Chapter 3 The second section is a long-lasting story of ancient times——Yu, Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn Agriculture

Agriculture can be divided into different historical forms such as primitive agriculture, traditional agriculture and modern agriculture, which evolve in sequence.The use of wood and stone agricultural tools, felling agricultural tools played an important role, slash-and-burn farming, and farming with leftover materials are the main characteristics of primitive agricultural production tools and production techniques, which are basically consistent with the Neolithic Age in archaeology.Traditional agriculture is marked by the use of animal-drawn or manually-operated metal farm tools. The production technology is based on intuitive experience, and the iron plow is its typical form.my country entered a class society during the Yuxia period more than 2000 BC, and the Yellow River Basin gradually transitioned from primitive agriculture to traditional agriculture.Since then, my country's traditional agriculture has continued to modern times, and is still in the process of transforming from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture.

In the long traditional agricultural era, agricultural productivity is not in a stagnant state, but is constantly developing and changing.According to the different conditions of the development of traditional agricultural productivity, the traditional agricultural era after my country's primitive agriculture can be divided into four development stages: from Yu Xia to Spring and Autumn Period, from Warring States to Southern and Northern Dynasties, and from Sui to Yuan and Ming and Qing Dynasties. Yu, Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, and Spring and Autumn are the first stage, which is the period of transition from primitive agriculture to traditional agriculture, and also the period when the intensive farming system is sprouting.During this period, my country's political and economic center of gravity was in the Yellow River Basin, and the agriculture in the Yellow River Basin was mainly marked by ditch agriculture.The Yellow River Basin north of the Huaihe River and the Qinling Mountains has a dry and cool climate in the warm temperate zone. The annual rainfall is 400-750 mm. Although it is not abundant, it is concentrated in the hot summer and autumn, which is conducive to crop growth.However, the rainfall is seriously affected by the advance and retreat of the monsoon, and the annual variability is very large. The Yellow River is prone to flooding, so it is often suffering from drought in winter and spring, and flooding in summer and autumn. Drought is the main threat to agricultural production.Most of the Yellow River Basin is covered with primary or secondary loess. The plain is open, the soil layer is deep, loose and fertile, and the trees are sparse, which is very convenient for cultivation under primitive conditions.This natural condition enabled the earliest large-scale development of the Yellow River Basin, which has been the economic and political center of the country for quite a long time. At the same time, it also determines that the agriculture here starts from the planting of drought-tolerant crops such as millet, so as to prevent drought and conserve moisture [shang] Hurt] (referring to the humidity of the soil suitable for seed germination and crop growth) has always been the center of agricultural technology, that is, it belongs to the type of dry land agriculture.

From Yu, Xia to Spring and Autumn, my country's agriculture still retains obvious imprints from primitive agriculture, and the widespread use of wooden Leisi is one of the outstanding manifestations. As mentioned earlier, Leisi originated from the legendary Shennong era.The so-called lei was originally formed by installing a stepping bar under a pointed wooden stick for planting; later, a double-pointed lei appeared.If the point is changed to a flat blade, or a blade made of stone, bone, or clam is installed, it becomes a pike.Many of the "stone shovels" and "bone shovels" discovered by prehistoric archeology are actually crowns of different materials.The hoeing agriculture in our country is characterized by the use of Leisi.Because this kind of hand-push, foot-plantar (zhi) in-line tillage tool is very suitable for use in loess areas with deep and loose soil layers and vertical columnar joints.As early as the primitive hoe farming stage, our ancestors used Lei Si to reclaim a considerable scale of farmland in the Yellow River Basin.For example, the above-mentioned Cishan site stored hundreds of thousands of catties of grain, and it was impossible to do without more than a thousand mu of farmland at that time.The farmland area of ​​Yangshao Culture and Longshan Culture should be larger.This is no longer the garden and fence farming that is done in the vicinity of the residence, but belongs to the field agriculture.That is to say, our country developed field agriculture under the condition of using Leisi, and thus laid the material foundation for entering the civilized era.Egypt, Greece and other countries already used copper or iron plows when the age of civilization dawned, but the ancestors of our country entered the age of civilization with Leisi.

