"Farmers in Lingnan are still using stone farming tools?"

Qingji looked at the stone shovel in his hand and couldn't help frowning.

Sun Li smiled awkwardly and replied, "King, the farming tools in Lingnan are still in their most primitive form. However, Quyuan plough has been extended to the six counties of Lingnan......"

"Copper and iron farming tools are not uncommon in Lingnan, but I don't dare to guarantee that they will only be used for farming."

When Sun Li said this, Qingji reacted.

At this time, Wu was already a highly developed country in agriculture and commerce.

Thanks to the advent of the Quyuan plow, there was also the continuous improvement of various agricultural tools, as well as the policy of rewarding ploughing and warfare in the state of Wu.

A large amount of barren land has been reclaimed, so that the treasury is abundant, and the grain and grass are piled up, so that every household can guarantee that there is surplus food and will not be invaded by hunger.

It's just that the situation of the six counties in Lingnan is special compared to other places in Wu State.

Stone tools are one of the earliest production tools used by humans, and the Ouluo people of Baiyue have made stone shovels for a long time.

The main shape of this shovel is double shoulders, the shoulders are flat and oblique, the body is flat and long, there are two kinds of straight waist and corseted waist, short handle, the blade is arc-shaped, and the stone is hard.

Because the ancestors of Ouluo were in awe of rice, sacrifices were held every year.

The large stone shovel was one of the tools used by the ancestors to dig a ditch in the mud to grow rice, so it was easily one of the sacrifices.

In the Central Plains, there were stone shovels in the Neolithic Age, and bronze shovels in the Shang Dynasty.

At this time, Wu Guo had begun to use shovels, and the blades were generally convex and arc-shaped, and the handles were all chisel.

Because rebellions often broke out in the six counties of Lingnan, Wu did not dare to bring advanced weapons smelting technology to the south.

For the development of copper ore and iron ore, Wu Guo is also strictly controlled, but he is afraid that the Baiyue people have sharp weapons and will become a big tail.

Qingji can still be understood.

If this ban is lifted, agriculture in Lingnan will definitely usher in a great development.

……

Night falls.

After inspecting various places in Longchuan County for a day, Qingji temporarily rested in a village.

The hospitable Baiyue people all offered their livestock, grain and rice, and all kinds of bacon to Qingji.

"Please, King!"

"Please."

Qingji sat on the main seat, and on the left and right sides of the lower head, sitting on the top were Sun Wu, Bo Yu, Wu Zixu and other ministers.

Everyone followed Qingji's movements, raised the wine bowl in their hands, hid their faces and drank the wine.

Yueren's rice wine, mixed with juice and wine, has a mellow taste, which makes people drink it upside down, which is very top.

"Good wine."

Qingji couldn't help but admire.

Then, Qingji used Kuaizi to pick up a piece of meat in the pottery bowl.

After putting it in his mouth and chewing it, Qingji couldn't help frowning, and almost didn't spit it out.

What kind of meat is this?

Not to mention the smell of fishy, the meat quality is poor, just like mutton that has not been processed in any way, it is too fishy.

Bo Yu, who was sitting not far away, also ate a bite of the same meat as Qingji, and almost couldn't hold back and spit it out.

Fortunately, Bo Ji knew that Qingji had always disliked extravagance and waste, otherwise he would have vomited a long time ago.

"This ...... What kind of meat is this? ”

Bo Yan asked in confusion.

"This is meat."

"Rouge?"

The so-called "彘" is "pig", so what Qingji and Bo Yu eat is pork.

Qingji suddenly realized.

No wonder it's so unpalatable, it turns out to be pork from this era!

A long time ago, the Chinese people knew how to domesticate six animals such as "horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, and chickens" to obtain meat, but different meats have different positions in the food system.

The Son of Heaven eats too much, and the cattle, sheep and pigs are all stock.

The princes eat cattle, the kings eat sheep, the doctors eat pigs, the scholars eat fish, and the people eat vegetables.

It means that Zhou Tianzi can eat the food sacrificed to heaven and earth, including beef, mutton, and pork.

The princes can eat beef, and the kings can eat mutton.

Doctors can eat pork, scholars can eat fish, and common people can only eat vegetables.

Of course, at this time, the etiquette has long been broken, and the princes and scholars have no longer adhered to the "etiquette" on the table.

It's not that beef can't be eaten, only the money you pay can still be eaten in Wu country, where agriculture is already highly developed.

Don't break the law!

However, even as the king of a country, Qingji may not be able to eat beef several times a year.

Qingji also does not advocate Chinese people to eat beef.

Because as an agrarian civilization, the importance of ploughing cattle is self-evident.

In the state of Wu, it was a sin to kill a cow.

Unless it is a cow that dies of old age or accident, it cannot be killed, otherwise it is a crime and will be sentenced.

In this way, the food is determined by the classification of the Zhou Dynasty, and it is not difficult to find that the status of pork is not as good as that of beef and mutton.

Beef and mutton, with its scarcity and deliciousness, has become the exclusive enjoyment of the top aristocracy, and pork has also occupied the table of the bottom aristocracy by virtue of its meat attributes.

However, there are actually very few aristocrats who actually eat pork.

Just as Su Dongpo has a poem, "Huangzhou is good pork, and the price is as cheap as soil." The noble refuse to eat, and the poor do not understand how to cook", which exhausted the status of pork.

Why?

The first is the limitation of the number of livestock. The breeding of pigs is not on a large scale, and it cannot be compared with the large-scale sheep breeding in the livestock area of the Loess Plateau.

The Wu State has fishing and hunting, and most of the Chinese people eat seafood and fish.

The second is the backwardness of breeding and castration technology.

Pig raising is the need to castrate, called "ploughing pig", the principle of which is to change the character and meat quality of pigs through castration, which is convenient for feeding and increases the value of breeding.

Castrated pigs are not only slow to grow meat, but also have coarse meat, poor meat taste, and a fishy smell, which is unacceptable.

In the era when breeding and castration techniques were not developed, pork naturally could not satisfy the aristocracy.

In general, it is still difficult for pork to be elegant.

"King, this oyster tastes good, King can taste it."

Mrs. Sun Li, who was sitting next to Qingji, picked up a piece of oyster meat, put it in Qingji's bowl, and said with a smile.

Oysters, that is, oysters, are actually eaten in Qingji.

In some living habits, the Wu people are basically similar to the Yue people.

Such as "love to eat clams"!

There are many branches of the Yue people who like to eat "mussels, snakes, fish, turtles, clams" and other fishy things.

These are the natural delicacies of the Vietnamese people living in the coastal areas, and the insects, snakes, mussels and clams are regarded as the best dishes.

In the "Historical Records: The Biography of the Goods and Colonies", the dietary style of the Yue people in the south is incisively summarized: the land of Chu and Yue is vast and sparsely populated, and rice and soup are fish.

People in the southeast eat aquatic products, fish, turtles, snails, and mussels are precious, and they don't feel that they are fishy.

Shellfish, like snakes, are symbols of "uncleanness" in the minds of the Central Plains people.

In fact, this is the difference between the living environment, food supply chain and food culture of the north and the south in ancient times.

The food customs of a group are inseparable from their living environment and food chain supply, and these shells are called "seafood" in modern terms......