Chapter 5 The fourth section is triumphantly advancing in the shift of economic center of gravity - agriculture in the Sui, Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties

The third stage of the development of traditional agriculture in my country includes Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan. This is the period when my country’s traditional agriculture flourished on a larger scale, and it was also the period when the southern paddy field intensive cultivation technology system was formed and matured.The most prominent phenomenon during this period was the development of southern agriculture and the southward shift of the national economic center of gravity. As mentioned earlier, the Yangtze River Basin had a well-developed rice farming as early as primitive times, comparable to the millet farming in the Yellow River Basin.During the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, due to various reasons, there were very few records about southern agriculture.In the Spring and Autumn Period, the countries of Wu, Yue, Chu, Ba, and Shu established by the southern ethnic groups had a very developed economy and made many achievements in agricultural production.The southern peoples planted rice very early, and rice cultivation required basic drainage and irrigation facilities. Therefore, farmland irrigation in the south appeared earlier than the Yellow River Basin.For example, the earliest large-scale farmland irrigation projects in my country——Qisibei [beibei] (in the northwest of Gushi County, Henan Province) and Shaopi (in Shouxian County, Anhui Province today) appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period with Miao Man as the main body. Chu State.The foundation of the well-known Dujiangyan water conservancy project is the excavation of Yulei Mountain led by Bie Ling in the late Du Yu Dynasty of the Shu nationality in the 6th century BC, and the project of diverting the water from the Minjiang River into the Tuojiang River.They are more than 100 years earlier than Zhangshui 12 Canal, the earliest large-scale water conservancy project in the Yellow River Basin.The people of Wu and Yue in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River also began to reclaim land from the lake very early.Judging from the existing materials, both the stone plow and the bronze plow may be the first ones used by the Yuyue people in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River for paddy field agriculture.The bronze smelting industry in these areas is quite developed. The use of bronze farm tools is more common in the Wuyue area than in the Central Plains, and the iron and steel smelting technology is likely to be invented first in the Chuyue area.In the Spring and Autumn Period, Chu and Jin struggled for hegemony, and in the late Spring and Autumn Period, Wu and Yue prospered one after another, all based on the great development of agriculture.In the Warring States period, when the Yellow River Basin was developed on a large scale due to the promotion of ironware, the pace of agricultural progress in the Yangtze River Basin and its southern border slowed down, and the gap between the north and the south began to widen.During the Qin and Han Dynasties, except for the comparatively developed agriculture in Sichuan, which had been integrated with the Guanzhong Economic Zone, the agriculture in the Yangtze River Basin and its southern borders had obviously lagged behind that in the north.The southern population in the Han Dynasty accounted for only 1/10 of the total population of the country.Due to the vast land and sparse population, until the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, rice production in many places in the south still adopted the form of "fire farming and water hoe (nou)).The so-called fire farming is to use fire to burn the weeds and stubble on the ground, and then irrigate with water to grow rice.The so-called water beetle is to remove the grass during the growth of rice seedlings and drown them with water, or directly irrigate and flood the grass, and the water will follow the height of the grass.Burning and water farming is a form of paddy field agriculture based on the premise of rough farmland drainage and irrigation facilities. It generally implements a leisure system and does not use cattle to plow, which saves manpower. Compared with the intensive farming in the Yellow River Basin at that time, it is naturally very extensive.At the same time, the land of Chuyue still relies heavily on gathering, fishing and hunting.