The period from Yu, Xia to Chunqiu is the Bronze Age in Chinese archaeology.Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Using it to make tools is harder, sharper and lighter than wood and stone tools. This is a revolution in the history of productivity development.During this period, the main hand tools and weapons were made of bronze, and bronze was also increasingly used in agricultural production.In the ruins of the Shang Dynasty, there was already a workshop for casting bronze wok [juejue], and 钁 models were unearthed, indicating that bronze 钁 had been mass-produced.Similar to a pickaxe, 钁 is a kind of farming tool for turning soil in the form of horizontal chopping [zhuo turbidity], which is used to reclaim wasteland and dig out roots.This was probably the first agricultural field occupied by bronze.Zhou people focused on cultivating, and cultivating tools were also made of bronze."Qian" (jian scissors) and "镈 (bobo)" (Fig. 2) used in cultivating are recorded in , that is, bronze shovel and bronze hoe. Because they are widely used and widely needed and accepted by people, they are used in the exchange. As an equivalent, it evolved into the earliest metal coin in China. Although the shape of copper coins in later generations of China has changed, they still follow the name of "money", which has influenced today. Bronze sickles also appeared very early, and there is another kind that evolved from stone knives. Later, the bronze claw sickle used to pinch and cut the ears of grain, which is the "ai" and "hammer" [zhizhi] mentioned in the book. However, stone sickles, stone knives, clam sickles, etc. were still widely used at that time, and they lasted for a long time. Long. As for digging soil, sowing, and digging ditches, Leisi is still mainly used. In the Zhou Dynasty, Leisi had bronze blade sets, but the number was small. Leisi was basically wooden. In Gongji, the production of bronze farm implements (called "Bo ware") is in charge of "Duan Shi", while the production of wooden Leisi is in charge of "Cheren". increase. This is because more and better wooden Leisi can be produced under the condition that tools such as bronze axes and adzes have been used. In short, bronze tools have become increasingly dominant in agricultural production, but because bronze Hardness and sources of raw materials are not as good as iron, and it does not and cannot completely exclude wood and stone farm tools in the field of agricultural production.

Before the arrival of the Iron Age, Leisi had always been the main farming tool in our country, which is an important feature of the ancient agricultural history of our country.After entering the Iron Age, Leisi continued to play an important role in agricultural production in a changed form.Leisi in the Iron Age has been widely equipped with metal blade covers, the blade is widened, and the shoulders can be used for stepping on. The original stepping on the crossbar was canceled, and Leisi developed into a 锸 (cha fork), which is still in use until now. The prototype of a shovel.Changing the earth-opening method of Leisi's hand-pushing and foot-sole up-and-down movement to the soil-breaking method of dragging forward and pushing horizontally, Leisi gradually developed into a plow.Since the plow was developed from Leisi, it still kept its old name for quite a long time.For example, the "Leisi Jing" written by Lu Guimeng in the Tang Dynasty actually talked about plowing.

In the pre-Qin period, there was a book called "Zhou Li", which recorded the complete farmland ditches [xu preface] system.The ditch starts from the small ditch in the field——畎 [quan dog], and the following are called Sui, ditch, 洫, and 浍 [kuaikuai] in sequence, criss-crossing, widening and deepening step by step, and finally leading to the river.Corresponding road system is matched with the ditch system.The ditches and roads divide the field into square fields with an area of ​​100 mu, which are used to distribute the land to farmers. This is the "well field system".This system has ceased to exist after the Warring States Period.Due to the development of land annexation under the private ownership of land by landlords, the rich have endless fields and the poor have no land to stand on. , but without success.Scholars in modern times have discussed the gully system related to the well field system, and different people have different opinions.Some people believe that the farmland ditches recorded in "Zhou Li" are irrigation canal systems, a utopia fabricated by later generations, and believe that it was impossible to build such a complete farmland irrigation canal system before the Warring States Period.Recent studies have proved that the farmland ditch system designed in "Zhou Li" is used for drainage, which is fundamentally different from the farmland irrigation canal system after the Warring States period.Because the canal system used for irrigation should start from the water diversion source, from high to low, and lead the water to the field surface. "Zhou Li" records exactly the opposite, starting from a small ditch in the field, from shallow to deep, from narrow to wide, and then converging in the river.Therefore, although it has been idealized and tidied by the editor, it is undoubtedly based on the gutter system that actually existed in ancient times.

