Now is the picking season of white grass. The jagged leaves are green with white and have white hair on the back.
Jiang Zhi leaned over and used a knife to push away the soil at the base of the white grass, revealing the spindle-shaped roots underneath. The rhizomes were short and bifurcated, resembling chicken thighs.
Xiaoman called out his name as soon as he saw it: "Aunt Jiang, I know this grass. This is the root of drumstick! You can eat it!"
As he spoke, he quickly dug out another one nearby. He used a knife to scrape off the dark brown skin on the thick roots of the white grass, revealing the white section inside, then stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it.
Jiang Zhi nodded and scraped off a piece of root to eat.
Xiaoman was right.
White grass is also called chicken claw ginseng or chicken claw claw. The rhizome is rich in starch and has a hint of sweetness when chewed. It is a snack for rural children.
This is also a medicinal herb. Since the name contains the word ginseng, it means that ginseng has the effect of replenishing qi.
However, the power of replenishing qi is weak. When stewing meat with a few chicken feet and ginseng for long-term use, it can replenish qi and strengthen the spleen. It can be used for weak spleen and stomach and loss of appetite.
If fresh chicken feet and ginseng are mashed and applied externally alone, it can also treat wounds that have not healed for a long time and has the effect of detoxification and muscle growth.
Xu Dazhu's Qi was weak and his body could not be replenished. Chicken claw ginseng was the best medicine.
When Xiao Man heard that this medicinal herb was for his elder brother, and that it was comparable to ginseng, he immediately became energetic. The depression and depression he felt when he saw the tragic situation in the village disappeared immediately.
I immediately searched for white grass all over the mountains and fields to ensure that my eldest brother could eat a bowl of tonic every day.
In addition to white grass, there are many other herbs that can replenish the spleen and stomach.
The most famous one is probably Chipotle, also called wild yam. This is an herb that rural elderly people must add to their stews. It is a nourishing and health-preserving herb.
Wild yam is similar to kudzu. They are both perennial twining plants, but one is a herb and the other is a vine.
Artificially grown yams usually go two to three meters deep into the soil. Every time you see yams being dug, it's like digging a trench. Wild yams are even deeper underground.
Moreover, the growing environment is also harsher. They usually grow under trees or near rocks. Some grow directly in piles of rocks. It is much more difficult to dig them than ginseng.
It's early spring, and the woods are still lacking in green. The vines wrapped around the branches are easy to spot, especially the heart-shaped leaves that look like little hands waving in the wind.
However, the harvesting season of wild yam is in late autumn and early winter, so it is not the best medicine now, so we can only make do with it.
After walking and searching all the way, and after buying more than a dozen whitegrass plants, I finally found a wild yam vine under a cliff.
Digging yams is a hard job. Fortunately, although wild yams have roots deep into the rocks, it has only been raining for a long time, and the soil is soft and easy to dig.
First find the vines and dig down along the roots. The soil here is thin and wild yams cannot grow to four or five meters for fear of entering the cracks in the rocks.
After digging through the pile of rocks and digging down another two feet, a pair of fleshy rhizomes squeezed by the stones into strange shapes were revealed. They had gray-brown skin and thick fibrous roots, like sweet potatoes with beards.
Xiao Man was so happy that his face was covered with mud: "Aunt Jiang, can this be eaten?"
He felt like kudzu.
Kudzu can make you full, so this should be fine too! Why didn't I know before that the mountains are full of grain?
Jiang Zhi helped him pick up wild yams and said with a smile: "Of course you can eat them. Wild yams and sweet potatoes are related and belong to the same family."
Xiao Man heard this with interest and said casually: "Did my aunt's family also eat this before? Why haven't I heard Xiao Tian talk about it?"
After saying that, he regretted it and looked at Jiang Zhi's face and said quickly: "Before...that Xiaotian...he rarely spoke."
Jiang Zhi smiled slightly. She didn't care what she said. She was not the one who abused Nie Fantian.
