The plant that has saved countless lives was introduced to China from here 400 years ago! 130

It is no exaggeration to say that the sweet potato, a plant that not only saved countless lives but also changed the history of human development. It was the mass sowing of sweet potatoes and potatoes, easy-to-grow, high-yielding foods around the world, that enabled the earth to withstand the continuous population growth of the past few centuries, thus reducing wars and famine.
As we all know, anything with the word "potato" is basically an imported product, and potatoes are certainly no exception. They were originally produced in South America and the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and after Columbus discovered the New World, they and potatoes gradually spread around the world, thus rewriting human history. They were first introduced to China in the late Ming Dynasty, during the Wanli period, and entered the country by three routes: Yunnan, Guangdong and Fujian, of which the Guangdong and Fujian routes are well documented.
According to the Qing Dynasty's Golden Potatoes, in 1593, Chen Zhenlong, a Chinese expatriate from Changle, Fujian Province, was doing business in Luzon (Philippines) and found sweet potatoes to be good and tasty, so he intended to bring them back to China to grow them. Chen Zhenlong bribed the local natives and "obtained several feet of the vine", then twisted the vine into a rope for drawing water and sailed back to Fuzhou after seven days and nights. The following year, when Fujian was suffering from a drought, Chen Jinglun, son of Chen Zhenlong, submitted a report to the governor, Jin Xuezeng, describing the benefits of sweet potatoes as "six benefits and eight advantages", and the governor ordered the planting of sweet potatoes, which yielded a good harvest and saved many people from the disaster.
Thanks to the detailed account in the Golden Potato Record, sweet potato has long been thought to have been first introduced to China from Fujian, while the earlier path of sweet potato to Guangdong has long been overlooked.

In the prosperous and wealthy town of Humen in Dongguan, there is a Jinning Road with a building on the side of the road and a pile of barren grass next to an overpass. Countless vehicles pass by this road, but few people know that there is a landmark here that has influenced the history of China's population growth.

There is a sign on the side of the road that reads Chen Lianfeng's tomb. Nine times out of ten, you have to miss it when you walk past. Who was Chen Lianfeng? What did he have to do with the introduction of the sweet potato into China?

Follow the sign and next to it is a simple factory gate, ignore it and go on into a large, deserted vacant lot with a sign still pointing to Chen Lianfeng's tomb, you must do your homework, Chen Lianfeng's tomb is a landmark of the first sweet potato land in China.

Four ancient tombs are lined up, the tallest in the middle is the tomb of Chen Lianfeng, the grandfather of Chen Yi, the first person to introduce sweet potatoes to China.

The Ming tomb we see here is called the Chen Lianfeng Tomb or Chen Yi Family Tomb and is now listed as a protected cultural heritage unit in Guangdong Province.

Chen Yi was a native of Beige, Humen, whose birth year is not known. In 1580, dressed in cloth and carrying a parcel on his shoulder, he set off from Humen on a friend's merchant ship to Annam (now Vietnam). When they arrived in Annam, they were received by the local chiefs with an official dish that was sweet, soft and very tasty, but also very filling: sweet potatoes.

Two years later, in 1582 (11 years before Chen Zhenlong brought back the vine from Changle, Fujian), he risked his life by bribing his soldiers to hide the seeds in a copper drum to bring them back home.

As he was about to sail, a number of Vietnamese official ships carrying a number of chiefs came to arrest him. In this life-or-death situation, the Chinese crew took advantage of the strong wind at sea to hoist the sails and sail away, successfully escaping capture and bringing the seeds back to Humen.

Back in Humen, Chen Yi did not fully understand the process of planting the sweet potatoes and had to bury them in the flower dock. Soon, the potatoes sprouted in the dock and slowly extended their long vines. One day, when a servant of the Chen Yi family saw the vine, he was so curious that he pulled it out with his hand and pinched it, only to have the tender vine snapped off at once.

The servant panicked and, fearing that Chen Yi would blame him, hurriedly buried the vine in the soil in the flower garden. The servant "confessed" when Chen Yi discovered the vine and was surprised when it sprouted new shoots. Not only did Chen Yi not blame the servant, but he also praised him for "being a great help", and from then on he really mastered the art of growing sweet potatoes.

Next, Chen Yi purchased 35 acres of land in front of his grandfather's grave on the hillside of Xiaojie Mountain in Humen Jinzhou and started growing sweet potatoes on a large scale. After a successful harvest, he was determined to spread the food widely and chose his own birthday cave at the edge of the potato field, so that he could be with the potatoes for a long time.

Chen Yi writing his last words when he was dying, instructing his descendants to bring a pair of sweet potatoes to pay tribute to him at the annual spring and autumn festivals. It is said that until the early years of New China, Chen Yi's descendants still used red-skinned potatoes as an offering when they visited his grave every year and wrote the words "A pair of sweet potatoes is richer than a thousand boxes".

The potato field in front of Chen Lianfeng's tomb did not last for more than 400 years, but Chen Lianfeng's tomb is still there, and it has become a landmark of the first potato field in China.

The largest and oldest of the four Ming and Qing tombs, with the finest tombstones, is that of Chen Lianfeng, the grandfather of Chen Yi.

A new tombstone erected in 2008 contains a biography of Chen Yi: "He was the first person to introduce sweet potatoes to our country, and his merits were great".

The ancient tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties on either side are other descendants of the Chen family, and there is a question as to why the tomb of Chen Yi's father is not there, as it is said that his father was buried in Annam (now Vietnam).

To this day, the sweet potato field in front of the tomb has been restored and is being cultivated and maintained by an old man.

The old man was so hospitable that when he saw me coming, he told me the story of the tomb and the sweet potato field in his strong Humen accent.

He also proudly told me that he had grown 26 varieties of sweet potatoes in this field, all of which he brought back from his annual trips to different parts of the country.

I had eaten many varieties of sweet potatoes, but not from this land where they were grown more than 430 years ago.

A man, a dog and a piece of land, the days are spent in this field of sweet potatoes, a hundred metres away from the traffic, bustling traffic, tall buildings, living in the five corners of the world, but not many people know that a plant introduced here, in the years of famine saved countless lives.

You may look down on a rustic sweet potato, but you should know that this sweet potato saved countless lives during the famine, perhaps including your mother, father and grandparents.

You should also know that the tomb in front of you is not only a landmark of the first sweet potato field in China but also the first person to introduce sweet potatoes into China.

The city of Dongguan is very good at preserving its cultural relics, and there is a QR code in front of each one, so you can scan the code to find out more about Chen Lianfeng's tomb.

In addition, when it comes to the excavation of the history of Chen Yi's introduction of sweet potatoes, one person must not be left out: the Dongguan historian Yang Baolin, who wrote the paper "The earliest person and the earliest place to introduce sweet potatoes in China", published in Agricultural Archaeology, No. 2, 1982, which made it known that Chen Yi was the first person to introduce sweet potatoes before Chen Zhenlong from Changle, Fujian.
It does not matter who came first, Chen Yi or Chen Zhenlong, Guangdong or Fujian, but thanks must go to the two Chen ancestors who risked their lives to introduce sweet potatoes to China from two countries and by two different routes, which allowed them to take root and grow widely in China, saving countless lives during the years of calamity and influencing the history of the entire Chinese population.