The reason for the occurrence of the above situation should be found in the relationship between the natural environment and the development of productive forces.The Yangtze River Basin south of the Huaihe River in the Qinling Mountains and its southern border basically belong to the subtropical and warm temperate climate type, with abundant rainfall, densely covered rivers and lakes, sufficient water sources, and rich resources. These conditions are very favorable for the development of agricultural production.However, the rainfall is affected by the advance and retreat of the monsoon just like the Yellow River Basin. Some rivers are prone to flooding, and droughts and floods occur from time to time.There are often fertile alluvial plains on both sides of the rivers and lakes here, which is an ideal area for farming, but it lacks the vast plains of North China, and the mountains and hills are mostly acidic leached soil, which is not suitable for farming.The mountains are densely forested, the water surface is wide, and there are many depressions, which also bring great difficulties to large-scale development.Moreover, the climate is hot and humid, and under the condition that human beings' ability to transform nature is still extremely limited, miasma [zhang] epidemics are prevalent from time to time, threatening human health.People in the Central Plains of the Han Dynasty believed that "the south of the Yangtze River is low and wet, and the husband died young" ("Hanshu Geography"), and they were afraid of the road.Thus, the natural population growth is slow.The labor force necessary for further development was lacking for a considerable period of time.At that time, the natural food bank in the south was still very abundant, and people could rely on hunting without worrying about food and clothing, which also delayed people's efforts to develop agricultural production.The above conditions determine that the area has long been dominated by the cultivation of moisture-loving crops such as rice, and farmland drainage and irrigation have become an important condition for agricultural development, which belongs to the type of paddy field agriculture (Zenong).These conditions also determine that although paddy field agriculture in this area appeared very early, when the areas that are easier to develop are fully developed, agriculture will inevitably show a relatively stagnant state for a considerable period of time. In order to make further large-scale development, and give full play to the potential advantages of its natural conditions.

Since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the situation has gradually changed.A large number of people from the Central Plains, who suffered from long-term wars, migrated to the south, which they originally regarded as a daunting route, which significantly increased the labor force most needed for further development here, and the situation here was relatively stable. Police”, water conservancy construction and farmland reclamation are continuing, especially in the Jiangnan area located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.However, the development of Jiangnan during this period was mainly concentrated in Kuaiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang), Jiankang (now Nanjing, Jiangsu), Danyang (now Danyang, Jiangsu), Changxing (now Huzhou, Zhejiang) and other places. Choumeizhe, the fields look at each other", "One year old or Nim, a few counties forget hunger".At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the rice in the south of the Yangtze River had been transported north to Luoyang and other places.The unification of the Sui and Tang Dynasties promoted the rapid growth of the population in the south of the Yangtze River, and the development of farmland water conservancy at an unprecedented speed, regardless of the number, distribution area, scale and technical level, it greatly exceeded the previous generation.Most of the tax fields at that time could be irrigated.A lot of wasteland was reclaimed.Cattle farming also gained popularity.After the Anshi Rebellion, the northern economy was severely damaged, but the agriculture in the south of the Yangtze River continued to develop. The food it produced and the tax it provided had become the financial lifeline of the Tang Empire.At this time, the national economic center of gravity gradually shifted from the Yellow River Basin to the south, and this situation was consolidated in the Song Dynasty.In the third year of Yuanfeng in the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1080), the population in the south reached more than 56 million, which was close to the total population of the country during the Western Han Dynasty and accounted for 69% of the total population at that time.The southward shift of the economic center of gravity is a major event in the economic history of our country, which is based on the historical transcendence of southern agriculture.

This leap in southern agriculture is technically manifested in the formation and maturity of the southern paddy field intensive cultivation technology system.This system is not a transplantation of the northern dryland intensive farming system, but is formed on the basis of the development of the original paddy field technology of the southern peoples, and is also the result of agricultural cultural exchanges between the north and the south.During the Han and Wei dynasties, although the agriculture in the south was generally inferior to that in the north, it was not behind the north in terms of rice cultivation technology.The Yue people in the Han Dynasty were famous for their good management of paddy fields.At that time, rice had already been practiced in parts of Lingnan and Sichuan, and it was one of the key technologies for intensive cultivation of paddy fields.During the Tang and Song dynasties, this technology was popularized in rice production and promoted the refinement of paddy field farming.The paddy field rake—耖〔chao] (Fig. 8), which is suitable for soil preparation for seedling raising and transplanting, appeared in Lingnan no later than the Jin Dynasty, and spread to the south of the Yangtze River in the Song Dynasty.In the Tang Dynasty, Jiangnan created the most advanced Quyuanli in the country at that time.In the Yuan Dynasty, there was another invention of Yundang for cultivating.As a result, a paddy field farming system combining plowing, harrowing, plowing, plowing and plowing was formed.This system is closely related to technologies such as field roasting, drainage and irrigation, and promotes soil maturation, which is different from the northern dryland farming system centered on drought resistance and moisture conservation.During this period, the multi-cropping system of paddy and dry crop rotation and double cropping of rice and wheat was formed and achieved great development. The technology of manure accumulation and use was very particular, and a large number of local varieties of various crops emerged.The above technical achievements mark the formation of the southern paddy field intensive farming technology system which is different from the northern dry farming.The situation of deserted land and sparsely populated land has been completely changed.