It's just that Xiaoman Errui and the others are so nervous when mentioning it in front of him, so they have to react a little bit.
"Xiaoman, Xiaotian is right to follow the village chief. Although we have food and shelter now, we still can't feel at ease.
If you look at the situation in the village, there might be soldiers stationed there at some point, and we wouldn’t dare to just go down the mountain and wander around. "
Leaving is not necessarily a bad thing, but staying is also risky. Put away your feelings of saving the world and respect the fate of others.
When he heard those soldiers, Xiaoman stopped laughing and just dug hard in the soil.
Yes, if the village is burned down, I can’t go back to my home.
Seeing that Xiaoman no longer mentioned Nie Fantian and Jiang Zhi stopped talking, she recalled the message she heard in her dream: Nie Fantian and the others arrived at Yuzhou Mansion, but were locked up outside the city and mixed with the refugees.
At this moment, she suddenly remembered the reason why Yuzhou Prefecture locked up the city: there were rioters slaughtering villages around, and they were trying to sneak into the city with refugees...
If it is true, then Zhao Li, Xu Youcai and others in Xujia Village were most likely abducted by the rebels passing by, and their target was Yuzhou Prefecture.
well!
Thinking back to the night when the fire broke out, if Xiao Manye hadn't destroyed the road in advance, people like him would have been kidnapped, and they would not know whether they would live or die.
The two of them walked and stopped, finding several kinds of herbs along the way, and Xiaoman also found several bird's nests.
It was the breeding season in March, and Jiangzhi did not allow bird eggs to be caught. Mountain fires had destroyed many bird nests, and now the birds were in urgent need of replenishment.
Back at Laoyunya, the backpacks the two of them brought were already full.
Jiang Zhi gave chicken claw ginseng and wild yam to Xiaoman Nai and asked her to put these things in when stewing the soup. Everyone would eat some. Anyway, Xiaoman knew them now and he would dig them out after eating.
Mr. Xiaoman also knows chicken claw ginseng, so it’s not surprising that he can eat it.
Everyone dug them up to eat and play with when they were children, but when they grew up, no one used them anymore.
Now that I heard that this herb can have the same effect as ginseng, I was really surprised.
"This can also replenish Qi?" He couldn't believe his ears.
Next to me, Xiao Mannai took out the white grass and turned it over and over. As she looked at it, her eyes began to wander, as if she saw silver ingots flying away with wings.
In the first year when Xu Dazhu was injured from a fall, his family spent a lot of money on buying ginseng and making medicine. All their savings over the years were used up. Not only did they sell the family's old cow, but also the family's land.
Jiang Zhi does not exaggerate the functions of herbal medicines. There is no distinction between high and low medicines, only syndrome differentiation and treatment.
Naturally, chicken claw ginseng cannot be compared with ginseng in replenishing qi.
Ginseng is powerful and has the effect of "reviving the dead and changing the situation against the will of heaven", which can save lives.
Chicken claw ginseng has weak effects, and the weaker ones are better. Now Xu Dazhu can only take these minor tonic products, and it is harmless for ordinary people to eat them.
Xiao Manye looked in disbelief. He was obviously a little bit worried about the time and money he had wasted before, and he was also curious about how Jiang Zhi knew these herbs.
Jiang Zhi only replied: "A long-term illness makes a good doctor!"
Xiaomanye couldn't refute.
Because Xu Errui's father had a root cause of the disease and had been ill for more than ten years, it was normal for him to find some herbs to eat.
Little Man Ye, who was excited about chicken feet and ginseng just now, seemed to see something terrifying in the next second, and shouted: "Oh, you can't eat this thing, it will poison people!"
He grabbed the wild yam in the basket on his back and threw it far away, and said with an anxious look: "Er Ruiniang, Xiao Man, you go wash your hands quickly, you can't touch this stuff, it's poisonous, don't get poisoned!"
Suddenly everyone was shocked, Xiao Mannai hurriedly said: "Quick, wash up quickly!"
