What historical laws are reflected in the development and evolution of farm tools?

The history of mankind begins with the use of tools; With the use of tools, human beings officially broke away from the ranks of animals and walked out of the wilderness of ignorance. The history of agriculture began with the influence of farm tools on agricultural activities. Before agriculture began, human beings experienced nearly two million years of gathering and fishing. Although people can already use tools at this time, they can't be called farm tools. The natural ecology was purposefully processed by people before the emergence of agriculture, and the tools used for agricultural processing were agricultural tools. It can be seen that from tools to farm tools, human ancestors learned it after nearly 2 million years of hard exploration, and it is not easy to get farm tools. With farm tools, there is agriculture. Agriculture and farm tools were born in human society at the same time, and no one can do without their twin brothers.

The birth of agriculture and farm tools ended the human demand for society and began a new era of human contribution to society.

With the change of society, agricultural production has developed and farm tools have made corresponding progress; The progress of farm tools in turn promoted the development of agriculture. China has been founded by agriculture since ancient times, with a long history of agriculture. All walks of life have always developed with the development of agriculture. The development of agriculture is manifested in the development level of farm tools to some extent. The invention and development of farm tools led to the emergence and development of a series of scientific and technological departments and research scientific and technological departments. It can be said that the whole national economy and people's livelihood are directly or indirectly related to agriculture to varying degrees. Since the Stone Age, China has been a country based on agricultural production economy, and all social systems in past dynasties have been inextricably linked with agricultural development. Agricultural production tools promote the development of productive forces, but they will inevitably lead to new changes in economic conditions, and the development of economic conditions will inevitably lead to the evolution of social systems. This is a great promotion of agricultural production and the development of farm tools to the social system.

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China has been a big country based on agriculture since ancient times, with a history of agricultural civilization of more than 10,000 years. It is one of the few agricultural cradles in the world. China has a solid foundation of agricultural science and technology; China's agricultural culture is rich in connotation. The Yanhuang culture, which was born and developed in China, is at the same or similar level of development as the ancient Egyptian culture, ancient Greek culture, two rivers culture, ancient Indian culture and Maya culture, and only Yanhuang culture has evolved into Chinese culture without interruption. Of course, there are many reasons. The most fundamental reason is that Yanhuang culture has always been rooted in smokeless, green and huge agricultural culture (including farm tools culture), with rich and advanced scientific and technological content; It provides a strong material foundation for the formation and sustainable development of the Chinese nation, and provides the same mode of production, lifestyle and ideological and cultural choices for the great integration of people of all ethnic groups in China. China's agriculture has supported the largest nation in the world, created unparalleled economic achievements and taken an ecological road of sustainable development. This is the beauty and uniqueness of Chinese civilization, and it is also the foundation of new rural construction in China today.

In essence, farm tools are the products of human beings using and transforming nature in order to survive and constantly improve their living conditions, improve the appearance of agricultural production, mark the continuous development of agricultural productivity, and are the epitome of the continuous progress of human society from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. Therefore, the farm tools contained in the production tools are a cultural carrier and cultural phenomenon, which is one of the important connotations of the whole ancient civilization. Since farm tools are man-made things, they contain human wisdom and technology and become an important part of human material civilization. The production, use and abandonment of farm tools also reflect people's ideas and branded human spiritual culture.

Agriculture is the source of all trade. Agriculture is an indispensable industry after human beings enter the farming era. Many other industries may disappear temporarily or permanently with the development of society, but agriculture will not. Agriculture not only existed in the past, but also exists now and will never be absent in the future. Farm tools are brothers and sisters of agriculture, and without agriculture, there would be no farm tools; Without farm tools, there would be no agriculture. Therefore, the historical process that mankind has gone through begins with the footsteps of agriculture; It keeps advancing in the footsteps of agriculture and all walks of life differentiated from agriculture. The occurrence and development of agriculture are closely related to the occurrence and development of agricultural tools. Therefore, to study the history of human development, it is necessary to study the history of agricultural tools.

