Killing demons in the city has become the only thing Xie Baoshu has done these days.

When the black dragon armor appeared at the head of the city, countless people cast their eyes. Many old people know that this black dragon armor is Liu Guanshan's armor. It's a big deal to have it on a young man now.

With so many soldiers, on the mountains of the two realms, logistics must also be done well.

Food and shelter are big things.

The emperor did not send hungry soldiers, the army was scattered if there was no food, and the soldiers and horses went first before they moved the grain and grass.

There are many aphorisms about the importance of military rations. No matter when and where, only when and where a soldier eats and sleeps well can he have the ability to march and fight in heavy equipment. Although the Tang Dynasty is a big culinary country, those dishes with a variety of patterns are the patent of wealthy and aristocratic families, and ordinary soldiers cannot enjoy them, and the food in the barracks is just two words "monotonous". Now let's talk about the boring barracks diet.

The distant ancestors of the Han people were semi-nomadic, semi-fishermen and hunters, but since they entered the interior of the Central Plains from Qinghai, Gansu Province, the population gradually increased and began to develop primitive agriculture. In the Shang Dynasty, hunting was a major source of military rations.

The scale of the Shang Dynasty's field hunting was very large, and hundreds of beasts and animals could be obtained by dispatching thousands of people at a time. The oracle bone inscription records that during a field hunt, the merchant obtained 500 deer. By the time of the Zhou Dynasty, the scale of hunting was even larger, and King Wu of Zhou once hunted tens of thousands of wild animals at one time.

After the half-farming and half-pastoral life in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, after the Warring States period, the Han nationality officially became an agricultural nation, and cereals and some vegetables of low quality became the common people and the main diet of the army.

The army diet was generally rudimentary, coarse, and only at the level of a stomach. The Eighth Route Army-PLA has always claimed to be millet plus rifles, which has historical sources. Millet, commonly known as millet, is called millet after the grain is hulled. For most of the time, the ancient Chinese army was at the level of millet plus swords and spears. The Qin Dynasty was rich, accumulating millet like hills and mountains, and ten times richer in the world. Qin Lu dared to record that there were granaries with 10,000 stones everywhere in the territory of Qin, and even the grain warehouses in Xianyang had 100,000 stones of grain. It is precisely because of such a powerful logistical supply that the Qin army can use hundreds of thousands of armor to fight in the south and the north and unify the world.

Before the Tang Dynasty, the general cooking utensils were pottery, and there were very few iron pots. Pottery is best for cooking porridge and not for stir-frying. The three generations of Xia Shang were all cooking millet porridge, but it was still vegetable porridge. It is necessary to add a variety of wild vegetables, wild fruits, beans and even meat porridge with meat. As soon as the army arrived at the meal, they set up a pot to boil vegetables and porridge to drink. It's just that the porridge at that time was very thick and called thick.

Millet was used as a military food from ancient times to the Tang Dynasty. The main reason was that the political and military centers of Kyushu at that time were in the north, especially in the northwest. The second is that millet is very easy to preserve, Tang Dynasty documents say that millet can be stored for nine years, while rice can only be stored for five years. In fact, millet can be preserved for a longer time, and twenty years after the fall of the Sui Dynasty, the stored grain left in Chang'an is still edible.

Before the Tang Dynasty, the army ate millet, and a soldier fought a day.

The long shelf life is the most important aspect of military rations, and the taste is the least important aspect of military rations. Foods with a long shelf life are also very suitable for the situation when the transportation was very backward in ancient times

。 In ancient times, transportation was difficult, and in order to avoid waste, the state introduced many policies. For example, the Sui Dynasty stipulated that if you steal more than one liter of border grain, you will be beheaded and your family will be confiscated.

Soldiers who abandoned rice millet were beheaded. The army needed to set up supply depots on possible battlefields and on marching routes. If you can keep your food for a long time, you don't need to worry about expiration and damage, and you need to renew it frequently.

So how did the army distribute rations? The Qin army stipulated that for high-intensity work, half a bucket of millet for breakfast and one-third of a bucket of millet for dinner. Standing guard and other tasks, one third of each morning and evening to fight millet.

The Han army stipulated that soldiers engaged in heavy physical activities were given two stones, nine buckets, three liters of grain and three liters of salt a month. The Tang Dynasty stipulated that a soldier would be given 2 liters of grain a day as rations.

The monthly ration of the soldiers of the Tang Army Forbidden Army is three stones, and the box army is two stones, and the forbidden army is only 8 nine buckets of monthly rations in the later period, and then the brown rice is filled with rice, and the small bucket is replaced by a big bucket. Until the end of the period, military rations were often in arrears. As rations continued to decrease, the combat effectiveness of the Tang Army also showed a downward trend. There is no need to mention non-staple foods such as meat and eggs, and you can't eat enough, so how can you wear dozens of pounds of heavy armor to fight against the northern nomadic cavalry?

Generally speaking, flatbread steamed buns became military rations very late. Because flour processing was difficult, and people didn't know how to ferment at that time, all the dry food they made was dead noodles. Since the Han Dynasty, the Chinese people began to eat noodles, which were called soup cakes at that time. After the Han and Wei dynasties, boiling batter and gnocchi became the most commonly used way to eat.

