Agricultural achievements of Qing culture

In Qing Dynasty, the land productivity in China was quite high, and the yield per mu exceeded any period in history. However, the productivity of agricultural labor is quite low. As far as the population that can be supported by the grain produced by an agricultural labor force (actually a farmer) is concerned, according to records, during the Warring States period, an agricultural labor force could support 5-9 people, (5 people were raised by farmers and 9 people were raised by farmers) [1]; In the Qing Dynasty, when agricultural production was the most developed, it was called Taihu Lake area with the most developed agriculture in China. Its agricultural labor productivity remains unchanged without any improvement, that is, a strong husband can support 5-9 people.

Jin Fu said in "The First Dilemma of Making Money and Surplus": "Everyone I visited in Jia Hu, Susong knows that Zhuang Fu can only plant 12 or 13 mu of rice fields. At the age of 20, when he harvested rice, the fertile land was only over 30 stones, and the barren land could also get 20 stones. If everyone eats a liter of rice every day, nine people can eat more than 30 stones, and those who eat 20 stones can eat five or six stones. " [2]

It can be seen that the agricultural labor productivity in China has not improved for more than two thousand years, and has remained at the same level. The only difference is that the cultivated land area of Kazuo is different. During the Warring States period, one person could plow 100 mu (69 mu), and in the Qing Dynasty, one person could plow 12- 13 mu (mu). The reasons for this phenomenon are: first, the former is more extensive in farming, while the latter is more intensive in farming; Second, there was a contradiction between a large population and a small land in the Qing Dynasty, and the per capita arable land decreased accordingly. Although the labor productivity of the latter is the same as that of the former, the latter was achieved when the cultivated land was reduced by 82% (57 mu). According to the production capacity of farmers in Qing dynasty, the labor productivity can still be improved, but due to the limitation of objective conditions, that is, the shortage of cultivated land, the production capacity of farmers has been limited. It can be seen that in addition to the production capacity of individual farmers, the shortage of cultivated land is also an important factor affecting the agricultural labor productivity in Qing Dynasty.

Influential scientists and scientific research achievements in the early Qing Dynasty included Wang Xichan, Mei Gaocheng, Ming Jiatu and Wang. In agriculture and water conservancy, there are agricultural books compiled by E Ertai, agricultural books compiled by Zhang Lvxiang and water conservancy works, and the progress in medicine is still limited to the scope of traditional Chinese medicine.

/kloc-sikuquanshu, compiled by Qing Ye government in the 0 ~ (th) century, is an important part of China's excellent traditional cultural heritage.

According to rough statistics, there are more than 300 kinds of scientific and technological documents recorded in Sikuquanshu (hereinafter referred to as Sikuquanshu), accounting for about one tenth of the total. There are more than 360 kinds of books, accounting for about one twentieth of the books. Among them, the books on mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, medicine, biology and geoscience are the most, while the books on engineering technology are few.

There are only more than 100 kinds of engineering books, mainly involving architecture, water conservancy, transportation, etc., which are relatively partial. As far as the four disciplines of astronomy, mathematics, agriculture and medicine with outstanding achievements in ancient China are concerned, most of the important works collected at that time were recorded in the Siku, and only a few were included in the catalogue. For example, the Summary of New Images and New Laws in Tianxue, the Ten Classics and Nine Chapters, the Rounding Sea Mirror in Mathematics, Qi Yaomin's Book, Chen Nong's Book and Wang Zhennong's Book in Agriculture, Huangdi's Internal Classic and Treatise on Febrile Diseases in Medicine, and even the Jin and Yuan Dynasties.

The four famous scientific works of Ming Dynasty (Compendium of Materia Medica, Travels of Xu Xiake, Encyclopedia of Agricultural Administration and Heavenly Creations) also recorded the first three. Engineering and technical archives include examination, building method, Wu kiln, etc. The catalogue covers architecture, textile, metallurgy, water conservancy, transportation, shipbuilding, weapons, paper making, printing, ceramics, sugar making, wine making, salt making and so on. There are many names, but not many. Some comprehensive works included in Siku are often quoted by historians of science and technology. For example, Shen Kuo's Meng Qian Bi Tan recorded in detail two great inventions (movable type printing and compass) in ancient China, which is a veritable masterpiece in the history of science and technology.

In addition, there are some precious historical materials about the development of ancient science and technology in China in the documents such as Shangshu, The Book of Songs, Zhou Li, The Book of Rites, local chronicles, notes and anthology. As can be seen from the above, the scientific and technological documents and historical materials of Siku are quite rich.

Siku not only collected many scientific and technological documents circulating at that time, but also collected a number of rare books of Yongle Dadian. For example, the mathematical masterpiece Nine Chapters Arithmetic was almost lost in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Bao Zhou's block-printed edition in the Southern Song Dynasty has only five chapters and is an orphan. The other one is a copy of this remnant. Dai Zhen, a famous scholar, collated the Notes on Nine Chapters and Liu Hui in Yongle Dadian, making it a complete book, and made a preliminary collation. He also compiled Qin's Nine Chapters of Mathematics from Yongle Dadian. Fortunately, these two famous books in the history of Chinese mathematics have been preserved, reappeared in the world, and spread many times so far. Another example is "Resisting Waves" included in Yongle Dadian, which is an important document of salt-making technology and has been recorded in Siku. (Excerpted from Guangming Daily 2. 10)