The reason why gully system occurred in ancient China should be investigated from the agricultural environment and its changes in the Yellow River Basin at that time. The fertile and loose soil and open plains in the Yellow River Basin are very beneficial to the development of agricultural production, but the rainfall is relatively small and unevenly distributed, which is very unfavorable to agricultural production.Judging from ancient historical legends and ethnological examples, my country's primitive agriculture probably started with slash-and-burn farming from the use of mountains or forests in front of mountains.The original agricultural sites in the Yellow River Basin are generally found on the terraces on both sides of the tributaries of the Yellow River, which shows that agriculture at that time had nothing to do with the flooding of the Yellow River, and people did not know how to irrigate.From the end of primitive society, the residents of the Yellow River Basin gradually developed agriculture in relatively low-lying areas.Wetter soils in these areas mitigate the threat of drought, but face a new set of problems.The Yellow River Basin receives concentrated rainfall, and the river often floods. The plains have small slopes and poor drainage. Especially, the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River are silted up by shallow seas. There are many swamps, high groundwater levels, and serious waterlogging and salinity.To develop lowland agriculture, we must first drain the water and wash the alkali, and the farmland ditch system has emerged to meet this requirement.According to legend, one of Xia Yu's main works for water control was to build farmland ditches to drain the accumulated water from the fields into the rivers and lakes, and restore and develop lowland agriculture on this basis.The Shang and Zhou dynasties also attached great importance to this work. At that time, the land was often "bordered", that is, the boundaries of well fields were divided, which included the construction of farmland ditch systems, and inspections and maintenance were also carried out every year.The ancient farmland in our country was called "Yumu", which is also a reflection of the ubiquity of farmland ditches. "Field" (small ditches in the field) is the basis of the furrow system. The mounds dug out during plowing form long ridges on the field surface, which are called "mu", and crops are planted on mu. "Wanmu" was the basic form of farmland at that time, so it became the name of farmland.This is a form of ridge farming rather than irrigated agriculture.

Farmland furrowing did not exist in isolation, it was the core and foundation of the agricultural technology system at that time.For example, ancient my country attached great importance to intertillage (including the work of thinning seedlings between rows, weeding, loosening soil, and cultivating (yongyong) during the growth of crops), and foreigners called our country's agriculture "intertillage agriculture".Cultivation has been reflected in oracle bone inscriptions, and there are more records in the Zhou Dynasty. The king of Zhou held a "weeding (weeding) ceremony" in his home field every year, and special cultivating tools "qian" and "镈" appeared. .According to records, drill sowing can be traced back to the time of Yu Xia, when the ancestor of the Zhou family "abandoned" his life.Cultivation and drilling are based on the acre structure of farmland.Because the crops are on the "mu" (long ridge), necessary conditions are created for drill and intertillage.People have spent so much effort to build farmland ditches, so naturally they will not abandon it easily, which promotes the replacement of abandonment system. In "Zhou Li", there are "fields of one change" and "fields of another change", that is, fields that are planted for one year and rest for one year and fields that are planted for one year and rest for two years.There are farmland names such as "菑 [zizi]", "Xin" and "She" [yuyu] in the literature, and Su is a leisure field, and Xin and She are fields in the first and second years of planting respectively; The annual cycle is similar to the Santian system in the Middle Ages in Western Europe.

Coupled farming is a common agricultural labor method in ancient my country. It is a simple cooperation of two people in a group. Its origin is also related to the farmland ditch system.The main farming tools at that time, whether it was the pointed cone-shaped lei or the flat-bladed pike with a narrow blade, were easier to dig into the soil due to the combination of hands and feet, but it was difficult to turn up a large clod of soil alone.The way to solve is that more than two people plow (lei) together.However, when digging ditches, there are too many people and they squeeze each other, and it is most suitable for two people to cooperate, thus forming the habit of coupling farming, which is combined with the original mutual assistance customs of rural communes and fixed, and gradually spread to other kinds of farm work son to go.

It can be said that from Yuxia to Spring and Autumn, the agricultural system of the Yellow River Basin in my country was mainly marked by the system of furrows, which we call furrow agriculture.In the form of ditch farming, technologies such as land improvement, soil improvement, crop layout, improved seed selection, farming time control, and insect and weed control have all been initially developed, and intensive farming technology has sprouted in it. The ditch system came into being at the end of primitive society, roughly equivalent to the legendary Yellow Emperor era.At that time, private ownership had already emerged, but the construction of farmland ditches and ditches could not be done by scattered individual families. It had to rely on collective strength, and it became necessary to maintain and strengthen public ownership of land.This enabled the rural communes, whose fundamental characteristics were public ownership and private cultivation of land, to emerge and continue in class society.The so-called well field system is the rural commune and its variants.The well field system and the ditch system are the exterior and interior of each other.The trinity of Leisi, ditches and well fields is an important feature of our country's ancient agriculture and also an important feature of our country's ancient civilization.