The history of farm tools is an important content and part of national history. A national history without a history of farm tools is unthinkable. The history of farm tools reflects the great history of the Chinese nation from one side; It embodies the great quality and fine tradition of Chinese sons and daughters who have always been hardworking, brave, smart, creative and innovative. Studying the history of farm tools can not only inherit and carry forward these virtues, but also help to improve people's national self-esteem, self-confidence and patriotism, especially the younger generation. But also enables us to discover the scientific development law of agricultural machinery; We can learn from the development of agricultural machinery today, thus promoting the development of contemporary agricultural machinery and achieving more brilliant achievements.

Studying the history of agricultural tools in China is to restore the true colors of the development history of agricultural tools in China, so that people can treat history correctly. Correctly treat the history of traditional farm tools in China. Studying the development history of agricultural tools in China is to find out our experience and shortcomings from the footprint of historical progress; Find out the reasons and lessons of our changing from advanced to backward, and provide reference for the development of agricultural machinery in China in the future. The purpose of studying the development history of agricultural tools in China is to provide more abundant, accurate and authentic historical materials about the development of agricultural tools for the general history of China and related disciplines.

It is the historical responsibility of historical workers, including historians of agricultural tools, to reproduce the truth of history to the world.

To this end, we thought of a very important question, that is: should Chinese civilization be five thousand years or ten thousand years? Traditionally, the Chinese nation has a history of 5,000 years of civilization. It is said that this statement is mainly based on the invention of characters and the emergence of cities. This basis is really unreasonable. No matter how developed urban construction is; No matter how wonderful the application of words is, can it not be separated from farmers? Where can there be developed cities and wonderful words without living people? As mentioned above, it is indisputable that China has a history of agricultural civilization of over 10,000 years. The standard that determines mankind to enter the civilized era should be the arrival of agricultural civilization, not the appearance of words or cities, because the first needs of mankind are eating and agriculture. No matter how beautiful the city is and how developed the writing is, it will not solve the problem of people's survival. More than 10,000 years of agricultural civilization has continued, and it has been extended from today. Agricultural civilization is the cornerstone of other civilizations, and almost all other civilizations originated from agricultural civilization. The agricultural civilization after Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties is of course Chinese civilization; So why is the agricultural civilization before Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties excluded from Chinese civilization? The traditional agricultural tool sickle has a history of more than ten thousand years. In these ten thousand years, sickle has been the main agricultural tool in the harvesting project, which is one of the three major agricultural projects: planting, managing and harvesting. Until the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), it still played a leading role in agricultural harvesting. Isn't the agricultural civilization initiated by sickle the Chinese civilization? Isn't the rice culture with a history of more than 10 thousand years the Chinese civilization?

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There are few historical materials about the development of agricultural tools in China since ancient times, and there are many ancient documents in China. However, in this vast ancient literature, there are few historical materials about agricultural tools, and many materials can only be found, judged, referenced and used for reference from cultural and historical materials unrelated to agricultural tools, just like looking for a needle in a haystack. This can be proved by my "General History of the Development of Agricultural Tools in China" [about 1500 articles]. But also provides a set of important information for paving the way for future generations. Unfortunately, there is no place to publish it, and it can only be published in my limited number of Addendum to the Development History of Agricultural Tools in China). In the ancient literature of China, there are almost no books devoted to farm tools. Until the Tang Dynasty, as a hobby, a poet Lu Guimeng wrote the first book devoted to farm tools in the history of China. Although it has great historical value, its main content is only about a bow plow. Hundreds of years later, Wang Zhen's Agricultural Books compiled by Wang Zhen in Yuan Dynasty made a comprehensive summary and introduction of China's traditional farm tools. But it has become an unprecedented agricultural tool in the history of China. In the history of China, although there are hundreds of books that can be included in agricultural books, there are very few people who really talk about agricultural tools. Even in the next two large-scale agricultural books, The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration and The General Examination of Timing, although agricultural tools occupied a lot of space, they were basically Wang Zhen's agricultural books? An atlas of agricultural machinery, with little new ideas. In the late Qing Dynasty, while a group of radical figures were exploring how to get rid of poverty and backwardness in China, Gu copied China's first textbook-style monograph on agricultural tools in order to teach agricultural tools knowledge in some newly-opened schools, which became the first work written by China scholars independently. Tang Zhicai's Law on Improving Agricultural Machinery, published by World Bookstore 1933, actually talks about how to improve the labor-saving and high-efficiency ability of traditional agricultural machinery in China while introducing agricultural machinery from Europe and America, and how to independently develop new agricultural machinery on the basis of improvement and reform. But they are not historical works.

