Chapter 22 Scale first dragon-shaped sashimi

October 29, 2008 at 22:42 Liu Bang, the founder of the First Empire, caused a lot of trouble for officials in the propaganda department.In China around the 2nd century BC, the nobles of the previous dynasty still held a lot of power, especially in the "Shandong area" that was opposed to Qin.Any one of them has organized arms to subvert the prestige of the empire.And Liu Bang is just a commoner-his father is called Taigong.This is the common name for elders at that time.His mother's name is Liu Yu, which means an old lady with the surname Liu.Imperial historians have never been able to verify their exact names.One theory is that, as untouchables, they were forbidden to have names.

But all this without detracting from the Holy Empire.The propagandists proudly declared that Liu Bang was a descendant of God.After the Taigong married Liu Yu, he did not impregnate her immediately.Aunt Liu was raped by a red dragon during her lunch break—the color happens to be the symbol of the empire—and Liu Bang was born.Although this legend contains intolerable ethical flaws, it at least provides a basis for the power of the creator of the empire. Soon, the imperial genealogists developed the noble qualities of Liu's lineage.They were surprised to find that the Liu family had already become an aristocrat during the time of the Xia Kingdom.The most famous of these, Liu Lei, served under King Kong Jia, and what he did happened to be to manage the dragons in the court.The dragon thus became the totem of the empire as a matter of course.

There is no record of the purpose of King Kongjia raising dragons at that time.Obviously, this large and violent animal is not suitable for viewing, and there is no evidence that it is related to the religion of the Xia people.The researchers found that the original dragons looked very similar to pigs.Some scholars concluded that this may indicate that the dragon has the attribute of "edible".They even got evidence from textual analysis: Xu Shen, a scholar in the middle of the First Empire, stated in Shuowen Jiezi that the word "dragon" is related to meat, presenting the image of "meat that can fly".Therefore, the ancient Chinese probably bred dragons for their meat.

For unknown reasons, Liu Lei's descendants did not retain the title of nobility.A more credible theory is that in the battle for power between Yin and Xia, they were on the wrong side, and they were finally demoted together with the survivors of the Xia Kingdom.With the decline of this noble family, the technology of raising dragons has gradually been lost.Since then, there have been no records of raising and eating dragons in official documents. But records of eating dragons in unofficial literature are not uncommon.Pu Songling, a Mongolian writer of the Third Reich, once recorded a rumor:

Near Zichuan, Shandong, there is a mountain bag called Longdui.The local people said that once a famine occurs, they can go to the hills to dig meat to eat.The meat is no different from the usual beef and mutton, and it tastes delicious.At the beginning, everyone didn't know what it was, but later found out that if someone mentioned the word "dragon" when cutting the meat, there would be thunder from the sky, and it would even kill people in severe cases.Even homophones like cage, deaf, and long cannot be said.Everyone knows that this is dragon meat. For unknown reasons, there is no way to eat dragon meat in the existing ancient books.There are only some clues left in the works of Zhang Hua, a naturalist in the Jin Dynasty. When the fourth volume of "Natural History" mentioned dragon meat, it said that raw dragon meat should be finely chopped, pickled with vinegar and eaten directly.This way of eating is reminiscent of sashimi.Zhang Hua also mentioned that turquoise patterns will appear on the surface of marinated dragon meat.Therefore, people soaked dragon meat in vinegar to make delicious dragon meat sashimi, and then stabbed the patterns on their own bodies.