Chapter 484 Soybean Meal

"Is this thing... tofu pudding?"

Lu Su flicked his pen and thought.

Seeing other people casting curious eyes, Lu Su explained seriously:

"I have seen something called tofu pudding in Jiangdong. It is said that it was accidentally obtained by King Huainan when he was seeking the golden elixir."

"This thing looks like yellow flocs, tastes sour and fishy, ​​but is not durable and is complicated to make. It is mostly a snack for children."

This statement is completely consistent with what the light curtain said. Listening to Lu Su's description of tofu pudding, and then looking at the tofu displayed on the light curtain in later generations.

It looks like jade and is particularly tender and smooth, and its color is like condensed fat without feeling greasy. No wonder it is said that literati and scholars love it very much!

Pang Tong also sighed a little and said:

"It is obviously food, but it is named as rotten. No wonder it is said that this thing is not suitable for the elegant hall."

Just from the name, it is not very suitable.

Fa Zheng agreed very much, and tried to talk to Pang Tong about what name this thing is more suitable for.

Liu Bei looked at the title of the book written by the people of the Northern Song Dynasty, and felt a little disappointed.

Although Emperor Taizu continued the Han Dynasty and established Luoyang as the capital, he still respected Chang'an, the former capital of the Han Dynasty.

Therefore, from that time on, people at that time all called Luoyang Dongjing and Chang'an Xijing.

When I was young, I studied in Dongjing, rode horses, fought dogs, and competed for clothes. Now I am in Xijing to govern the people. I wonder how many people are still in Dongjing, which was burned down by Dong Zhuo?

Therefore, when Liu Bei looked at the "Dongjing Menghualu" and "Dream Lianglu" written by the people of the two Song Dynasties after the fall of the country, he also sighed a little more, and resonated with their authors:

If possible, wouldn't he, Liu Bei, want to live a mediocre life in Dongjing without worrying about the power of heaven and earth?

If there were not so many disasters, Meng De would still be chased and beaten by people in Dongjing for peeping at beautiful women over the wall, and Yuan Benchu ​​would definitely laugh loudly but would eventually help.

Gongsun Bogui should return to Youzhou to lead the white horse to guard the border after completing his studies. If Liu Bei gets tired of staying in Tokyo, he might lead his second and third brothers to Youzhou to expand the border...

Liu Bei was a little dazed for a while.

Kong Ming didn't speak, but his hands never stopped. The four steps of making tofu, which were called simple by the younger generation, were neatly listed on the paper.

And behind each operation step, Kong Ming was also trying to break down more simple and feasible steps from the four words "simple".

Just like the simplest grinding and filtering of beans, are dry beans or wet beans poured into the grinding disc? How long do wet beans need to be soaked in water, etc.

The younger generation said that depending on the different slurry materials used, the tofu will be very different.

But according to Kong Ming's experience, these steps of making things are also in line with the saying "a slight difference leads to a thousand miles of error". The difference in the first step alone may make the things completely different.

So Kong Ming was also thinking in his mind at the first time, who should be entrusted with the task of making tofu?

…

“Bianliang is really lost.”

Zhao Kuangyin’s dark face also showed obvious fatigue.

Haven’t you figured out the relationship between the heavy taxes and military expenses mentioned by the younger generation before, here we see the demise of the two Song dynasties, and the literati recorded and recalled the old capital.

And from its name, although it was previously expected that the change from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty would involve the relocation of the capital, it was still difficult to accept when he saw the capital in Lin’an City with his own eyes.

He was not unfamiliar with this place, after all, the one who controlled the Wuyue Kingdom was the Lin’an Qian family.

Qian Liu was the governor of the Zhenhai Army in the Tang Dynasty, but he successively served as a vassal of the Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, and Later Han. When he was ambitious before, he had also laughed at them, saying that they only knew how to live in a corner and be a vassal, but he didn't expect that...

Zhao Kuangyin felt his face burning, and until this moment, he recalled the sighs of the Southern Song literati he learned from the light curtain, and his heart became more enlightened, and his mood was extremely complicated:

"If it is true... I want to have a son like Sun Zhongmou..."

After all, the great emperor of the Wu Kingdom successively established his capital in Jianye and Wuchang, both of which are cities near the river, and he still has the intention of advancing northward.

And Lin'an still needs 500 miles to cross the river to the north, and this mentality is far different from Sun Quan.

When it comes to the matter of moving the capital, Zhao Guangyi automatically stopped and looked at the light curtain attentively, as if he had devoted himself to it.

Zhao Pu stood up and comforted him softly:

"It seems that although the country is in trouble, the people still remember the government's governance and the blessings of our Song Dynasty."

"The fault of failure may be mostly due to heaven, not human beings."

Although the Jiaozi disaster and the crime of the tyrant were mentioned, Zhao Kuangyin could only temporarily believe this statement at this time.

As for this tofu...

Zhao Kuangyin raised his hand and pointed, and casually instructed a eunuch:

"Send its recipe to the imperial kitchen, and find one or two experienced tofu grinders from the people to improve it, so as to add New Year's Day dishes."

Although I haven't eaten it, I think since the "Dream of Lianglu" can describe tofu, there should be no shortage of folk recipes. Let them read the relevant records and make changes. It shouldn't be difficult, right?

【From another perspective, the Ming Dynasty was able to improve the technology tree of tofu in addition to the time factor, and more importantly, it was because the farming technology that had been studied since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period reached a preliminary perfection in the Ming Dynasty.

In soybean cultivation, the Qin and Han dynasties realized the importance of fertilization.

During the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the invention of the iron-toothed rake made it easier for people to level the land, and the technology of mixed cropping also began to appear during this period.

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the water-land rotation in the south and the deep plowing and harrowing in the north had their own characteristics, which effectively increased the per-acre yield of the fields.

In the Yuan Dynasty, it went a step further. For the first time, our ancestors realized the importance of moisture conservation and began to learn to use the means of leveling the land to make the upper layer of the soil dense to lock in the water and nutrients in the lower layer.

Also, although the ancients could not see or know the role of soybean rhizobia, they also found that soybean cultivation can ensure the survival of nutrients in the soil.

Increasing soil fertility and improving crop rotation system, these things can be seen clearly without a microscope. Coupled with the improvement of soybean planting technology, the planting area of ​​soybeans has been expanding throughout the Ming Dynasty.

Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the planting area of ​​soybeans has exceeded 20 million mu, with an annual output of more than 3 million tons, reaching a historical peak.

The per mu yield of soybeans has increased rapidly, and the tofu making technology using soybeans as raw materials has also been improved. This food has officially entered thousands of households, and all kings and common people eat it.

The residue of tofu making, soybean meal, led the Ming Dynasty to climb a new peak of the traditional feudal empire again.

Just as the Song Dynasty inherited the papermaking technology of the Tang Dynasty and carried it forward, the people of the Tang and Song Dynasties had already discovered that soybeans could be used to extract oil, and the soybean meal and dregs left over from the oil extraction and tofu making process were extremely high-quality livestock feed.

For the Ming Dynasty, which had no shortage of soybeans, the greatest significance of this product was that it made it easier for the people to raise horses.

Compared with the Han and Tang dynasties, the horse policy of the Ming Dynasty was not much new, but relying on the extremely cheap but nutritious soybean meal, the number of horses in the country in the middle of the Ming Dynasty far exceeded that of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Although it is still unclear how many qualified war horses there were, for the Ming Dynasty, the rapid increase in soybean production did indeed reduce the difficulty threshold of horse breeding. 】