When I read this paragraph, I was puzzled ―― Why did Li Pinger collect so many peppers? As we all know, pepper is just a condiment. Hotpot restaurant owners like to use it most when making soup, but they can't use too much. If you use too much, you will get angry. Li Pinger doesn't open a hot pot restaurant. It's enough to fry vegetables for half a year. How can this woman eat so much at once?
Looking through the works of the Ming Dynasty, I gradually realized that the real purpose of those collections in Li Pinger's home was to preserve health.
Pepper was not a condiment in the Ming Dynasty, but a spice. Although it is cheaper than agarwood and Fraxinus mandshurica in price, it is completely equal to agarwood and Fraxinus mandshurica in status. These three kinds of spices are often eaten by some Ming people in different ways to realize the ideal of health and longevity, aphrodisiac and even soaring.
What are the different ways?
One is to make soup. Some Ming people like to make soup with pepper, agarwood powder and grey noodles. Of course, other ingredients have also been added. For example, use a small amount of pepper, agarwood powder and ash powder to cook soup with rice, red dates, honey, cinnamon leaves and licorice.
The second is to eat directly. There were fewer Ming people who ate agarwood and ash directly. I have seen a master who eats Chili peppers directly in the notes of Ming people, saying that an old man got inspiration from Taiping Guangji. In order to prolong life, he bought a big basket of peppers and took them orally every morning. At first, I ate less, taking more than a dozen pills orally, and then I ate more and more until I took a big bowl orally. The note said that the old man had been eating Chili peppers, his face turned pale and there were signs of rejuvenation. I don't know if it's true or not.
The third is to burn incense. As we all know, the Ming Dynasty consumed the most spices in the history of China. At that time, rich people went to the streets and powerful people went to court, all of which were incense in advance. There is always an incense burner burning agarwood, clove, borneol, ash, pepper, cinnamon, Long Xianxiang and other spices. Put a smoking cage on it, then put the clothes you want to wear on the smoking cage, smoke them all night, wear them the next morning, and the big sleeves will be thrown away, and the fragrance will be overflowing. I used to think that this was just the expression of men's love for beauty in the Ming Dynasty, but later I found that it was not entirely so, because they smoked mainly not for others to smell, but for themselves to smell. They believe in a legend that if they smoke more incense and burn it, they can live longer. If you don't believe me, you can know how enthusiastic the Ming people are about incense and smelling incense and how much they admire the practice of burning incense for health in their works by reading biographies of Zhang, Yan Song and famous cleanliness addicts.
In the Ming Dynasty, China produced little pepper, mainly from several island countries south of Chinese mainland. Because of the high transportation cost, the imported things are already expensive, and the health care workers and men who love beauty in the Ming Dynasty have a great demand for peppers, the price of peppers has doubled.
In the ninth year of Hongwu, a liter of pepper in Guangnan only needed precious paper money (that is, paper money that was forced to circulate in the market in the early Ming Dynasty, and silver copper coins were rare), which was equivalent to 25 copper coins; By the end of Wanli, a liter of pepper needed six silver coins, equivalent to 420 copper coins. This increase far exceeds the price increase rate of other commodities, and is faster than land price and house price.
Speaking of which, I think you already understand why Li Pinger collected so many peppers at once? In short, because demand exceeds supply. You might say, isn't Jin Ping Mei the story of May in the Song Dynasty? Li Pinger is from the Song Dynasty! In fact, Lan Ling Xiaoxiaosheng, the author of Jin Ping Mei, only set the story in the Song Dynasty, and the social customs and habits described in the whole novel were all in the Ming Dynasty.