Short video spoiler history: The beginning of modern warfare

Chapter 25 Sweet potatoes! Cotton!
[In ancient times, there was no cotton. How did people survive the winter? #History#Tang Dynasty#Wintering]

[In fact, in ancient times, many people could not survive the winter. We will find this out if we look through the historical records.]

[In history, after every large-scale snowfall, large numbers of people have frozen to death, just as they have starved to death due to famine.]

[We should know that the temperature in China during the Han Dynasty was much higher than it is today, but it is recorded in the Book of Han Wuxing Zhi]

[In 122 BC, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, caught an animal with five hooves on one foot while hunting in the wild]

[This animal was regarded as auspicious, so the year's name was changed to Yuanshou. However, the winter of the first year of Yuanshou was not auspicious at all.]

[Historical records: In December of the first year of Yuanshou, there was heavy rain and snow, and many people froze to death.]

[Seven years later, there were two consecutive years of snow disasters, namely the second and third years of Yuanding. In March of the second year of Yuanding, the snow was five feet thick on the flat bottom. In March of the third year of Yuanding, the water froze, and in April it snowed and rained. People in more than ten counties in Guandong ate each other.]

[You should know that this happened not long after Emperor Wu of Han launched the Battle of Mobei, when the Han Dynasty was full of martial virtue and the country was not facing any crisis.]

Chang'an City during the Yuanshou period of the Han Dynasty.

Liu Che's expression was very complicated. He knew what happened in the first year of Yuanshou, but many things cannot be changed just by knowing.

For example, land is used to grow food. If other crops are planted, there will not be enough food, and more people will starve to death.

Will this kind of rain and snow disaster come back again in four years?
Liu Che clenched his fists!
There should still be enough time!

In Hujia Village, Duling County, Jingzhao Yin, a tall and thin man wearing a linen shirt with dozens of patches of different sizes stood up and bent over to pull weeds. He wiped the tears from his face, and his palms, mixed with mud and water that smelled like earth from the fields, got on his cheeks and eyebrows.

The tall and thin man's mother was already weak and finally froze to death on the Bingchen day of December. His father passed away on the evening of seven days later.

Not only his family, but also the more than 40 households in Hujia Village, large and small, were filled with the sound of suona at funerals and sobbing at night that winter.

Damn it!

[In the first year of the Tianfu reign of Emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty, which was 901 AD, historical records say: From winter to spring, rain and snow continued, and countless people were frozen and starved.]

[Even in the capital city of Chang'an at that time, thousands of people froze to death every day.]

[Not only among the common people, but also in the royal palaces and palaces, a large number of palace servants and royal family members froze to death due to lack of food]

[In the Song Dynasty, there are countless records in the History of the Song Dynasty about people freezing to death in the capital Bianliang in winter.]

At the end of the Han Dynasty, Jiangling City in Nanjun.

I sigh deeply and wipe away my tears, mourning the hardships of people's lives.

Liu Bei sighed and could only record the matter, but he knew in his heart that without the help of Tianmu, it would be difficult for any dynasty alone to resolve the problem.

When Emperor Xiaowu was on the throne, despite the influence of the two previous emperors, he was still unable to do anything about the situation.

Compared with this world, the heavy rain and snow during the Yuanshou period might have given us a chance to survive.

Perhaps if food production is increased, some land can be freed up to grow a crop called cotton?

[Most people in ancient times had no way to buy winter supplies like we do today]

[For example, cotton did not enter China until after the Southern Song Dynasty, and large-scale cultivation in the mainland did not begin until the late Qing Dynasty.]

[That is to say, cotton was a luxury in ancient times. Most ordinary people could only use weeds or catkins to survive the winter.]

[If we look at the photos of Chinese people taken by Westerners in the late Qing Dynasty, we will find that most Chinese people at that time were lucky to have a piece of cloth for clothing.]

[As for keeping warm properly, that is unthinkable, which explains why many modern photos, such as the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing, are not as beautiful as the ones in the past.]

[The area around the capital of the Qing Dynasty was completely bare without any green plants, because firewood was a luxury in ancient times]

[All the trees that could be cut down around these big cities were cut down, which led to serious soil erosion in the north in the late Qing Dynasty]

[It was not until industrialization began and productivity was raised that we had the greenery we see today.]

During the Hongwu period, Jinling City.

There was no cotton in ancient times. How did people survive the winter?
This question is similar to "Why not eat meat porridge?", except that one sounds absurd while the other makes people feel mixed emotions.

Zhu Yuanzhang was very familiar with the hardships of life at the bottom of society, but when he recalled them now, it seemed like a lifetime ago.

