What exactly was millet among the ancient five grains?

What kind of food crops did millet refer to in ancient weights and measures?

Millet, there are various sayings, some say: “Millet is a dryland crop with slender and pointed leaves. The fruit produced is sticky and non-sticky, collectively referred to as It is millet, to distinguish it, the sticky one is called millet, and the non-sticky one is called mi (méi). Millet is more suitable for wine making, and mi is more suitable for cooking.”,

So far, we locally turn millet noodles into sticky noodles and use them to make sugar cakes during the Spring Festival. This millet is yellow rice that is stickier than corn (millet).

There is a saying: millet is corn, so far we locally call corn “jade millet”! But the ancient five grains came from “Zhou Li”, “Zhou Li, Tianguan, Disease Medicine”: “The five flavors, five grains, and five medicines are used to nourish their diseases.” Zheng Xuan Note: “Five grains, hemp, millet, millet, wheat, and beans are also “Mencius Teng Wengong Shang”: “The five grains in the tree art, the five grains are cooked and the people educate them.” Zhao Qi’s note: “The five grains are rice, millet, millet, wheat, and Shu.

The corn that became “jade millet” originated in the Americas and was introduced to China in the 16th century. The earliest record was found in the “Gongxian Chronicle” written in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, calling it “jade wheat”. Later, in the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing’s reign, the Annals of Pingliang Prefecture were called “Panmai” and “Western wheat.” It can be seen that the ancient five grains did not contain corn, and the statement that millet is corn is not true!

The ancient five grains have been passed down to the present, due to the differences in regions, customs, and pronunciation, they have changed from ancient times. For example, in the Yellow Emperor’s Nei Jing, the Banxia glutinous rice soup, what is glutinous rice? Some people say it is sorghum rice, because the Nei Jing ·In Jin Kuizhen’s remarks, the grain of the heart belongs to millet, and it should be said to be millet noodles with sticky noodles, but the color of the heart is red, it should be said that the sorghum of the rice is more suitable.

Another millet, now thought to be the northern millet, ancient Chinese nameJiOr millet. Grain made from shelling, because of its small size, about 2 mm in diameter, Hence the name. Originating in the Yellow River Basin in northern China, it was the main food crop in ancient China, so the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasty belonged to the “millet culture”. The millet is drought-tolerant and has a wide variety of varieties, commonly known as “millet has five colors”, with white, red, yellow , black, orange, purple and various colors of millet, as well as sticky millet. The earliest wine in China was also brewed with millet.

And Ji , Some people think it is sorghum. Jin Kuizhen said that the grain of the spleen is millet, and the spleen is yellow. This millet should not be sorghum, but millet, which is millet and yellow rice.

Conclusion, five grains, rice, wheat, millet, millet, and sorghum are also called hemp, wheat, millet, millet, and millet. Among them, millet and millet are the current millet, sticky rice, and sorghum rice. There are different opinions. Region and folk customs are a kind of understanding, and the function of traditional Chinese medicine may be a kind of understanding in terms of historical inheritance, which needs to be further understood from archaeology, literature research, and even clinical practice.