through Sri Lanka or the Nanyang islands. The watermelon seeds unearthed from Han Tombs in Guangxi and Jiangsu are evidence of the communication between China and Africa on the maritime Silk Road.