Northern agriculture during this period was not entirely in regression or stagnation.In the early Tang Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty, the agriculture and water conservancy of North China had developed greatly, and some aspects still maintained certain advantages.Even during the Jin and Yuan periods ruled by the Jurchens and the Mongols, agriculture had recovered and developed after undergoing enormous damage.However, this development was often interrupted by wars, and the momentum and level of development gradually lagged behind that of the south.

The land use pattern in the Yangtze River Basin and its southern border is very different from that in the Yellow River Basin.Here is rich in water resources, but there are many mountains and dense forests, wide water surface, and many depressions. The development of agriculture often requires competition with mountains and water for fields; depressions need drainage, and mountain areas need irrigation.Especially after the Tang and Song Dynasties, the population increased, and the demand for cultivated land also increased, and various forms of cultivated land developed. There are many forms of cultivated land developing to the lower level.Taking advantage of the dry season to rush to plant a season of crops on the lake beach is a relatively primitive way of utilization, but the threat of water is still unavoidable; furthermore, embankments are built to block the water and limit the lake water to a certain range, which is more secure. This kind of lake beach is It became a lake field.Furthermore, embankments were built to enclose a large area of ​​low-lying swamps, defending water on the outside and protecting fields on the inside. Gates were set up on the embankments to drain and irrigate, so as to ensure the harvest in drought and flood.This kind of field, the big one is called Weitian (Figure 9) or polder field, the small one is called cabinet field, and some places are called 垸〔yuanyuan〕field or dam field.Lake fields and polders are the main forms in which people in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River compete with water for land.In the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu and Yue had begun to encircle fields in the Taihu Lake Basin, and the Qin, Han, and Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties continued to develop.In order to solve the contradiction between field enclosure and flood storage and drainage, the Wuyue Kingdom from the Middle Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties dredged the Taihu Lake into the Haigangpu, forming a river network with one vertical pond for seven miles and one horizontal pond for ten miles. The shallow army often dredged, which saved the Taihu Lake Basin from flooding, developed production, and became the most affluent area in the country.After entering the Song Dynasty, the fields in the Taihu Lake Basin developed greatly.In the third year of Song Chunxi (AD 1176), there were as many as 1,498 polders around the Taihu Lake Basin, "each polder is tens of miles away, like a big city."The poet Yang Wanli chanted: "The surrounding polders surround the Jincheng, and you can't tell the green polders at a glance", "I don't know how many fields there are in the polders, until the root of the peak can't see the ridge (field ridge)" ("Chengzhai Collection·Polder").However, this method of competing with water for land must have certain limits and reasonable arrangements, otherwise it will also cause damage to water conservancy and ecology.In the Song Dynasty, because of the bureaucratic tyrants' indiscriminate land reclamation and beggar-thy-neighbor, the water system was disordered and disasters increased.

In addition to enclosing the lake, you can also enclose the sea to compete with water.Build dikes or stand uprights on tidal flats to prevent tidal flooding, and open ditches on the edge of the ground to store rain and provide irrigation and salt drainage.Generally, salt-tolerant water barnyardgrass is planted first, and crops are planted after the land salinity decreases.Sandy beaches or sandbars deposited on the river bank or in the river rely on the reeds growing around them to weaken the impact of the water flow, and ditches to divert water and drain water. They can also be cultivated into fertile fields without worry about floods and droughts. This is called Shatian or Zhutian.Wild rice grass (wild) growing in the rivers and lakes, the roots of which are entangled with silt over time, forming a natural land floating on the water surface. People plant grass and vegetables on it, which is called Feng [feng] field.Going one step further, building rafts and spreading mud will become artificial arable land on water—a farmland.Fen fields in my country began to emerge in the pre-Qin period, and there were clear records of Jiatian in the Tang and Song dynasties.

