The introduction of sweet potato in China is in the Wanli years, that large-scale cultivation from when it began?

Sweet potato scientific name sweet potato, also known as yam, red taro, groundnut and so on. Sweet potato is rich in protein, starch, pectin, cellulose, amino acids, vitamins and a variety of minerals, have? Longevity food? reputation. Sugar content reaches 15% to 20%. There are anti-cancer, heart protection, prevention of emphysema, diabetes, weight loss and other effects.

The Chinese medicine regarded sweet potato as a good medicine, the Ming Dynasty Li Shizhen "Compendium of Materia Medica" recorded? Sweet potatoes to supplement the deficiency, strengthen the spleen and stomach, strong kidney yin?

Sweet potato is a good medicine for Chinese medicine, which is good for the spleen and stomach, and strong for the kidney.

Sweet potatoes are so widely grown today that they cover almost all dialect areas, hence the many aliases mentioned earlier. However, sweet potato is not really a native of China, and it has only been grown in China for a few hundred years.

Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas, where they were discovered by Christopher Columbus at the end of the 15th century, after which they were also recognized by Europeans and introduced to Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and China along with the colonists.

According to academic research, sweet potatoes were introduced to China after the middle of the Ming dynasty. The way of its introduction, one said from the Philippines, one said from Annam (Vietnam), one said from the Ryukyu Islands.

Su Yan of the Ming Dynasty wrote in his Ode to the Sweet Potato: ? A Shen, b You, Zhang, Chao of the intersection, there is an island called Nan'ao, Wenling ocean ship Road, with its seed to Jinjiang Wudu, township said Lingshui, planted in the garden Zhai. A Wu, B Wei, Wenling famine, other cereals are expensive, but the potato only ripe, the townspeople live potato seven or eight of ten.

See, sweet potato was first introduced into the Guangdong area, according to the book was written in the Xuantong years of the "Dongguan County Records" records: Wanli eight years (1580), a named Chen Yi Dongguan seafarers to the introduction of sweet potatoes into the country.

But, unfortunately, even though sweet potatoes were introduced to China as early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, people did not realize their vital value as a ration.

So initially the sweet potato spread only in Fujian and Guangdong.

In fact, the sweet potato is not demanding on soil, fertilizer and rainfall, and it is very suitable for nationwide promotion. Assuming that the government had organized a large-scale promotion of sweet potato cultivation, to help the people of Shaanxi and other places at the end of the Ming Dynasty through a decade of nine droughts in the small ice age, then there will be Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion? Unfortunately, history cannot be hypothesized.

The real large-scale popularization of sweet potato, but in the Qing Dynasty.

According to the "qing taolu class notes? Plant class" records: ? Kangxi, the Holy Father ordered in the Central State and other places, to give the seed to teach the arts, so as to support the grain of food, since then widely spread Fanzui, Zhili, Jiangsu, Shandong and other provinces are also planted. At that time, many provinces in the south, sweet potato planting has been relatively common, and become an important part of the poor people's rations.

Yongzheng three years (1725), fujian governor huang guocai zhang folding said: ? Quanzhou Province, belonging to the Hui'an, Tong'an, Kinmen coastal places, last winter's sweet potato crop failure, this spring and value of rice, the poor people near the sea is not without hardship. In addition, Yongzheng six years (1728) the two Canton Governor Kong Yuxun:? Chiu Chow folk original variety of sweet potatoes, to replace the rice grain, now all harvest, each tumbling sell money a text, Huanggang, Jieshi around every ten pounds of money seven, about a person a day's food, the cost of money is only one or two texts.

See, to the Yongzheng years, sweet potatoes have become the daily food of the lower class people, especially in the years of drought and flood, but also to become a life-saving famine.

Then many far-sighted local officials also gradually realized the importance of sweet potatoes, such as the twelfth year of the Qianlong period (1747), the governor of Anhui Province, Pan Siju asked the province to plant sweet potatoes. Anhui Fengtai county governor Zheng Ji? Tried to walk along the road, see the sandy stony soil is not governed, teach the people to plant Dioscorea, beans and wheat, so that there is no open soil. Qianlong Fan County, Shandong County Governor Wu Huancai in the local? Teach the planting of sweet potatoes, the people's difficulties are relieved?

Lu Xun wrote in "Mr. Fujino", probably because things are rare. Beijing's cabbages to Zhejiang, they are tied to the root with a red rope, hanging upside down in the head of the fruit store, honored as ? The root of the cabbage is tied with a red head rope and hung upside down at the head of the fruit shop. Fujian wild aloe vera, once in Beijing, please enter the greenhouse, and the name is? Agave?

The Qianlong period of sweet potatoes, for many northerners, is still a novelty, but also enjoy what Mr. Lu Xun said senior treatment. As documented in Yanjing yuzhi ji (Records of the Years of Yanjing), after the Qianlong period, both rich and poor in the capital used boiled sweet potatoes as a delicacy.

Compared with traditional Chinese crops such as wheat and rice, sweet potatoes do not compete with major food crops for land, and planting technology is relatively simple, the climate and rainfall requirements are not high, so it can be said, sweet potatoes for the Qing dynasty to feed hundreds of millions of people in the lower strata of the population, credit can not be ignored.

According to records, the Ming dynasty Yongle years in the population of 67 million mouth, the end of the Ming dynasty large-scale war led to a sharp decline in population. Qianlong six years (1741), the country's total registered population for the first time ever exceeded the 100 million mark, Qianlong 27 years (1762), Qianlong 55 years (1790) and successively exceeded 200 million and 300 million. By the fourteenth year of the Daoguang Dynasty (1834), the total population exceeded the 400 million mark, and by the first year of the Xianfeng Dynasty (1851), the population had reached more than 431 million.

From less than 100 million to more than 400 million, less than 200 years. Among them, can not be separated from the credit of sweet potato.