Before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, although the research on the history of agricultural tools can not be said to be blank, it is rare. Mr. Liu Xianzhou has systematically sorted out the information about ancient agricultural machinery, and organized the compilation of Selected Materials on the History of Science and Technology in China-Agricultural Machinery, which was published by Tsinghua University Publishing House. Then (1963), Mr. Liu Xianzhou published the monograph History of Agricultural Machinery Invention in China, which opened the door for studying the history of agricultural tools in China. However, even this monograph is still programmatic and lacks detailed textual research and discussion. More importantly, the trend of inheritance is still quite weak. Universities and scientific research institutions have neither institutions nor subjects in this field, and there is no garden for publishing works on the history of agricultural tools. Although China Academy of Agricultural Sciences and several universities have successively set up agricultural history research rooms, after ups and downs, few people and financial resources are engaged in special research on the history of agricultural tools. On the other hand, with the large-scale economic construction and the corresponding development of cultural relics archaeology after the founding of the People's Republic of China, although a number of cultural relics related to agricultural tools have been unearthed, they are only scattered in various excavation reports, lacking systematic sorting, serious analysis, comparison and research. After the reform and opening up, this situation began to improve. Several major agricultural history research institutions, represented by the Agricultural Heritage Research Office of China Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have been strengthened and enriched, and China agricultural history, agricultural history research, ancient and modern agriculture, etc. have been established one after another, making the study of agricultural tools history begin to have its own position. In particular, the publication of Agricultural Archaeology, a large-scale academic publication, has pushed the research on the history of agricultural tools into an era of blooming flowers. The author has written three articles, Ten Years Review, Archaeology Today and Five Years and Up to the Next Level, and made a comprehensive review of the research on the history of agricultural tools. In recent twenty years, Zhang Chunhui's A Brief History of Agricultural Tools Development in China, China's Ancient Agricultural Machinery Invention History (Supplement), Zhang Kai's Ancient Agricultural Tools, History of Agricultural Tools and the author's Outline and Atlas of Agricultural Tools in China have been published successively. There are also a large number of agricultural monographs represented by the Historical Draft of Agricultural Science and Technology in China, which all talk about the contents of farm tools to some extent. In particular, Chen Wenhua's Atlas of the History of Agricultural Science and Technology in China and Atlas of Agricultural Archaeology in China systematically sorted out the cultural relics of agricultural tools excavated over the years, which greatly enriched the data sources of the research on the history of agricultural tools and created a certain material basis for the compilation of the history of agricultural tools in China.

But this is only a foundation after all, how to organize scattered data systems; How to sort out the development of farm tools in the past tens of thousands of years; How to find out the origin and development ways of various farm tools, especially some important and influential farm tools; How to fully display various academic viewpoints of farm tools research; How to unify the differences; How to reflect the overall development of farm tools technology; How to refine the technical concept of agricultural tools development ... this is a difficult problem without precedent.

Through many efforts, so far, we finally have the basic reading materials of the history of agricultural tools in China, such as my humble work "The History of Agricultural Tools in China", but it can only be the "foundation", and many details have not been solved, or not completely solved. For example: the development and evolution of the form, sound and meaning of words used in agricultural tools; Distinguish farm tools from "the same thing with different names", "foreign objects with different names", "one thing with many things" and "one thing with many things"; Exploration of farm tools that only know their names but not their contents; We only know the stereotypes of farm tools, but we don't know how they came into being, and we don't know the ins and outs of their development and evolution, etc., all of which need further investigation and study.

