Real ginseng is out of the party
Read ginseng in one article, the original origin of ginseng is Shanxi? Ginseng was canonized as the god and was pushed by the emperor of the Qing Dynasty?
There used to be a folk proverb "eat radish and ginseng in winter", and the radishes were all written, so simply write about the ginseng.
We now say that ginseng must be northeast, in fact, before the Ming Dynasty, when it comes to ginseng, the production area is mainly in Shanxi, Hebei Taihang Mountain, and Shanxi Shangdang ginseng is the best, the ancients even thought that only Shangdang ginseng is real ginseng.
If you don't believe me, let's take a look at the records about ginseng in ancient books
In the Spring and Autumn Period, Fan Li's book "Fan Zi Jiran" has "ginseng out of the party, like a humanoid person is good".
The Eastern Han Dynasty's book "Shuowen Jie Zi" also mentions that "human herbs, herbs, out of the party", and later generations believe that "herbs" is "ginseng".
Uncle Liu Jing's Zhiwei ** "Alien Garden" of the Southern Song Dynasty said that "ginseng, an earth spirit, is good for those who give birth to the party".
The so-called Shangdang, that is, the current area of Changzhi, Shanxi, the reason why this place is named after "Shangdang" is said to be because "the earth is extremely high, and the sky is the party".
The ground is high, and the inaccessible track provides the best growing environment for ginseng.
Ginseng needs to grow in the shade of trees, ginseng has a long growth cycle, and the deep mountain jungle in Shangdang provides the best shelter for ginseng. Unfortunately, later due to excessive mining and the destruction of the ginseng growth environment, by the Ming Dynasty, Shangdang ginseng had almost disappeared.
Watching costume dramas, you can always see rich and noble families eating ginseng to nourish their bodies when they are sick and injured.
Ginseng has a nourishing effect, and there is a record in Shennong's Materia Medica.
Regarding ginseng, the book reads: "Sweet in taste, slightly cold." The main tonifies the five organs, calms the spirit, fixes the soul, stops palpitations, removes evil spirits, brightens the eyes, is happy, intellectual, and prolongs life after a long time. One title, one ghost cover".
The tone of ginseng's appearance is very high, and it replenishes the five organs, calms the nerves and intellectuals, and all of a sudden, the spirit and body are managed, and if you are sick, you can cure the disease, and if you are not sick, you can prolong your life.
I think it is precisely because of this phrase "wear light for a long time and prolong life" that myths and legends about ginseng have begun to appear one after another. Let's take a look at the myths about ginseng in ancient books
The book "Taiping Yulan" in the Song Dynasty quoted "Rites and Fighting Prestige" as saying that "there is ginseng below, and purple gas is on it", and where there is ginseng, there will be "purple gas" in the sky.
If there is purple qi, it means that there are either gods and saints in this place. According to the "Legend of the Immortals": "Lao Tzu traveled to the west, Guan Ling Yin Xi looked forward to seeing the purple gas floating pass, and Lao Tzu Guo passed by the green ox", and the allusion "purple gas came from the east" is ** here.
There is also "shaking the light and scattering ginseng" in the Taiping Yulan, which connects the stars in the sky with ginseng.
In this way, the ginseng has the light of God.
When the time came to the Wei and Jin dynasties, "Wu Pu Materia Medica" had a further description of ginseng, saying that ginseng: "The root has a head, feet, and hands, and the face looks like a person."
Now that ginseng has taken on the form of a human being, people have begun to give ginseng their actions again.
Uncle Liu Jing's Zhiwei ** "Alien Garden" of the Southern Dynasty Song Dynasty said ginseng: "All human forms are available, and they can cry." In the past, some people dug it, and when they started to dig it, they heard the groaning sound in the soil, looked for the sound and took it, and they got ginseng. ”
At this point, ginseng not only has the appearance of a human being, but can also cry like a human being, and the ginseng has become refined.
The ginseng that has become refined has not soared, and is still used by doctors in the name of medicine.
Liang Tao Hongjing's "Famous Doctors" of the Southern Dynasty said that ginseng is mainly used to treat "cold stomach, abdominal pain, chest and flank reversal, cholera vomiting".
Zhen Quan's "Medicinal Materia Medica" in the Tang Dynasty said that ginseng "has five labors and seven injuries, a lot of deficiency and phlegm, and can stop vomiting" and other diseases.
The Song Dynasty Rihuazi's "Zhujia Materia Medica" said that ginseng "can eliminate food, appetize, regulate the middle, cure qi, and kill gold and stone poison".
Li Dongyuan's "Medication Method" of the Yuan Dynasty said that ginseng can "replenish the vitality in the lungs".