Whether it is soup cake or batter, it is not convenient to carry, only dry food is the best convenience food. As the saying goes, "The husband feeds the grain for thousands of miles, and the soldiers are hungry; The situation is deep into the enemy's territory, and it is impossible to fly... A person holds three buckets of dry grain, which can be used for several decades." The best way for the army to carry dry rations in combat is to carry them.

In later generations, the army's favorite military food flatbread appeared relatively late, and there were only baked cakes in the Han Dynasty, and they were occasionally eaten among the people. The army generally prefers dry food and cooked food as rations, and in the Tang Dynasty, baked cakes and flatbreads became military rations.

In order to be able to fight against the Turkic, Uighur and other northern and northwestern nomads, the Tang Dynasty established a cavalry force that lived together with the Turks. Reduce logistics and transportation, carry dry food supplemented by fishing, hunting, animal milk, long-distance travel, and thousands of miles to war.

That is, he ordered the city to divide dry food, selap cakes, and give tea, wine, firewood, and water to the soldiers. When the Song army went into battle, they marched with millet cakes, miscellaneous cakes, crumpled rice, hard pieces of salt and sauce. The most famous military dry food in ancient China was called "pot helmet cake".

The baked cake was updated and developed in the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang army could pursue the enemy in the mountainous woodlands for a long time. The round cake is grilled over charcoal fire, crispy and salty, poked into a small hole, and strung with a rope. It is convenient for soldiers to carry and eat, this is the compressed biscuit of the Ming Dynasty.

Tang Jun also has a practice of using a stone of rice to make dry rice for transportation, when eating, soak the rice in hot water, and then you can eat it, this is the water soaked rice, the instant noodles of the Ming Dynasty. In ancient times, the Japanese army also had the habit of eating soaked rice. The non-staple food of the Ming army in the field was to mix three liters of soy sauce with five liters of salt, mash it like a puree, twist it into a cake shape, expose it to dry. When you want to eat it, peel a piece of jujube pit and eat it instead of pickles.

From antiquity, the staple food of the army was mainly millet, rice and wheat. Look

It's not bad, but the worst thing for the army is the non-staple food. Ordinary soldiers have no chance and often eat meat dishes. Fresh meat and vegetables were scarce in the barracks, and the soldiers' staples were mainly two-thing, miso and pickles.

Sauce has a history of many years in China, and Zhou Tianzi's recipe includes the record of "as many as 100 urns of sauce". In the Han Dynasty, the ration of the Han army stationed in the border was two stones of grain with two buckets of sauce, and in the Qin Dynasty, one bucket of rice with half a liter of sauce. Sauce has always been the main condiment of the ancient Chinese army.

Salt is the source of the body's strength, as the saying goes, "If you don't drink pickle soup for three days, you feel like your feet are dangling." So salty salt is also an important part of military food. The Han army had a ration of three liters of salted salt per soldier, which could mainly make salted meat, salted fish, and various pickles. Tang Jun gave two liters of millet a day, and the salt was half combined. Seven stones and two buckets of grain a year.

Usually there will be a big meal when the army goes out. For example, the banquet of the Tang army is very rich, and there must be cow wine. The wine drew his sword and danced, and the horns were beaten against the drums. Musical instruments such as silk and bamboo are not to be used, as that will make the soldiers frustrated.

The recipe for the expedition banquet includes, two liters of wine for one person, two catties of beef, five white rice, two pancakes, one steamed bun, and one steamed cake. A loose seed, three soups, five taels of vegetables, as well as the head meat and hooves of cattle and sheep, sheep liver in sauce, pork liver in sauce, one-third of salt, half of sauce, one or two of ginger, three taels of green onions, and one of vinegar. From the banquet menu, we can see that the main force of the Tang army mainly came from Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and other western regions.

The nomadic and hunter-fishermen from the north had dried meat as their main military food. After a cow was killed, hundreds of kilograms of beef were dried and processed into more than 10 catties and 20 catties of jerky, which they carried with them on the expedition.

It is equivalent to a soldier marching with beef from a cow, which can be eaten for several months. This is done by drying the fresh beef for a year until all the beef is stuffed into a cow's bladder. At this point, these cow bladders become food packets. The soldier set off with a bag or several packets of beef jerky.

These air-dried beef jerky contain many times more protein than ordinary meat, and a small piece can sustain human survival. In a place where you can rest, you can also cook soup with small pieces of jerky, and a little tea and dairy food, which is rich and comprehensive in the whole nutrition. Nomads and fish-hunting cavalry do not need rear logistics to transport food at all, nor do they need non-staple foods such as cabbage and bean paste.

It was through such quick food that the nomads and fishermen and huntsmen were able to break through the Central Plains again and again through such quick food rich in nutrients and calories. For a long time, it attacked various towns and cities on a large scale. Bacon is a high-quality military food that is unanimously loved by both the army of the Central Plains Dynasty and the northern nomadic fishing and hunting army. It's just that in the Central Plains army, it is very rare.

The most cruel thing about military rations is cannibalism. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yuan Shao besieged Dongwuyang, and the food in the city was cut off, from mice to saddles. In the end, the guard general Zang Hong personally killed his beloved concubine to eat the general.

(End of chapter)