In addition, the main basis for studying the history of agricultural tools at present is literature, archaeology and cultural relics. This obviously has some shortcomings: first, the literature, especially the ancient literature, has great limitations, and there are more farm tools actually existing in society than those recorded in the literature, which have never existed since ancient times. Although some supplements have been made according to some relevant surveys, there are still many traditional farm tools that cannot be written because of the lack of a nationwide survey of ancient farm tools; In particular, the traditional agricultural tools that have been lost in ancient times and lack of records in the literature have become irreparable omissions in the history of agricultural tools. Second, archaeology and cultural relics are very accidental and random. We only see what has been discovered in a certain time and space, how much has not been discovered, and what will be discovered in the future. No one can say for sure, so some conclusions now are likely to be denied by the discovery of new archaeology and cultural relics in the future. Thirdly, there is no description of the structure of farm tools in both literature and archaeological relics. The most important means to make up for this shortcoming is to conduct a comprehensive survey and physical mapping of existing traditional ancient agricultural tools. Although some work has been done, it needs considerable manpower, material resources and financial resources because of its wide coverage, so it takes considerable efforts to write these contents into the History of Agricultural Tools. I'm afraid it will be difficult to complete without the national project and investment. Fourthly, the re-appraisal of cultural relics unearthed from farm tools is also a huge project that should be done in the study of the history of farm tools, which is very difficult to do. Many of these cultural relics are likely to be inaccurate or incorrect in the initial assessment. At present, when these farm tools are included in the monograph on the history of farm tools, they only talk about reality. This is definitely a big shortcoming, which needs to be made up in the future.

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In spoken language, the boundary between "farm tools" and "agricultural machinery" is very vague. From the point of view of philology, it is probably the same.

Obviously, "farm tools" is the abbreviation of "tools for agricultural production and labor". So what is a "tool"? The original meaning of tools refers to the tangible and intangible things that people use in labor production and social activities. It is a broad word, which can refer to the instruments used in various production activities that have an effect on the working object. Axes, saws and chisels commonly used in ancient handicrafts are tools; Ploughs, rakes and hoes commonly used in ancient agriculture are tools; Lathes, planers and turning tools commonly used in modern industry are also tools; Harvesters and disc harrows commonly used in modern agriculture are also tools. Obviously, harvesters, disc harrows, lathes, planers, axes, saws, plows, iron harrows and so on. It can also be called machinery, so in a certain sense, the boundary between "tool" and "machinery" is very vague. These tools are tangible things that exist in society. However, tools also have an extended meaning, that is, what people need to engage in conscious activities, which can be concrete, tangible or intangible and abstract. For example, "language" is a tool for people to exchange ideas, which means abstract things. Of course, "tools for agricultural production and labor" will not be abstract things, but concrete objects used by people engaged in agricultural production and labor.

The term "agricultural productive labor tools" consists of tools, productive labor and agriculture.

The term "labor production tools" limits "tools" to the category of "productive labor" and no longer includes abstract tools such as "language". The term "agricultural labor production tools" limits this specific tool to the category of "agricultural labor production", that is, only the specific tools used in this category can be regarded as "agricultural labor production tools". The tools of labor production, from the perspective of political economy, should be concrete objects that people use to process labor objects in the process of labor production. Labor production tools are placed between laborers and labor objects. Agricultural labor production tools are agricultural workers-farmers and agricultural labor production objects-land or crops, and concrete instruments for processing land or crops. Therefore, hoes, sickles, plows, rakes and so on are very clear agricultural tools, because it is farmers who use them for labor production, and the object of labor production is crops or land.

What does "agricultural machinery" mean? We have to start with the meaning of "machinery".

