Xue Rengui
The city of Kuyu was also known as Suoyang City (the Chinese name for cynomorium), after the 7th-century general Xue Rengui and his army supposedly survived a siege there by eating the plant. Much later, it was "introduced" (or possibly imported) to China from Mongolia during the Yuan dynasty as a medicinal plant, and is first mentioned by Zhū Dānxī () in his "Supplement and Expansion of Materia Medica" () in 1347. It was an ingredient in his recipe for hidden tiger pills (), used for impotence and weak legs.