During the Yu, Xia, Shang, Western Zhou, and Spring and Autumn periods, agriculture in the Yellow River Basin was dominated by planting, and grain production was the center of the planting industry. Animal husbandry was also quite developed. Sericulture production related to settled agriculture was developed. It still occupies a certain position in economic life. At the beginning of agriculture, people carried out cultivation experiments extensively, and many crops were often mixed together, so it is called "a hundred grains and a hundred vegetables".Later, crops with low yield and poor quality were gradually eliminated, and several crops with high yield and high quality were planted in a relatively concentrated manner, thus forming the concepts of "five grains" and "nine grains". The term "five grains" first appeared in the late Spring and Autumn Period; what it refers to has been interpreted differently by the Han people, reflecting the differences in different regions and different times, but there are similarities but minor differences.Comparing the literature records with archaeological discoveries, we can see that the main food crops in the pre-Qin period in my country were millet (also known as millet), millet, soybean (anciently called 菽〔shu〕), wheat, barley, rice and hemp (anciently called hemp).The types and composition of grain in subsequent dynasties developed and changed on this basis. From primitive times to Shang and Zhou Dynasties, millet was the most important food crop in the Yellow River Basin, and thus in the whole country.They were domesticated by the Chinese ancestors from the local foxtail and wild millet.They have strong drought resistance, short growth period, long sowing period, and high temperature resistance. They are naturally adaptable to the natural conditions of the Yellow River Basin, which are drought and windy in spring, hot in summer and cold in winter. It is not accidental that they were first planted by local residents.The above-mentioned characteristics of millet are more prominent, and it is most suitable as a pioneer crop for newly opened up wasteland, and it is also a good raw material for wine making.In oracle bone inscriptions and Chinese characters, millet appears a lot.After the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the wasteland decreased, and the position of millet in food crops declined, but it was still the main vegetable food for residents in the northern and western regions.Millet, commonly known as millet, is called millet without its shell.The sticky one in the millet is called sorghum [shushu], which can be used to make wine.Liang is the best quality millet, and it is a high-grade grain eaten by nobles and rich people.Millet has high nutritional value, has a hard shell, is insect-proof and moisture-proof, and can be stored for decades without spoiling.Li Bai, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, said: "There are several buckets of jade in a family, not as good as a plate of millet." Since the middle of the primitive agricultural era, millet has ranked first in grain production and the most popular grain for northern people.The alias of millet, Ji, is used to address the god of agriculture and agricultural officials, and "she (the god of land) Ji" has become the synonym for the country.This status of millet continued to the Tang Dynasty. Rice was first domesticated from wild rice by the ancestors of the Baiyue ethnic group in the south. It has long been the staple food of the southern people, and it expanded to the south bank of the Yellow River and the Weishui River and slightly north in the late primitive society.According to legend, after Dayu controlled the floods, he organized to promote rice planting in low-humidity areas. my country is the world-recognized origin of cultivated soybeans. Today, cultivated soybeans around the world are directly or indirectly imported from my country. The names of soybeans in these countries almost all retain the pronunciation of the ancient Chinese soybean name "Shun".According to the records of other documents, soybeans were planted in the late primitive society in the Central Plains of my country, and the earliest known remains of cultivated soybeans were found in the Haimeng site in Yongji County, Jilin Province, 2,500 years ago.Soybean is rich in protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. Known as "plant meat", it is of great significance to the health of people in agricultural areas who eat less meat.There are root nodules on the roots of soybeans that can fix nitrogen and fertilize the ground. The ancients knew this for a long time. Bean sprouts with root nodules underneath.Reflects how meticulous and keen our ancestors' observations were. Wheat and barley are native to West Asia and are imported crops to the Central Plains.In ancient my country, all cereal crops came from the side of the grain, and only wheat came from the side.The character "lai" in oracle bone inscriptions is "lai", which is the image of a wheat plant. The ears of wheat are straight and awned, and adding a horizontal line seems to emphasize the awns.Wheat was called "Lai" at the earliest, because it was introduced, so the word "Lai" in oracle bone inscriptions has acquired the meaning of "Xing Lai"; so the foot (wheat) was added under the word "Lai" as the name of wheat, forming the current "Lai" The word "wheat".Wheat was probably introduced to the Central Plains through Hehuang, Xinjiang (the western peoples planted wheat earlier than the Central Plains).Wheat remains dating back 3,800 years were discovered at the ancient tomb ditch site by the Kongque River in Xinjiang.In recent years, relics of wheat cultivation more than 5,000 years ago have been unearthed in Donghuishan, Minle, Gansu.Relevant documents show that the Western Qiang people