"Machinery" also has two meanings: concrete and abstract. The specific meaning actually refers to some objects. There has never been an exact definition of what "machine" refers to. Ci Hai said (1) that machinery is the general term for "machines, institutions, etc.". ; (2) the words are clever and deceptive; ③ Stiff and inflexible. "① is concrete, ② and ③ are abstract. It has been explained that machinery is a tool that can only be operated according to prescribed procedures, that is, "machinery" still belongs to the category of "tools". As for "agricultural machinery", Mr. Liu Xianzhou explained it in the History of Agricultural Machinery Invention in China: "In China's historical documents, this kind of tool is sometimes called farm tool, sometimes called farm tool, and sometimes called farm tool. According to the definition of machinery, any tool, no matter how simple, is a kind of machinery when it is used for work. So in this book, they are generally called agricultural machinery. "According to this explanation, that is to say, the traditional agricultural tools in ancient China, no matter how simple their structure, can be called agricultural machinery. From this, we can draw the opposite inference: all agricultural machinery, no matter how complicated, is also a tool of agricultural production, and can also be called "farm tools". Because there is a habit in literature and spoken language, ancient agricultural production tools are called "farm tools" and modern agricultural production tools are called "agricultural machinery"; Objects driven by power machinery are called agricultural machinery, such as seeders and harvesters. Artifacts driven by human or animal power are called farm tools, such as hoes, sickles, shovels and hoes.

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The development of farm tools in China is the same as that in China. One of its basic characteristics is its own continuity. And the continuity of farm tools is more obvious than that of agriculture. Even if there are some major breakthroughs in agronomy, farm tools will not change immediately. For example, although the process of sowing has undergone many changes since ancient times, the tools of sowing have never changed fundamentally. The continuity of the development of farm tools is also manifested in the fact that it is rarely disturbed by external conditions. Major political and military changes can promote or delay the development of farm tools, but rarely interrupt their own procedures. Almost all the dynasties have promoted the rapid development of agricultural tools, but they are the continuation of the previous generation and have never changed by leaps and bounds. It was after the founding of New China that China's traditional agricultural tools were repeatedly impacted by imported agricultural machinery, but after losing external interference, the traditional agricultural tools still stubbornly returned to their own development path and developed according to their own laws. Therefore, the development history of traditional agricultural tools in China shows the historical law of the overall development of traditional agricultural tools in China. Specifically, it clearly shows the historical law of the continuous development and evolution of each kind or type of agricultural tools.

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Because the original farm tools are too far away from us, there are no direct text and graphic data. When studying the original farm tools, there are often some problems that are not the farm tools themselves, but the understanding problems of future generations. Because of the inconsistency of understanding problems, it often leads to many difficulties in the study of farm tools themselves.

A correct understanding of the production process of primitive farm tools is the premise of a correct understanding of primitive farm tools themselves. Generally speaking, the origin of farm tools is a long process. Here we make a tentative and brief description of the general process of the production of primitive farm tools:

In the early days of primitive agriculture, there was a long transition period between agriculture and gathering. The agricultural tools in this period were very simple, and most of them existed in the collection era. Only after the invention of primitive agriculture, the object of labor has changed: the cutting tool used to cut branches, stems, leaves and vines of wild plants has become a harvesting tool for harvesting stems and ears of artificially planted crops such as rice, millet and millet; Tools for processing wild grain seeds have become grain processing farm tools for processing artificially planted rice and millet seeds. In addition, there is a special agricultural tool in this era, that is, knives, axes, hoes, chisels and so on. Because the main farming method in this era is "slash and burn", knives, axes, hoes and chisels at this time should be called agricultural tools for farmland development. Until "fire-ploughing" agriculture gradually transited to "ploughing" agriculture, knives, axes, hoes, chisels and so on. Out of the category of farm tools (but not extinct, it has become an important tool for processing farm tools and other tools, and has been handed down). No matter "slash-and-burn" or "stick-burning", there is generally no fertilization, irrigation and field management, so there are no agricultural tools for fertilization, irrigation and field management in this era; There are no farm tools for farming. Because the masses have not settled down, the land is often abandoned after harvesting, and if it is planted again, it will be burned to death with a knife. To a large extent, the custom of picking up tools and throwing them with tools is still preserved. The shape and performance of tools are not very strict, so there are not many kinds of farm tools in this era. In addition to the above-mentioned axe, hoe, chisel and other agricultural tools for land development, there are also agricultural tools for poking holes for sowing, harvesting and threshing. In this way, after thousands of years or even thousands of years, people began to realize that the reuse of land and farm tools can greatly save energy, and harvesting may be better than reclaiming land. So people partially settled down and engaged in relatively stable agricultural production. The tools used are also collected in a labor-saving and easy-to-use way for reuse. Therefore, it is also important whether farm tools are easy to use and save energy; Which farm tools are suitable for what farm work, choose them purposefully, and polish them purposefully, so there are more refined polished farm tools; There are more and more compound farm tools with handles, not only wood-wood compound farm tools, but also wood-stone, wood-bone and wood-clam compound farm tools. "Lei" is a combination of Lei and Lei, and agricultural tools such as shovels, hoes and hoes developed from Lei, Lei, which are used to turn over and loosen soil, as well as axes and hoes. Society has also advanced to the later stage of primitive agriculture.

