History Questions Characterize the development of farming techniques during the Spring and Autumn, Spring and Warring States to the Tang Dynasty. Points for your answer!

At the beginning of the Warring States period, when Li Yul was the minister of Wei, he taught "to do the best we can", which was the earliest manifestation of the idea of intensive cultivation; "if you are diligent in managing your fields, you will gain three liters per acre", which means to strengthen the intensity of labor, to carry out intensive cultivation, to explore the potential of the land, and to increase the yield. During the Han Dynasty, through the popularization of the "generation of field law" and "district field law", etc., the intensive cultivation was pushed to a new height. For example, in the "Yidian Law", "the harvest of a year often exceeded the Aman field mu by more than one drachma, and those who were good at it doubled it". The book of "汜胜之书" firstly described the district field, and there were trial growers in the following generations, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, where there were more than twenty places successively. The main technical point of the district field is to concentrate the application of water and fertilizer to ensure that the crops can grow well and have a good yield.

The idea of "from each according to his ability" was also put forward earlier. Fu Xuan (217-278) of the Jin Dynasty said, "Do not bother to increase the number of hectares and acres, but to repair their work." That is to say, it is advocated to improve agricultural production, not by expanding the area of arable land, but should pay attention to a certain unit area more labor input. Wei agronomist JiaSiFu further put forward "all people camping field, must measure their own strength". Meaning, the scale of agricultural operations, the need to measure their own strength, and material resources, labor, etc. commensurate with the strength of their own blindly expand the scale of operations, but also do not reduce the scale of operations, so that their own strength can not be brought into full play.

"Avoiding shortcomings and giving full play to strengths" is also one of the traditional ideas of Chinese agricultural management. In the "Records of the Grand Historian - Cargo Shik Lianzhuan",......, the water is filled with a thousand stones and fish, and the mountains are filled with a thousand chapters of material. An Yi thousand trees of jujube; Yan Qin thousand trees of chestnut; Shu, Han, Jiangling thousand trees of orange; Huaibei, Changshan has been south, between the River Ji thousand trees of Hagi; Chen, Xia thousand acres of lacquer; Qi, Lu thousand acres of mulberry and hemp; Weichuan thousand acres of bamboo ......" is that the people of the Han Dynasty according to the characteristics of the region, the development of various agricultural production according to local conditions, and to give full play to the advantages of the region, to avoid the shortcomings. Vivid portrayal of regional advantages. Tang Zhen in the Qing Dynasty in the "submerged book - rich people" and according to the situation of the era in which he lived, made a "Long right shepherds, Hebei Yu boar, Huainan feeding wassail, Lakeshore reeling, Wuxiang people, woven straw raincoats and mats," the real description. This shows that the idea of avoiding shortcomings and playing to one's strengths has been passed down from generation to generation and has become an important part of the agricultural management idea. "Avoiding harm" is another important part of the ancient Chinese agricultural management idea. Huai Nan Zi - Mui Zai Xun: "Human feelings, in the harm to strive for small, in the benefit to strive for big." The idea of seeking benefits and avoiding harm is applied to agricultural production, which is a summary of the experience of "planting five kinds of cereals to prepare for disasters". Ma Yilong of the Ming Dynasty not only clearly summarized the principle of agricultural production to avoid harm is to "know what is appropriate, with its can not be abandoned; know what is appropriate, to avoid its can not be", and it mentioned "force is enough to overcome the height of heaven".

The Qin and Han Dynasties, soil tillage theory and technology has been greatly improved. Flooding book" puts forward the basic principles of farming: "The basis of all plowing, in the interesting time, and soil, business dung, Ze, early hoeing, early harvest." "Interesting time" is timely, not against the agricultural time. This principle, from the agricultural farming in general, puts forward the comprehensive application of farming measures and other measures and should pay attention to technical problems.