The cultivated land develops to high places, and various forms of mountain fields appear.The south is dominated by paddy fields, but the dry land of mountain fields has existed for a long time, and often retains the habit of slash-and-burn farming.Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the increase of population, more and more people went to the mountains to burn wasteland.This kind of mountain field that retains the habit of slash-and-burn farming is called Shetian.Shetian has played a lot in expanding the area of ​​cultivated land, but it has seriously damaged forest resources.Terraces are the most reasonable use of water and soil resources in mountain fields (Figure 11).Terraced fields are built step by step on the slopes of hilly and mountainous areas to form a number of semi-moon-shaped fields connected up and down and shaped like steps. Those with water sources can irrigate rice by gravity; dry crops without water sources can also resist drought. Guaranteed.Terraced fields originated quite early.Fan Chuo in the Tang Dynasty wrote in "Manshu" that the mountain fields built by ethnic minorities in Yunnan are very fine and can be irrigated with spring water. This kind of mountain fields are terraced fields.In the Song Dynasty, the population in the south increased rapidly, and it was necessary to expand the rice planting area. This form of mountain fields was greatly developed. It can be found in Sichuan, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and Fujian, and it has obtained the name of terraced fields.The poet of the time said: "Water without a trickle is useless, and the mountain reaches Cuiwei [weiwei] and I still work hard to cultivate it." (Volume 3 of Fang Shao's "Zhaibobian") refers to the high utilization of water and soil resources by terraced fields in the south.

In the history of the development of traditional agricultural tools in my country, Tang and Song Dynasties are another glorious era after the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, and traditional agricultural tools have developed to a fully mature stage.The progress of farm tools during this period is mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, major reforms have taken place in the materials of iron farm tools.The iron farm implements of the Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were mainly made of malleable cast iron.The technology was invented during the Northern and Southern Dynasties and used to make sickles, but it was not common.This technique became popular in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the small cast-iron farm tools with embedded blades were replaced by thicker steel-bladed wrought iron farm tools, which increased the toughness and sharpness.Second, there are more types of agricultural tools, a more detailed division of labor, and a complete set of Jackie Chan.The agricultural implements for dry farming in northern my country were basically matched during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and were further improved at this time.For example, the narrow and thick chan (chan cicada) is used to open up wasteland, and the broad and thin share is used to plow the ground.There are special "戬 [chan production]" and so on for spring plowing in polluted (polluted) marsh land.In addition to plowing, harrowing, and plowing tools for paddy fields in the south, there are slabs for flat soil in seedling fields, paddles for field flat soil, and seedling ropes, seedling bombs, and horses for seedling raising and transplanting, plowing pads for intertillage, and irrigation and drainage tools. Turnovers, buckets, etc. also form a complete series.Third, through improvement or innovation, many agricultural tools are more perfect, dexterous, efficient, and labor-saving.For example, the curved shaft plow used for turning the soil, the columbine hoe used for intertillage, the wheat samarium (shan fan) and push sickle used for harvesting all have better performance than similar tools of the previous generation.To reduce labor intensity or play a role in labor protection, there are plowing paddles and plowing claws for inter-cultivation in paddy fields, and seedlings for pulling seedlings.During this period, some large and efficient agricultural tools using water, wind or animal power also appeared.The following is a brief introduction to the main points.