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It is very important to correctly judge the historical background of ancient agricultural tools words in ancient documents. For example, there is a saying in many ancient books that "the world of Shennong, wood is a coffin, wood is a coffin", so some people set all the shackles in history according to this sentence: all the shackles are wood; All the thunder are made of wood. This view is obviously not comprehensive. This kind of record in ancient books may be just one of Lei's production methods, not the production method in Shennong era, but the production method in a certain period in the future. In fact, the early thunder can be said to have no "kneading" system; Most of the early stones were made of stones, not to mention "stones". Another example is Zhou Shu, who said, "Shennong ..... chopped wood to make hoes". Is it true that all hoes and hoes in history are made of "broken wood"?

More precisely, this passage quoted in many places in ancient books originated from Zhouyi? Quotations ",the original words are as follows:" Bao family does not make it, God makes it, and wood is smashed for the benefit of Lei, so as to teach the world and cover all interests. "That is to say, this interpretation of cohesion is based on the Yi hexagrams in Zhouyi. According to the image displayed in Yi Gua, new meanings are added. Mr. Jaco has made an incisive exposition on this (omitted) (Jaco's Selected Works of Zhouyi Agriculture Ancient and Modern Agriculture 1988, 1 46). It can be seen that the saying that "wood is a coffin and wood is a thunder" is neither directly derived from Zhouyi. This further proves that we can't use the theory of "wood as coffin, momo as coffin" as the basis for studying the original coffin.

The reason why we can't pick words is that the records of ancient Chinese characters are not 100% accurate. Because many of the documents in which these words are located are not agricultural professional works; Most of the writing content is not the author's eyewitness record. Even though some books are related to agriculture, the authors are mostly non-agricultural professionals. Many words are speculative in themselves. If we push them up on this basis, we can't believe them 100%. For example, in the above example of "rubbing wood for thunder", if it is inferred that wood was also used in the early stage of primitive agriculture, what external conditions can inspire people to think of cutting a large piece of wood into shovel-shaped agricultural tools like future generations when people just learned to poke holes and sow seeds with sharp sticks in the early stage of primitive agriculture? Now there are always people who cling to this sentence and think that the appearance of scorpions must be carved out of wood, which is a bit metaphysical.

Textual research on ancient agricultural tools by using ancient documents and ancient characters is one of the important means, which is absolutely necessary, but it must not fall into a metaphysical situation. There are many annotations about ancient farm tools in ancient books, but they are not all correct, and even contradictory annotations often appear. Therefore, we should pay attention to avoid mechanically picking words in ancient books. We should treat the records of farm tools in ancient books with dialectical materialism and historical materialism. For example, in ancient literature, it is not uncommon for agricultural tools to annotate each other, but some agricultural tools have become a kind of agricultural tools after being annotated. As someone pointed out: "The master of Confucian classics who annotates ancient documents is not familiar with the shape and function of tools, so the two tools are similar in shape and mixed into one thing. In Imahiko, money, spear, chop, chop, chop are mutually trained, which leads to the confusion of tool names "(Chen Bronze, Agricultural Tools, Money and Agricultural Archaeology). Therefore, how to make good use of such information requires a serious brain.