The technical aspects of plowing, "Flooding Book" summarizes the appropriate plowing period for spring, summer and autumn plowing: "Plowing the field in time, one and when five, called the cream, all get the time to work." On the other hand, the fields that are not ploughed in time, such as the "Prolonged Field" and the "Waxed Field", are badly ploughed fields. The soil of such fields was hard and dry, and crops did not grow well. Secondly, it inherited and developed the experience of plowing according to the time and the soil summarized in "Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals" ("任地", "辨土") of the Warring States period. Thirdly, in order to achieve a good agricultural harvest under the arid climate of the Guanzhong region, T氾Sheng Zhi also summarized the experience of ploughing in a timely manner to conserve moisture and prevent drought, emphasizing that hard and strong black kiln soils must be ploughed in a timely manner after ploughing to "level and moisten the blocks" and "do not let there be a block"; soil with loose properties must be "leveled and moistened" after ploughing to "avoid a block". After plowing the soil must be "rushes (suppression) of", "heavy rushes of". The Book of Floods also records: "In winter, when the rain and snow stop, it is always possible to use [something] to rushes. Cover the snow, do not make the wind fly away. After the snow again rushes, then the spring to protect the zephyr, at all times to the insects frozen to death, the next year is suitable for crops." Comprehensive above can be seen, our country in the Qin and Han Dynasties has laid the northern dryland moisture conservation and drought prevention farming technology system of the initial foundation.

The Cao Wei regime paid attention to reforming production tools and promoting new production techniques. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the irrigation tool, the overturning car, was reformed by Ma Jun to be lighter and more suitable; in the Western Han Dynasty, Zhao Zao created the columbarium plough to cultivate the seeding technology, in the Cao Wei Dynasty, during the Jia Ping period, Huang Fu Long, the governor of Dunhuang, brought to Dunhuang to popularize it, and as a result, the old cultivation method of the area was changed, and the saving of the Yong Li force was more than half of it, and the grain gained was five times higher than it was in the past.

The period of Wei Jin and North and South Dynasties, ox plowing was widely popularized. China's iron plow ox plowing was produced in the late Spring and Autumn period, the Qin and Han dynasties, although efforts to promote, but not yet truly popular, "from the overall point of view has not yet entered the era of ox plowing" [1]. In the Han dynasty literature and pictorial stone, two oxen drawn by two oxen lifting bar as the main form. Later generations of the proverbial cloud: "thirty acres of land a cow, wife and children hot bed." This is a portrayal of the wishes of homesteaders, and it also shows us that it takes 30 acres of land to raise one ox. For example, Chen Ping, one of the "Three Heroes of the Early Han Dynasty", whose family can be said to be a representative of small farmers in the Qin and Han Dynasties, only had "30 mu of land"[2] (The Family of Prime Minister Chen). Therefore, it was very difficult for an ordinary farmer to own a plow, and ox-plowing could only be said to be popularized among the landlord class in the Han Dynasty. In the latter part of Emperor Wu's reign, Zhao Zao made great efforts to "teach the people to pull plows with each other"[3] ("Foodstuffs and Goods Zhi"), which also proved that under the system of lifting the bar with two oxen, ox-plowing was not widely practiced by the common peasants. After the Western Jin Dynasty, a single ox pulling a plow has been very common, in the late Wei and Jin Dynasty murals, the number of which has exceeded the two oxen lifting the bar. [4] It is not difficult to see, the single ox way will be a plough cost input almost reduced by half, so it is conducive to the popularity of oxen plowing; Wei Jin and North and South Dynasties period of nomadic people into the interior of the increase in the number of oxen, most of the ordinary farmers can afford to raise a cow (see the third part of this paper), oxen plowing in this period to really realize the popularization of our country's agriculture has also really entered the era of oxen ploughing. Jinshu - Fu Xuan biography of Cao Wei Tun Tian: "hold the official cattle, the official gets six points, the scholar gets four points, since the private cattle, and the palace points." Explained in the central plains region cattle plowing has been widely used. The Murong clan of the Former Yan resettled displaced people in the Liaohe River Basin to develop agriculture, also "according to the old law of Wei and Jin", for the poor who had no assets, "each gave a grazing cow"[5] ("Murong huàng＠①Ji Ji"). In the mural paintings of the Wei and Jin tombs in Jiayuguan and other places excavated in the second half of the last century, there are a large number of ox-plowing drawings, only in Tomb No. 7 there are seven, and it is estimated that the total number of drawings is about 20 or more. Its content is mostly folk farming, but also military cantonment, plowing both Han and Xianbei, Qiang, clan and other ethnic minorities. [6] This shows that during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, even in the remote western Liaoning and western Hexi regions, cattle plowing has been widely popularized with the mainland.

