Pictures of what a scythe looks like

The "Lei" is the handle, which is constructed as a pointed wooden stick with a short crossbeam, and the "耜" is the lower part of the soil. To use the Lei, the tip is inserted into the soil, then the foot steps on the beam to make the stick go deeper, and finally pry out what has been turned over.

China is a large country with a long history of traditional agriculture, 10,000 to 4,000 years ago in the Neolithic era, people living on this land began agriculture. Agricultural production is inseparable from a variety of agricultural tools, in the process of production and labor, people continue to create and innovate agricultural tools, a powerful impetus to the development of social and economic.

Lei?ê (lěi sì) is a kind of agricultural tool used in agricultural production to turn the land and sow crops. With the development of agricultural production, people transformed Lei 耜 into a plow. "The invention of Lei ěi sì proves the importance of agricultural production tools in ancient China, and also reflects the improvement of the level of agronomy at that time.

Farming tools for turning the land

S耒耜 is a pointed wooden stick with a short wooden beam, and 耜 is an improved version of耒, with one pointy end turned into two points, and then the pointy end turned into a flat end, which is what Dayu held in his hand. The role of the scythe is similar to today's shovels, but the shovels turn the soil capacity is relatively large, while the scythe turn the soil is a little less efficient.

But there's no need to doubt that Lei?ê turning the soil is practiced, because in that era of extreme tool scarcity, this kind of plowing technology with the help of external forces at that time has stepped into the lead. Legend has it that Emperor Yan Di was inspired to make Lei ??ê when he saw a wild boar foraging for food and saw its long tusks sinking into the soil to look for food.