When there was no canned compressed food in ancient times, what did soldiers eat when they marched and fought?

As the saying goes; "Before the soldiers and horses move, food and grass come first", which shows the importance of food and grass in the army. In the modern army, many soldiers eat canned food and compressed biscuits. There are many kinds of canned food, including canned meat and canned fruit, which can provide nutrition for soldiers. Compressed biscuits can provide soldiers with the most basic physical strength. But in ancient times, without modern and advanced food production industry, it was difficult for soldiers to eat balanced and carefully studied food. What do they eat when they March and fight? Let's break it down one by one and enjoy it with the interesting history of Bian Xiao.

National food preparation

The ancient government also realized that war has always been a major event related to the survival of the nation and the national economy and people's livelihood. Therefore, the government will make all kinds of full preparations before the war, except dressing up and pledging to mobilize soldiers, that is, preparing food. In addition to using national stocks, grain preparation will also collect grain from all over the country and do a good job in grain storage. In the event of a protracted war, the front line of the war needs a lot of rations, and the consequences of defeat or mutiny caused by insufficient supplies in the rear are beyond the reach of ordinary rulers.

So Cao Cao invented the system of reclaiming farmland and forced soldiers to cultivate fields. Soldiers are soldiers in battle and farmers in peacetime, which play a self-sufficient role and can avoid long-distance transportation and replenishment of food. It can also play a very good role for some border guards.

Crops such as coarse grains are the basic food for marching.

The ancients also realized that food belongs to the category of logistics and material support, and it is also the key to determine whether the army can win the battle. Therefore, as the old saying goes, the army did not move, and the grain and grass went first. This "grain and grass" includes "grain" eaten by people and "grass" eaten by animals (horses and mules). The ancient rations were mainly grains such as rice, millet, soybeans and wheat, mainly to fill the stomach, without much attention. So in ancient times, marching to fight was to fill the stomach.

Millet before Tang and Song Dynasties

Generally speaking, millet was the most commonly eaten in ancient marching wars. Because millet is easy to store, it can be stored for nine years, while rice can only be stored for five years, so millet is very suitable as "military food". In ancient times, millet was also called "millet" or "valley" for short. The hulled grain is called millet.

The ancients thought millet was the basic grain, mainly because the output of other crops was also surprisingly low. For example, before the Tang and Song Dynasties, the ancient wheat yield was very low, and the rice yield was even lower. In addition, China's military center and political center were in the north, especially in the northwest. Therefore, soldiers have been marching on millet for food, which has been maintained since ancient times.

The ancients also thought about rich food, and they also liked to cook porridge with millet when marching. It is to add beans, wild vegetables and meat to millet porridge and boil it into a bowl of porridge. At that time, the porridge was very thick, so it was "thick". It can be said that in ancient times, vegetable porridge or meat porridge were very high-end military food. Meat and vegetables are for officers only, but ordinary soldiers can't enjoy them.

For example, in Qin Jun during the Warring States period, the standard of title was directly different from the standard of absolute food. A junior officer with a third-class title, with half a liter of soy sauce, a bucket of polished rice and a plate of vegetable soup. Officers with two ranks and titles can only eat coarse grains, while ordinary soldiers without titles can only make a living by filling their stomachs. In addition to millet porridge, ancient soldiers used salt, pickles and sauce for dinner, which were generally rationed.

As for noodles, although it was invented by the Han Dynasty, it only occasionally improved the soldiers' meals, and it was mainly millet thick porridge. Although Zhuge Liang invented steamed bread, soldiers in Shu can also eat steamed bread. But because of what I said earlier, the yield of wheat is limited, and porridge is still the main product. In some cases, when there is no urgent March or the war is in full swing, rice balls become the fastest battlefield fast food.

After the Tang and Song Dynasties, wheat and rice

After the Tang Dynasty, especially during the Song Dynasty, the Han people's settlements developed southward, the output of wheat and rice increased, and the rations gradually changed into wheat and rice. Pancakes, pot helmets, biscuits, etc. Rice made of various flours is the main food for marching soldiers. During the war in the Song Dynasty, soldiers marched with all kinds of food such as sauce, salt and miscellaneous cakes on their backs. In the Ming Dynasty, sesame cakes became popular as military food. The Ming army usually roasted sesame seeds with charcoal fire, poked a small hole in the middle, and then strung sesame seeds with ropes for soldiers to carry in March. This is a compressed biscuit for Ming soldiers.