The plow body of a Chinese plow is generally composed of plow bottom, plow tip, plow arrow, plow shaft and other parts, forming a frame shape, so it is called a frame plow, which is one of the six traditional plows in the world.This kind of frame-shaped plow was basically finalized in the Han Dynasty. There was a plow wall, and later a device that allowed the plow arrows to move to adjust the plowing depth, but two oxen were still used to lift the bar.Jiangdongli appeared in the Tang Dynasty.Jiangdong plow has a rotatable plow disc at the front end of the plow shaft, and the plow shaft is connected to the ox yoke (the straight yoke with two oxen lifting the bar has been changed to a curved yoke at this time) by tying ropes on both sides of the plow disc; Because of this, the shaft was changed from a straight shaft to a shorter curved shaft.So Jiangdong plow is also called Quyuan plow (Figure 12). This kind of plow can be pulled by a single ox.The appearance of Quyuan plow marks the mature stage of the development of traditional Chinese plow.In the Song Dynasty, soft covers and iron hooks instead of plow disks appeared; Quyuan plows were popularized throughout the country.Compared with the traditional plows in other parts of the world, the characteristics of Chinese plows are: first, it is rich in swing, and can flexibly rotate and adjust the plowing width during operation; Crushing function.These features meet the requirements of intensive cultivation and are suitable for individual farmers.In the Middle Ages in Western Europe, heavy plows with wheels were used. There was no plow wall, and the draft animal and the plow shaft were connected by a shoulder yoke, which was relatively bulky. The modern Western European plow that appeared in the 18th century adopted the swing and curved wall of the Chinese frame plow and combined with the original coulter to form a new plowing system that can not only plow deeply but also easily break the soil; it It became the starting point of the modern agricultural technology revolution in Western Europe.

In ancient times, when people were irrigating, they used earthen pots to bring water up from the well or bring water back from the river.The above-mentioned "drilling a tunnel to enter a well, holding an urn to pour out irrigation" is a reflection of this situation.During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, farmland irrigation developed, and various new irrigation tools came into being.In the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a tangerine (gao high) that used the principle of leverage to lift water; in the Han Dynasty, it was quite common to use a pulley to lift water from wells, and the use of the pulley has been extended to modern times.These two water-lifting tools have made great progress compared with holding urns for irrigation, but after all, they cannot meet the needs of large-scale farmland drainage and irrigation. What really meets this need and makes a great contribution to my country's agricultural development is the rollover, that is, the keel car. .It was created at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and was originally used to sprinkle roads. The inventor was Bi Lan.During the Three Kingdoms period, Ma Jun improved it and began to use it for garden irrigation.At that time, it was still hand-cranked, and later developed into a foot-operated one (Fig. 13). It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when.No later than the Tang Dynasty, the ox-turned cart appeared.During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the water turning overturning car was invented.During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, wind-powered waterwheels were created.The tipper is a drainage and irrigation tool that uses the principle of gears and chain pumps to pump water. It has an ingenious structure and a very high pumping capacity.Fan Chengda's poem in the Southern Song Dynasty said: "The water in the lower fields flows out of the river, and the high ridges turn the river against the upper ditch. The terrain is uneven and manpower is exhausted. Ding Nan often rides on the front of the car." Before the promotion of electric water pumps, it was the most widely used irrigation and drainage tool in rural areas of our country. The Tang Dynasty also invented the drum car.It is a large vertical wheel made of bamboo and wood, which is set up by a horizontal shaft, and several small wooden barrels or bamboo tubes are installed obliquely around the wheel.The drum car is placed by the water, the lower part of the vertical wheel is submerged in the water, the wheel rotates with the water flow, and the small tube around the wheel continuously picks up the water and pours it into the field through the wooden trough.This is also an efficient water-lifting tool, and the poet described it as "bamboo dragon running rain".Drum carts developed again in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, with the emergence of animal-powered drum carts and high-drum drum carts (Figure 14), the latter of which can divert water to a height of seven or eight feet.In addition, in the Tang Dynasty, there was also a pulley machine that used aerial ropeways to draw water—Jiji. The two tools of wheat samarium and mill [weiwei] (stone mill) are related to the promotion of wheat farming.Mai Samarium is a scythe with a long handle for harvesting wheat. It is matched with a dustpan ("Mai Chuo") with two movable long handles, stretching forward, and using a flexible manipulator tied