The Golden Root: Zhangzhou's Sweet Potato Revolution, Population Pressure, and the Digital Landscape of Food Security in the 16th Century
You can buy a pile of them at any market today for pocket change. But four hundred years ago, a single vine changed the fate of an empire. I’m talking about the sweet potato. In Southern Fujian, they still call it “golden root.” In 1593, a Fujianese merchant named Chen Zhenlong smuggled a sweet potato vine back from Luzon in the Philippines — hidden in the ropes of his ship’s cabin. The Spanish had forbidden its export. That vine reached Fuzhou, where Governor Jin Xuemeng turned it into an institutional campaign that would transform millions of lives. ...