A common food cooking method in Ming army is to steam and dry rice. When eating, you can directly soak it in hot water. This is the instant noodles of the Ming Dynasty. The main non-staple food of the Ming army in the wild war was to mix lobster sauce with mashed salty salt, make cookies and then dry them. When eating, peel a piece of rice the size of a jujube pit instead of pickles.

Because of the short shelf life of vegetables, soldiers can hardly eat vegetables when marching. Occasionally, vegetables can only be bought on the March. Near the battlefield, ordinary soldiers will build some granaries to store food. Senior soldiers can also eat hot pot, eat meat and drink. Ordinary soldiers can only smell this smell to satisfy their hunger.

It can be seen that ancient marching soldiers mainly ate coarse grains. When marching, soldiers always carry a long cloth bag, which contains dry food such as rice, wheat and biscuits. Then when we have a group meeting, we grab a handful and cook a big pot for everyone to eat together. Eat raw without firing. Because ancient soldiers also needed salt supplements on weekdays. Therefore, before marching, cotton cloth was soaked in salt and vinegar repeatedly and then dried. When marching against the rebels, rice was wrapped in cloth to make rice balls. When you are hungry, cut a piece and eat it with rations, so that you can eat salty rice.

Occasionally, you can eat meat to supplement protein and calories.

In ancient times, meat was a luxury for ordinary soldiers. However, the army has been without meat to eat and has no strength to win the battle. Human flesh has become an important source for soldiers to supplement protein. For example, during the Huang Chao Uprising and the Li Zicheng Uprising in the Three Kingdoms period, the old, the weak, the sick and the defeated prisoners in the army were all eaten as human flesh. For example, during the Three Kingdoms period, Yuan Shao's army besieged Dongwuyang, and the garrison commander Zang Hongxian killed the garrison, first killing the horses in the city for the garrison to eat, then eating all the horses and mice, and he also killed his own concubine for the soldiers to eat.

It should be mentioned that the main military food of nomadic people in the north is dried meat. Nomads slaughter cattle and sheep and air dry them, turning them into dried meat of more than ten kilograms and twenty kilograms, which can be taken out to eat for several months. Or put all the beef jerky into a cow bladder and turn the cow bladder into a food bag. Soldiers can go out with beef jerky or food bags. Because beef jerky is rich in protein, which is several times that of ordinary meat, a small piece can maintain a person's food demand for one day. When soldiers camp at night, they cut off a small piece of dried meat to cook soup, and then served it with tea and milk, which is rich in nutrition and comprehensive. This is why ancient nomads can get nutritional supplements without logistics forces to transport cereals or non-staple foods such as millet and soybean paste. Because the food eaten by nomads is rich in nutrition and high in calories, their fighting capacity will be strong and they can attack the Central Plains repeatedly.

Food supply of embedded hawkers

In ancient times, there were vendors embedded in the army to solve the problem of food supply for the army. These peddlers drive wheelbarrows and move with the army. For example, Thenardier, an army vendor in Les Miserables, France, traded with the army and sold all the daily necessities needed by soldiers, such as vegetables, fruits, cattle, sheep, meat and poultry.

In addition, the people stationed along the ancient March can also provide necessary supplies for the army. During the two Opium Wars, many people in China made a living by selling necessities to the British army, and were denounced as "traitors" by court officials. At that time, it was common to do business with intruders.

But this kind is still relatively rare. Many troops still need to plunder and snatch important food to supply, which also causes the troops to lack food security. Especially when the war is protracted and anxious, it is more likely that the army will be unable to supply food and soldiers will starve to death. When the supply of military food is insufficient, we can only rob the enemy in an organized way, even rob the people, or eat people, which is common in ancient dynasties. This also reflects the cruelty and bloodiness of the war, and the so-called "one will become a bone"!