Chapter 44 Chapter 44 Banbishan and Potato Flour Balls

When I went to Banbi Mountain this time, I had to think of the eternal battle between the Taiping Army and the Hunan Army on the Yangtze River a hundred years ago: the iron chain sinking the river.On Banbi Mountain, there are eight characters inscribed on the cliff, "Chutian lock and key, iron chain sinks the river", which is the war that is remembered. 140 years ago, in order to prevent the navy of the Hunan Army from going eastward, the navy of the Taiping Army pulled six iron cables and six bamboo cables across the river between Banbi Mountain and Tianjia Town, known as the "Chutian Lock and Key", to lock the river. Yulin broke through the iron chain defense line of the Taiping Army by "breaking the iron lock with the ax in the furnace", leaving behind the famous Banbishan ancient battlefield.

In early spring, when it was warm and cold, Artemisia species on the riverside had already sprouted green leaves. On the surface of the drizzle and mist, a group of gulls with white feathers and red beaks flew by the waves, and occasionally there were giant ships speeding past the opposite riverbank. The dignified sound of sirens brushed against the surface of the water, the wheat planted by the farmhouse by the river was swaying in the wind, and the blue-purple mustard plants were shining brightly with crystal drops of water.Banbi Mountain is wet, covered by a thin cloud, a small spring breeze shakes the ivy on the cliff, and the sharply descending river gradually slaps the bare rock at the foot of Banbi Mountain.The fortifications built by the Taiping army with a mixture of glutinous rice, lime, and yellow sand have proudly guarded the riverside after 140 years of wind and rain.At the foot of the mountain downstream, there are 5 forts lined up on the embankment, of which one is intact and four are incomplete.Between emotions, I found a landslide on the top of the mountain, exposing an artificial building. The arc made of glutinous rice and lime showed red soil, so I climbed up. It was indeed another ancient fort. I took out a steel tape to measure its diameter. It was filled with soil, and three compartments of potherb mustard were planted, and a person standing in it was still waist-deep.A round pool of glutinous rice, lime, and yellow sand is built for the cannon, and there are iron bolts on the wall to fix the cannon. Built on the wall of the pool.Standing on the fort and looking at the Yangtze River, I feel that the water of the Yangtze River comes slowly from the wide river between Qizhou and Xingguo, and suddenly turns eastward between Banbi Mountain and Tianjia Town. The waves are rushing.Go back to Fuchi.Presumably it is the ray of pride that the ancient battlefield wants to ignite life?Suddenly, he longed for a booze, so that he could look at Jiang Tao with drunken eyes.