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The formulation of "fire ploughing and ploughing" is more accurate than "knife ploughing and hoeing".

Looking back at history, it seems that we can get an understanding that it is more accurate to divide ancient agriculture into three stages: knife ploughing, hoeing and ploughing. Because the main tools used to cut down trees in the knife ploughing stage are not knives, but axes and hoes. For cutting trees, axes and hoes are far more useful than knives. In this regard, it is not true to say "slash and burn". What's more, regardless of whether knives, axes and hoes have a direct effect on the land, it is fire that directly acts on the land. Therefore, it is more accurate to call this stage "fire ploughing". After entering the mature and barren farming, it is mainly thunder farm tools, not hoes, that are used to turn over the soil and prepare for sowing. Because the role of hoes has always been defined as "weeding" tools, and weeding belongs to intertillage and has never been regarded as the main content of agricultural cultivation. As a special form and working mode of hoe, it can engage in certain digging work and has certain farming function, but this is not the main function of hoe, nor does it have the symbolic significance of hoe. Just as people think of "ploughing" when they mention "shovel" and "hoeing" when they mention "hoe". Therefore, the idea of "hoeing the ground" gives people the impression that it is inaccurate. However, there is no obvious gap between fire ploughing and ploughing, or ploughing and ploughing. There is a cross transition period. Therefore, in general, it is in the stage of fire ploughing, and it is not excluded that ploughing has occurred at some time and space. Similarly, in the ploughing stage, it is not excluded that ploughing still exists in some time and space. After entering the stage of ploughing, plows undertake the main task of ploughing land, but it is not the only rule in the world. There are still plows, plows, plows and plows in a certain time and space. Therefore, the original farm tools (and their descendants) have universal and regional problems.

In the "slash and burn" of primitive agriculture, it is still possible to obtain kindling from the preserved natural kindling in the initial stage, and then it will gradually transition to artificial kindling. In the past, it was generally believed that the original way of artificially obtaining kindling was to use the so-called "drilling wood for fire" often mentioned in ancient books. According to common sense, people first got artificial kindling, not from "drilling wood", but probably from making stone tools. Because wood drilling was not a common phenomenon and action in life for primitive people, there were few activities and actions of "drilling" or "turning" regardless of production and life at that time. In the Stone Age, making stone tools was a very common activity. When people make stone tools, it is not uncommon to produce sparks. It is natural that the fur or leaves people wear produce sparks, or the extinguished ashes produce sparks, thus causing combustion. Moreover, it is much easier to break stones to make a fire than to drill wood to make a fire. Therefore, in the process of the invention and utilization of fire, from the preservation of natural fire to the acquisition of artificial fire, it should first be obtained from the fire that appeared when "making stone tools", and "striking stones to make a fire" should be the first way to obtain artificial fire. In fact, there are similar myths in history about "striking a stone to start a fire", such as Zhu Rong's "striking a stone to start a fire". According to legend, Zhu Rong and Tunren should both be contemporaries, but later generations only emphasized "drilling for fire" and forgot "striking stones for fire".

In the past and in modern times, there was a debate about "people who dig tunnels drill wood for fire", and some people even did experiments on drilling wood for fire. I don't comment on these here, and I have never denied the view that "drilling wood" or "turning wood" can make fire. Because "friction generates heat" is an objective truth that has been proved by physics. As long as certain conditions are met, the friction between stone and air can catch fire, not to mention the friction between wood and wood or between stone and wood! What we want to emphasize is that the objective environment of the "tunnel man" era did not make the actual need of wood-wood or stone-wood friction, nor did it make the wood-wood or stone-wood friction reach fire and conditions.