have a tradition of growing wheat and eating wheat.The Zhou people had already planted wheat when their ancestor Houji, which may have been taught by the Qiang people.However, after wheat was introduced to the Central Plains, it developed rapidly in the eastern region. Cannabis is native to North China. At present, hemp seeds and hemp cloth in the late primitive society have been unearthed in the Yellow River Basin. The word "ma" first appeared in bronze inscriptions.There are many records about "hemp" in ancient books, and distinguish between male and female plants (by the way, this kind of understanding of plant sex is the earliest in the world): female hemp is called Ju (juju), and its son is called黂〔fenfen〕, which is edible, is listed in the "five grains"; male hemp is called 枲〔xixi〕, and its skin is used as a raw material for clothing. Vegetable cultivation in my country began at least in the Yangshao Culture period. Rapeseed (called Yun or Brassica) seeds were unearthed from the Dadiwan site in Qin’an, Gansu, Brassica vegetable seeds were unearthed from the Banpo site in Xi’an, Shaanxi, and Brassica vegetable seeds were unearthed from the Dahe Village site in Zhengzhou. Lotus seeds were unearthed, and gourd seeds were unearthed from the Hemudu site in Zhejiang.There are many types of vegetables recorded, among which leek, melon (melon) and gourd [huhu] (cucurbita) can be determined to be cultivated artificially.Later in the records, there are sunflower (winter amaranth), bamboo shoots (bamboo shoots), garlic, and green onions and ginger introduced from the northern and southern peoples respectively. Vegetables and fruit trees as a supplement to grains were initially either mixed with grains, or planted on the banks of large fields and around houses.During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, gardens different from Datian gradually appeared.It is formed in two ways: one is to differentiate from the limit.In ancient times, people surrounded a certain area of ​​land to protect and breed the plants, trees, birds and animals in it. This is called a fence, which is somewhat similar to the current nature reserve.Some vegetables and fruit trees may be planted in a certain part of the enclosure.At first, it was to protect vegetation, birds and animals, and then gradually developed into special planting.The second is to differentiate from the field.For example, some arable land in the Western Zhou Dynasty planted vegetables in spring and summer, and built solid yards for drying after harvest in autumn.In the Spring and Autumn Period, an independent garden industry was formed. At this time, the content of garden management was similar to that of later generations of gardening. Vegetables and fruit trees were grown, and some economic trees were often planted. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the planting industry centered on grain production was quite developed.There are Cang and Gan characters in oracle bone inscriptions. The merchants were addicted to alcohol. Zhou people believed that this was an important reason for their subjugation. It can be seen that there is a considerable amount of surplus food for them to squander.There are many descriptions of agricultural harvests in the book. The grain harvested by the noble lords on the public land is piled up like a mountain.However, under the condition that wood and stone farm tools and bronze farm tools were used together at that time, the reclamation of cultivated land and the development of planting industry had great limitations after all.At that time, the cultivated land was mainly concentrated around the isolated cities, and a little further away was the wilderness, which could be used as pasture, so there was a lot of room for the development of animal husbandry.However, there are still many uncultivated mountains, forests and rivers, thus forming the unique production department of this period-Yu Heng. In our country, there are "six animals" corresponding to "five grains", which are popular among people.This word was first spoken by people in the Spring and Autumn Period. The meaning of "six animals" is relatively clear, referring to horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, dogs, and chickens.The "animal" here is still domesticated.This is a summary of the situation in the Yellow River Basin.They all appeared in the Neolithic Age in my country. In the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, the characters representing the six animals are complete.According to recent research, most of the wild ancestors of the six animals can be found in our country, indicating that they were independently domesticated by our ancestors.my country is the first country in the world to raise pigs.Among the domestic animal remains unearthed from Neolithic sites, pigs have an absolute advantage.Since then, pigs have been the main livestock in our country's agricultural areas; this is in keeping with sedentary agriculture.In agricultural areas, almost every family raises pigs, irrespective of landlords and peasants.The Chinese character "家" is from "宀" to "豕", and "豕" means pig.Sheep are also important meat animals in the agricultural areas of the Central Plains.The Qiang people who originally lived in Qinghai and Gansu formed a sheep-based animal husbandry economy very early, so they were called "Xirong Shepherds".Humans bred horses and cattle originally for meat.Cattle and horses in the Central Plains were turned into slaves. It is said that in the era of the Yellow Emperor, "Serving cattle and riding horses will lead you to a long distance."The "ride" here is not riding, but driving.my country is probably the first country to use horses to drive cars.During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, horse-drawn carriages were used for