Social and Economic Changes in the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period and Ming and Qing Dynasties

The historical form of agricultural development in China has roughly experienced three historical stages: early agriculture, traditional agriculture and modern agriculture. Ancient agriculture is divided into two parts according to primitive agriculture (primitive society-Shang and Zhou Dynasties) and traditional agriculture (Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period-Ming and Qing Dynasties). The second part features:

Primitive agriculture:

primitive society

Stone knives and axes

Slash-and-burn farming/agriculture

Rice and millet

Shang and Zhou Dynasties

Reggie and stone hoes and plows (a few bronze farm tools)

Ditching and drainage, weeding and soil improvement, composting and pest control.

Millet, rice, millet, millet, wheat, mulberry and hemp.

Traditional agriculture:

1, production tools:

Warring States period

Tieli

There is no plow wall, only loose soil and broken soil, and the structure is relatively simple.

Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 AD)

Decoupling plough

Two cows, three people and one cow, two people.

Animal seed plough

A sowing tool integrating ditching and sowing.

Sui and Tang Dynasties

Haus der Musik

The tillage depth is adjustable, simple and light.

2. Farming techniques: ridge tillage-field substitution method, one-year tillage-harrow method and harrow method.

3. Water irrigation: Dujiangyan

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-Caoqu, Baiqu and Longshou Canal-Rollover-Trolley-High Rollover Trolley-Fan

4. Small-scale peasant economy with men plowing and women weaving.

Shang and Zhou Dynasties

Collective labor

State ownership of land

Poor tools and low productivity.

Conducive to improving work efficiency

the Spring and Autumn Period

small-scale peasant economy

Feudal private ownership of land

Iron farm tools and Niu Geng gradually spread.

The basic mode of traditional agricultural social production

The slow development is due to the characteristics of agriculture in China:

Industrial structure: mainly planting, supplemented by animal husbandry.

Farming method: Niu Geng with iron plough.

Farming techniques: intensive cultivation

The Basic Mode of Social Production —— Small-scale Peasant Economy with Men Plowing and Women Weaving

Decentralization: taking the family as the unit, men plow and women weave.

Closed: Self-sufficiency in the combination of agriculture and cottage industry.

Two historical materials:

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, iron farm tools were used, followed by plowing and Niu Geng techniques, which were first implemented in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River ... Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, with the development of agricultural production, plowing and plowing have also been innovated, but the plowshare is all iron, and a plow wall has been created, which is more conducive to deep ploughing and breaking soil. ..... In the early Tang Dynasty, it made a great contribution to the perfection of ploughing, that is, the emergence of Qu Yuan Plough (also called Jiangdong Plough). The operation is flexible and convenient, especially suitable for paddy fields with heavy soil and small fields in the south of the Yangtze River, which has played a significant role in the development of farming economy in the south of the Yangtze River.

In the process of population increase in Ming and Qing Dynasties, Niu Geng withdrew in large numbers, and Jiangdong Plough, which represented the advanced productive forces in Tang and Song Dynasties, was replaced by Tieta in Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is not because of the advanced nature of iron, but the fundamental reason is that iron employs people, while Jiangdong Plough employs cattle. "Tiangong Kaiwu is a grain and rice worker" records that "Wu Jun plows the fields without cows and uses hoes. It is not a matter of manpower to take up the value of cattle and the capital of aquatic plants and steal to die. "