to the waist , move the samarium and the cup, put the distant wheat "samarium" down, turn it into the wheat cup, take back the wheat cup, and hand it to the "wheat cage" with wheels behind (Fig. 15).This matching wheat harvester is several times more efficient than ordinary harvesting tools.Mai Samarium was relatively common in the Tang Dynasty, and its matching with Mai Chuo and Mai Long was generally perfected during the Song and Yuan Dynasties.The development of wheat farming has promoted the improvement of processing tools.Water milling, which was invented in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, became very popular in the Tang Dynasty. Bureaucratic landlords and temples often built large mills for profit-making operations, mainly for grinding noodles.During the Song and Yuan dynasties, the "Three Things of Water Wheel" (Figure 16) appeared again, which can complete the three tasks of hulling, grinding and grinding on the same machine.This kind of tool uses river water to drive the water wheel to rotate, and drives various abrasive tools to work through the wheel shaft. It was in a leading position in the world at that time.In the Western Regions, there are wheat grinders driven by windmills. The composition of crops in my country underwent a series of major changes during the Tang and Song dynasties.Among them, the biggest impact on the national economy and people's livelihood is that rice and wheat have risen as the most important food crops, replacing the traditional status of millet.Rice has always been the staple food of southerners and has been continuously introduced by northerners.During the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were traces of rice in all parts of North China and parts of Northeast China, but due to the limitation of water resources, there were not many rice planted in the north.The rising status of rice is mainly due to the economic development of the south.In the Tang Dynasty, grain was transported from south to north.In the Song Dynasty, the rice fields in the south increased greatly, and the rice yield per unit area was further increased. Especially in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, which was the most important rice-producing area, the folk proverb "Su (Suzhou) Lake (Huzhou) is ripe, the world is full" appeared.Rice is known as "the treasure of Anmin Township", and its main position in grain production has been fully established.The traditional crops in the Central Plains are planted in spring and harvested in autumn. The harvest of winter wheat is in the period of slack and yellow, which has the merit of "continuing exhaustion". It can also flexibly cooperate with other spring or summer crops to increase the multiple cropping index. In the system, winter wheat is often in a pivotal position.For the reasons mentioned above, wheat cultivation has always been valued by the people and advocated by the government.During the Tang and Song dynasties, wheat production developed rapidly.The "rent" in the Zuyong tune in the early Tang Dynasty stipulated that millet should be paid, and millet was still in the highest position in grain crops, and wheat beans were regarded as miscellaneous crops; however, the middle Tang Dynasty implemented the two-tax law, which was divided into two taxes in summer and autumn. Harvesting wheat reflects that wheat production is very common.In the Northern Song Dynasty, wheat had become a common food for northerners. In the early Southern Song Dynasty, after the Jin soldiers occupied the north, a large number of northerners moved to the south, which caused a sharp rise in the price of wheat, which promoted the further development of wheat production in the south.At that time, not only were there "mountains where wheat was grown", but some paddy fields also practiced rice-wheat rotation cropping twice a year.Wheat has finally become the second crop after rice nationwide.During the Song and Yuan dynasties, millet, which was originally planted in the southwestern minority areas, also began to be planted in large quantities in the Yellow River Basin, causing millet to continue to be excluded. Fiber crops are also highly variable.The first is the rise of the status of ramie; followed by the introduction of cotton into the Yangtze River Basin.Ramie is originally produced in the south, and the main production area in history is also in the south.Exquisite ramie cloth has been unearthed at the Qianshanyang site in Wuxing, Zhejiang Province 4,700 years ago, and the earliest record of planting ramie can be found in the writings of Lu Ji [ji Ji], a native of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period.The ramie fiber is of good quality and can be used to weave cool and sweat-free summer cloth.Some ethnic minorities in the south-central and southwestern regions have historically been famous for producing high-quality ramie cloth (such as "Huang Run" in Bashu, "綀〔shu书〕子' in Guangxi Zhuang, etc.).In the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the prosperity of the south, the breeding and cultivation techniques of ramie were significantly improved, and the production was greatly developed, and its status surpassed that of hemp. Cotton is native to Africa, India and the Americas.As early as before the Han and Wei dynasties, ethnic minorities in the northwest, southwest and south of my country had begun to grow cotton.The annual African grass cotton is grown in Xinjiang, called "white stack", and the perennial Indian kapok is grown in the