Since when did I no longer worry about freezing to death in winter?
He didn't even worry about himself, so how could he worry about whether the common people at the bottom would freeze to death?

Mencius said: "The people are the most important, the ruler is the least important." He felt that this was wrong, so he removed Mencius from the Confucian Temple.

At this moment, the sky tore open the scars of his pain. He remembered the day in the fourth year of Zhizheng when his father, mother and brothers starved to death one after another. He and his second brother rolled up a straw mat and went around begging their parents for a piece of land to bury the whole family.

Perhaps, we should wait a little longer and see if the fertilizer formula mentioned in the sky can really increase grain production, and then we can promote cotton production depending on the situation.

In Jinling City, people looked at the sky with complicated expressions.

Not to mention the rich life in the future, just the fact of having enough food and clothing is already something that people envy.

And hasn’t the area around Jinling City been barren since ancient times?
"It's only been a dozen years since I was well fed and clothed. When I was a kid, I froze to death in the winter, and my hands and ears were swollen from the cold."

"I also remember that my cheeks and hands were always cracked and scarred when I was a child, and the same was true for the other kids around me."

"I always feel that it was much colder when I was a kid than it is now"

"Now I finally understand why firewood is ranked first among the necessities of life [crying]"

"Why do I feel that firewood is worthless? You can get it by going up the mountain, but oil and salt were not available to ordinary people in ancient times."

"Did you know that in ancient times, you needed the permission of the landowner to collect and cut firewood from the mountains, otherwise you would be stealing?"

"Many trees are owned by the government. Cutting them down is not allowed. Don't you know that it is forbidden in mountains and swamps?"

In the Imperial College of Jinling City, a student named Du who had previously written novels and several of his classmates were looking at the sky with tears in their eyes.

Isn't the reason why scholars study to put into practice what they have learned and benefit the country?
The words of later generations are often absurd and ridiculous, but the absurdity of the language is heartbreaking.

Can you imagine that you can pick up firewood from the mountains and grass and leaves on the ground to start a fire?

Du Ping couldn't imagine it, but he knew that if that day came, it would be a very happy thing.

The Little Ice Age ended in 1980, and the Ming and Qing dynasties were the coldest.

"If you don't want to provide disaster relief, just say that the Ming Dynasty had the most deaths from freezing. With similar territories, the population of the Ming Dynasty was 100 million at its peak, while the Qing Dynasty had a population of 400 million. Moreover, the Qing Dynasty was not a Han dynasty, so its people's livelihood was much better than that of the Ming Dynasty."

"In fact, there is a main reason. The Qing Dynasty promoted sweet potatoes on a large scale. Sweet potatoes were introduced in the late Ming Dynasty, but they died before they had enough time."

Nanjun in the late Han Dynasty.

"Sweet potato" Zhuge Liang solemnly wrote two words next to "scientific and technological development". Is this the high-yield food that later generations are looking for after traveling through time?
But where to look?
What is technological development? What is industrialization? At least he knows that sweet potato is food. He knows each of these four characters, but when they are combined, it is like a book of incomprehension.

Through the comment section of Tianmu, Zhuge Liang also gradually restored the current situation in later generations.

It took about a dozen years to have enough food and clothing, especially after 2008. As I remember from earlier times, the living conditions were pretty much the same as they are now.

So, is it really possible to change the sun and the moon into a new sky in just ten years?

Everything is so unreal.

Perhaps, with the help of Tianmu, they can create another prosperous Han Dynasty!
"Why don't you flee and immigrate to the southern areas? If you reach Guangdong and Guangxi, you won't freeze to death."

"In the past, Guangdong and Guangxi were all primeval forests, full of poisonous snakes and beasts, as well as highly toxic miasma. Otherwise, how could there be a crime of "exile to Lingnan" [covering face]"

"In ancient times, transportation was not good, and there were no means of transportation. There are so many mountains from the Central Plains to Guangdong and Guangxi that you would probably die on the way."

There was no cotton in ancient times?

"Cotton was first introduced to China during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, cotton was introduced into the mainland in large quantities. In the early Ming Dynasty, cotton began to be promoted nationwide. "

"In ancient times, reed fluff was used, which is not as warm as cotton."

"Thanks to the changes brought about by industrialization, there was no prosperity in the ancient feudal dynasties"

During the Zhenguan period, Chang'an City.

Li Shimin, Fang Du, Wei Zheng, Li Jing and others looked at Tianmu's statement with a somewhat depressed look on their faces.

Judging by the standards of later generations, there was indeed no prosperous era in ancient times.

However, starting from myself, I can create a prosperous era that will be admired by future generations!

Sweet potatoes! Cotton!
I want them all!
(End of this chapter)