Wei-Jin and North-South Dynasties period, the northern people in the most significant contribution to agricultural production tools, is the invention of animal-drawn iron rake. Iron-toothed rake is the "Qi Min Yao Ji" mentioned many times in the "iron teeth @ ② 楱" This is the earliest documented account of animal-drawn rake (such as the "Cultivation of the field" article said that the opening of the barren fields of the mountains and rivers to plant millet jì @ ③: "After the cultivation of the barren fields, the iron teeth @ ② 楱 and then raked all over the"). At present we see the earliest animal power rake image data is Jiayuguan and Jiuquan and other places in the Wei and Jin Dynasty tomb murals, the initial animal power rake are a horizontal wood, under the installation of a single row of rake teeth, people stand on it is very unsteady and convenient. For example, the 6th Cao Wei Tomb unearthed rake portrait brick, the picture of a woman waving a whip and pulling the rope squatting on the rake, rake tíng @ ④ under the rake equipped with many rake teeth, a stocky plowing ox in the drive yells hard to pull the rake raking the ground, drive the oxen woman's long hair flowing, so that the whole picture more than a few points of life. [6] Jiayuguan and the Hexi region of the raking portrait brick *** counted about 10, it seems, although the animal power rake has just been invented soon, but the popularity of the speed is still quite fast.

In the traction apparatus, the Wei and Jin dynasties have been used rope soft sleeve, and may appear frame rake. Academics usually believe that "at that time has not used the plow rope". To the Tang Dynasty curved plow only use soft sets [7] (p246, 318). But in Gansu Jiuquan West ditch Wei Jin tomb painted brick [8] (p54) in two single ox rake map, one of which is a common single ox double yamen traction of the single row of teeth rake, the other is very special: the figure of a fat and robust bull in the rake rake rake, traction device is not a common long straight yamen, but the two ropes, due to the march, the ropes were pulled taut and taut, such as the two straight parallel lines. The operator behind the rake, each hand manipulating a rein to harness the cattle, the left hand close to the body, the rope is slack; right hand forward, the rope is pulled tight, as if harnessing the cattle to the right turn. Four ropes are very clear, impossible to produce ambiguity, so it is connected to the two ropes on the rake, can only be a soft set of traction farming equipment. The agricultural tools used for the two parallel horizontal wood, under which for some reason did not draw rake teeth, but from the development of agricultural tools, later only frame-type rake and no frame-type 耱, and the frame-type rake also has the function of 耱's leveling the soil, so the agricultural tools can not be 耱, but may be a rake ("Painted Brick" will also be the figure named "cow rake"). The invention of the soft cover makes the farmland cultivation really realize the flexible and fast, easy to operate; frame type harrow makes the harrowing operation smooth and safe, the effect of soil crushing is better, the two inventions have been used for later generations.

Tang before the bulky long straight plow, turning difficult, plowing laborious. Farmers in the long-term production practice to create a lightweight short curved shaft plow. Shaanxi Sanyuan Zhen Guan period Li Shou tomb murals on the oxen plowing map, and Dunhuang murals in the late Tang Dynasty oxen plowing map, the plow shaft are curved, indicating that many places widely adopted the curved shaft plow. Late Tang Lu Guimeng "Lei 耜经" recorded curved plow consists of 11 parts, major improvements in three places: 1. long straight shaft into a short curved shaft. The old-style plow length is generally about 9 feet today, the front and the shoulders of the oxen, curved plow length of about 6 feet today, and only after the oxen. The plow frame becomes smaller and lighter, easy to turn around, maneuver flexible, save animal power. By the old-style plow two oxen lifting the bar into an ox traction. 2. Increase the installation of the plow evaluation, due to the thickness of the plow evaluation step by step down, push the plow evaluation, so that the plow arrow down, the plow inserted into the ground deep; pull back the plow evaluation, so that the plow arrow up, the plow inserted into the ground shallow, to adapt to the different needs of the deep plowing and shallow plowing. 3. Improve the wall of the plough, the wall of the plough in Tang dynasty was round, and thus also known as the plough mirror. It can push the upturned soil to one side to reduce the forward resistance, and can overturn the soil to cut off the growth of grass roots. After the emergence of this plow gradually spread, and became the most advanced farming equipment. This is the basic shape of the plow, which is a major improvement of the Tang Dynasty working people on the plow. Tube car (picture) various waterwheels are widely used in farm irrigation, is an important factor in the development of agricultural production in the Tang Dynasty.