It can be seen that until the Yuan Dynasty, the diseases targeted by ginseng were also roughly within the scope of the "Shennong's Materia Medica".
In the eyes of doctors, ginseng in this period was still just an ordinary medicine, which could be taken when sick and weak. Compared with the ginseng of later generations, which was measured in two and weighed by money, the ginseng in the Song Dynasty was still measured in catties.
Su Shi said in the book brief of "Three Songs with Zhang Qianfu": "In case there are people from the south, it is necessary to give a few catties of mountain ginseng and dried dates." Not guilty! Not guilty! "Ginseng is bought by catties, and it is used in the morning and evening, and the ginseng in Su Shi's era is not a rare thing, and the price is not expensive.
In the Ming Dynasty, because of a person, ginseng was lifted to the position of "miracle medicine", and this person was Li Shizhen.
In the "Compendium of Materia Medica", Li Shizhen not only discussed ginseng in thousands of words, but also said that ginseng "cures all false evidence in men and women, fever and sweating, dizziness and headache, nausea and vomiting, malaria, slippery diarrhea and diarrhea, frequent urination, fatigue and internal injury, stroke and heat stroke, paralysis, ** coughing up blood and blood, bloody collapse, prenatal and postnatal diseases", good guys, ginseng cures all diseases.
Although ginseng is good, in Li Shizhen's time, ginseng is no longer high for many people. For no other reason, the ginseng origin has changed.
In the Ming Dynasty, the origin of ginseng has been transferred from Shanxi and Hebei to the northeast, and Li Shizhen said in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "The people used today are all Liao ginseng."
The origin of Liao Shen belongs to the jurisdiction of the Jurchen people, and in the Ming Dynasty, this area is no longer accessible to anyone who wants to go.
Later, this Jurchen established the Great Qing Dynasty. It was also in the Qing Dynasty that ginseng completed the road of being called king and god, and the driving force behind calling king and god was the emperors and queens of the Qing Dynasty.
In the Internet era, when it comes to brand promotion, it is emphasized to tell a good brand story. In the Qing Dynasty, the emperor and queen personally went down to tell the story of ginseng.
Because the Qing Dynasty started from the ginseng production area, the entire Qing court had the custom of eating ginseng.
According to Deng Yuna's article "Looking at the Customs of Eating Ginseng in the Palace from the Medical Archives of the Qing Dynasty", only "in the thirteenth year of Yongzheng, the "Ginseng Medicine File of the Tai Hospital" recorded that the general ginseng in the court from the first month to the end of the year reached 230 catties, you know, even in the modern era of ginseng cultivation, ginseng is also calculated in "grams", and the palace of Emperor Yongzheng eats 230 catties a year, which can definitely be described as "giant".
The most ginseng is used by Emperor Qianlong, or in this article, it is recorded that Emperor Qianlong spent two years, "a total of 359 times of ginseng", it is not an exaggeration to say that Qianlong is a proper person.
In addition to eating, Qianlong also wrote "Song of Ginseng", and this sentence "Warm sex likes cold in the place of birth" in concise words to explain the characteristics and place of ginseng.
The emperor eats it, and the emperor's concubines naturally eat it, but it is said that the concubines can not eat ginseng until they are middle-aged, and even so, the amount of ginseng in the emperor's harem is amazing.
The ginseng eaten by the emperor's family naturally cannot be an ordinary thing, so myths and stories about ginseng are also circulated among the people, such as ginseng becoming a fat doll and ginseng becoming a beautiful girl. There is also a saying about ginseng: "Seven taels are ginseng, eight taels are treasures, and nine taels are running all over the ground", which means that the ginseng of nine taels is too old and has been cultivated to perfection, and it may run away if you are not careful. In order to prevent the ginseng from running away, after finding the ginseng, you must tie a red rope to your life, which is not counted, but also a copper coin with the word "Qianlong" on the red rope.
As the saying goes, "If there is something good at the top, it will be very bad at the bottom." "The things that the emperor took naturally couldn't be wrong, so the powerful and rich began to eat ginseng.
After watching the movie "Dream of Red Mansions", you must remember that the wives, young ladies and young masters in ** are weak, weak and sick, and they can't do without ginseng.
According to Mr. Jiang Zhushan's "Ginseng Empire", ginseng "has become a daily consumption medicinal material that can be accepted by the general public in society, and it is indeed a special phenomenon that only existed in the Qing Dynasty".
It was also in the Qing Dynasty that ginseng completed the all-in-one medicine that was known to the emperor and the common people, and ginseng became the king of all medicines, herbs, and supplements.
Author: Wang Gongjian.