Banbi Mountain is located to the east of Fuchi Gate. It has been a good place to eat since ancient times, and there is Gan Ning's tomb there.I once made a couplet, on the top is "Yangxin Flows Rich Water", on the bottom is "Daye Runs the Golden Bull", and on the bottom is "Eating is endless", I am very proud of it.Daye is a neighboring county of Yangxin, and is often pronounced as Dazhi. Taurus people are especially good at making tofu with "thousand skins".Just open the drink and express it in a mighty manner, or have a deep hatred with wine, and want to swallow it quickly.The food and drink are very fast, and in my impression, fried bacon with Artemisia annua, braised mandarin fish in braised sauce, and sweet potato balls are the first two. Artemisia annua in Chichi is the top grade, while mandarin fish from Fuchi Dazha is the top grade. The small mandarin fish that weighs half a catty is the best of the best. It tastes delicious, and the meat is tender, soft and waxy. I like it.The wine piled up in my chest, and it became hotter and hotter, and I suddenly discovered that the sweet potato powder balls are delicious, elastic, or tense.This sweet potato powder ball is made of eight kinds of materials including sweet potato powder, fresh river shrimp, peanuts, mushrooms, pork, glutinous rice, dried fragrant, and parsley. It is iron black and has a diameter of about 5 cm. Wrapped tightly.I found that Fuchi's sweet potato balls taste very good. The sweet potato balls I ate before only added pork, dried fragrant, peanuts and parsley. Fuchi's sweet potato balls are added with fresh river shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, glutinous rice, etc. , the taste is much richer, the glutinous rice gives the meatballs centripetal force, the instant taste and aftertaste have multiples, and the taste is elastic, refreshing and sticky.When eating, my mind is filled with the fortifications of Banbishan glutinous rice, which cannot be driven away. It is a composite high-strength building material in the agricultural era. It is standardized into a round fort in the shape of a pottery bowl, which can hold 140 guns. Years ago, with a few guns here, it was possible to guard the vast eastward flow of the Yangtze River.Suddenly, I found that the sweet potato balls were too much like the iron ball-like shells in history. The black round shells contained gunpowder, iron fragments, iron pellets, porcelain pieces, etc., and such explosions were powerful. Yes, but the gourmet sweet potato balls are actually the same, and the lethality of the taste is also diverse.Think of this history, wars and sweet potatoes.Potato is the Sichuan-Hubei dialect, which means stupid in the Hubei language. Potato is also known as sweet potato, sweet potato, yam, yam, sweet potato, sweet potato, and sweet potato. Sweet potato is called sweet potato in Ji people, sweet potato in Fujian people, and potato in E Xingguo.There are many varieties of sweet potatoes, with spindle, cylinder, ellipse, and spherical shapes; white, light yellow, red, yellow, and purple skin colors; yellow, apricot yellow, purple red, and white flesh colors.It mainly produces tubers, which are formed by secondary hypertrophy of adventitious roots, which are longer than 25 cm deep in the topsoil, and the plant can produce several tubers.Sweet potatoes are native to the Americas. The first batch of sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes) in Europe was brought back by Columbus in 1492. They were introduced to Africa by the Portuguese, and to Asia from the Pacific Islands.China was introduced to China during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. Chen Zhenlong, an overseas Chinese from Fujian, went to Luzon (now the Philippines) to do business. He found that the sweet potato yield in Luzon was the highest. He learned his planting method and brought the potato seeds back to Fuzhou. After Chen's promotion, they were widely planted throughout the country. .Sweet potato is rich in sugar, protein, cellulose and various vitamins, especially carotene, vitamin E and vitamin C.Especially lysine, which is lacking in rice and noodles, can be eaten with sweet potatoes and rice noodles to get a comprehensive protein supplement.Europeans and Americans praise it as "second bread", former Soviet scientists say it is the future "space food", and the French call it a well-deserved "advanced health food". "Compendium of Materia Medica Supplements" says that sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes) can nourish the middle, harmonize the blood, warm the stomach, and fatten the five internal organs.Whether the production of sweet potato powder balls has anything to do with ancient shells is unknown.However, it is conceivable that the production of bullets and cannonballs has been made by referring to the production methods of meatballs and glutinous rice balls in food, especially in the ancient battlefield of Banbi Mountain. The huge, round black ones are filled with gunpowder and iron How similar are the shells with the content of tablets, iron pellets, etc., to the sweet potato powder balls?Zeng Guofan severely damaged the Taiping Army during the "Iron Cable Sinking River" battle at Banbi Mountain, which rewrote the history of Zeng Guofan's invincibility against the Taiping Army and accelerated the annihilation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.The "Tian Mu System of the Celestial Dynasty" finally disappeared with the annihilation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The so-called ideal of "having fields to cultivate together, having food to eat together, clothing to wear together, money to use together, everywhere uneven, and no one without food and warmth" The society is left to the imagination of future generations. After 14 years of fighting, across 18 provinces, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom peasant uprising movement, which shocked the country, came to an end.I thought again, the inside of the sweet potato balls is wrapped with history. History has infinite flavors, such as sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, hemp, etc. History needs such a strong, elastic, tense and sticky package. Eating it makes people feel relish.