wars, hunting, and traveling.Dogs are the earliest domestic animals raised by humans, and they were originally used as hunting assistants for humans.After entering the agricultural society, in addition to continuing to be used for hunting and guarding, dogs were also one of the sources of human meat.Chicken is the earliest poultry raised by our people.In the past, it was believed that domestic chickens originated in India, but the remains of domestic chickens unearthed at the Cishan site are much earlier than those in India. The wild ancestor of domestic chickens is widely distributed in my country. my country is undoubtedly the first country in the world to raise chickens.Chickens may have originally been raised for the purpose of heralding the dawn.Most domestic chickens at the Cishan site are male, and the character for chicken in the oracle bone inscriptions is a close-up of the head and neck of a rooster when it crows ( Animal husbandry was very developed in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.Merchants use animals to sacrifice to ghosts and gods, ranging from as few as a few heads to as many as hundreds or thousands.The number of Zhou people's herds is also considerable.After entering the Spring and Autumn Period, animal husbandry continued to develop, especially the competition among countries to raise horses, and the number of military vehicles increased rapidly. my country is the first country in the world to raise silkworms and reel silk, and it has been the only such country for a long time.The original silkworm eggs and sericulture techniques in many countries in the world were passed down from China.Wild silkworms are originally pests of mulberry trees.Primitive people probably discovered that silk is a high-quality fiber in the process of eating wild silkworm chrysalis, and gradually domesticated wild silkworms into silkworms from collection and utilization to artificial breeding.Around this time, artificial cultivation of mulberry trees began.According to ancient historical legends, sericulture in my country began in the time of the Yellow Emperor. It is said that Lei [lei Lei], the concubine of the Yellow Emperor Yuan, taught the people to raise silkworms. Of course, this can only be understood as a microcosm of the collective creation of primitive people.A pottery silkworm chrysalis imitating silkworm chrysalis was unearthed at the Nanyangzhuang site in Zhengding, Hebei, about 5,000 years ago, and a batch of very delicate silk fabrics—slices, ribbons and threads—was unearthed at the Qianshanyang site in Wuxing, Zhejiang, 4,700 years ago.According to the current research, the domestication of silkworms was probably completed by the primitive residents in several areas such as the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin 5,000 years ago at the same time or successively.Judging from documents such as "Zuo Zhuan" and "Zuo Zhuan", sericulture production in the pre-Qin period has spread throughout the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.People not only plant mulberry trees in gardens and gardens, but also plant mulberry fields and mulberry forests.There are also many types of silk fabrics.Before cotton spread to the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin, sericulture was the most important raw material for clothing in my country, and silk fabrics were an important material for economic exchanges and foreign trade in farming and pastoral areas.Sericulture has become an important production item second only to grain planting in ancient my country's agriculture. During the Yu, Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou dynasties, fishing, hunting, and gathering did not disappear from the field of agricultural economy.Inscriptions on oracle bone inscriptions and inscriptions on field hunting account for about 1/4 of all inscriptions on oracle bones.Field hunting in the Shang Dynasty played many roles in developing land, reclaiming farmland, protecting crops, supplementing some living materials and military training.At that time, there were still many undeveloped areas with "luxuriant vegetation and aggressive animals". The easiest way to develop cultivated land in these areas was to unify field hunting and agriculture.In the Zhou Dynasty, the rich resources of wild animals and plants contained in the uncultivated mountains, forests, rivers and lakes were still one of the indispensable sources of people's means of living and production, but the way to obtain these materials was different from the predatory method in the primitive agricultural era. Gathering and hunting too.The Zhou Dynasty stipulated a number of prohibitions to protect the natural resources of mountains, forests, rivers and lakes, such as fishing and hunting in mountains, forests, rivers, rivers and lakes only within a certain period of time, prohibiting hunting of wild animals and plants when they are germinating and young, and prohibiting fishing when the lake is exhausted, and hunting by burning forests, etc. Wait.There are even officials in charge of collecting taxes from the common people who use the mountains, forests and rivers, or organizing slaves and servants to produce.This kind of official is called Yu or Heng; and the production activities whose content and characteristics are the protection and utilization of natural resources in mountains, forests, rivers and lakes are also called Yuheng. Above we mainly introduced the general situation of agricultural production in the Yellow River Basin in this period.As for the general situation of agricultural production in the south (south of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River) and the north (north of the Great Wall) during this period, it will be introduced in relevant chapters later.

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