south.In the pre-Qin period, the ethnic minorities ("Daoyi") in the southeastern coastal islands of my country contributed "Zhibei" to the Central Plains Dynasty; Zhibei is Jibei, which is the transliteration of Sanskrit cotton and cotton cloth.In the Tang and Song Dynasties, cotton planting in Fujian and Guangxi was already on a large scale, but the perennial kapok was still planted.During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the annual kapok was spread from South China to the Yangtze River Basin, which met the increasing demand for clothing materials due to population expansion in the South at that time, and it was widely spread at once.In the Yuan Dynasty, Huang Daopo, a native of Songjiang Wunijing (now Huajing Town, Shanghai County), came back from Hainan Island to promote and improve the cotton spinning tools and techniques of the Li people, making the Yangtze River Delta the center of the national cotton industry.The production process of cotton and cotton cloth is not as complicated as silkworm and hemp, but has the advantages of both. It can not only be woven into "light, warm and dense" cotton cloth, but also can be directly made into clothes and quilts. It is a popular raw material for clothes and quilts suitable for both rich and poor. .After being popularized in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, it finally replaced silk and hemp as the most important raw material for clothing and quilts in my country. Oil crops are more diverse.The ancient leafy vegetable Brassica turned to oil, known as canola.During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, multi-crop planting in the south developed greatly. Rapeseed is cold-resistant and fertile. It is an ideal winter crop in rice fields. In addition, it is easier to grow and more harvested than sesame, so it quickly developed in the south and became another after sesame. important oil crops.In addition, soybeans have been used for oil extraction in the Song Dynasty. Cane planting and tea planting developed into important sectors of agricultural production during this period.Recent studies have proved that my country is also one of the origins of sugarcane.The first people to plant sugar cane were the Baiyue people in Lingnan.Before the introduction of cane sugar, the only edible sugar materials for people in the Central Plains were honey and maltose (maltose).Granulated sugar appeared in the Han Dynasty, but for a long period of time, the output was not much, and the quality was probably not high enough.Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty sent people to India to learn sugar-making technology, and improved it after returning to China, and the quality surpassed that of India.White sugar was first produced in Sichuan in the Tang Dynasty.Bingtang appeared again in the Northern Song Dynasty.The advancement of sugar technology has promoted the development of sugarcane industry.In the Tang and Song Dynasties, sugarcane was planted in all provinces south of the Yangtze River. There were more cane planted in Fujian, Sichuan, Guangdong, and Zhejiang, especially in Suining, Jiangxi Province. household.The prosperity of sugar production in Fuzhou in the Yuan Dynasty once aroused Marco Polo's amazement. my country is the hometown of tea.According to legend, the detoxification effect of tea was discovered in the Shennong era.The Ba nationality in the southwest was the first to use and cultivate tea trees. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, they had planted tea in gardens and tribute tea to the Central Plains dynasty.There was a tea market in Sichuan in the Han Dynasty, and Bashu was the center of tea production in my country for a considerable period of time.During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, tea production was extended to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the areas south of it.The custom of drinking tea in the Tang Dynasty was popular all over the country.By the Song Dynasty, tea had become an indispensable daily consumer product just like rice salt.Not only the people in the Central Plains love to drink tea, but also the nomadic peoples in Northwest China and Tibet.Since the Tang Dynasty, tea has become the main material for the central government to exchange military horses from the northern and Tibetan minorities. This exchange is called the tea horse trade.This situation has promoted the great development of tea production since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the tea planting areas have expanded, and many specialized tea farms have emerged.After the mid-Tang Dynasty, tea tax became an important source of national fiscal revenue.From the Tang and Song dynasties, the "que (que) (monopoly) tea" system in which the government controlled the production and circulation of tea was implemented. With the rise of cities and towns and the increase of social needs, the horticulture industry also developed greatly during this period.During the Song and Yuan dynasties, sunflower, which was originally known as the "lord of a hundred vegetables", gradually declined.However, Sis, which could only be grown in the south of the Yangtze River, was gradually transplanted to the north through the improvement of cultivation techniques and varieties, and became a vegetable that can be found in both the north and the south.The cultivation of another ancient vegetable, radish (known as reeds in ancient times), is also expanding. Together with cabbage, it has gradually replaced the position of sunflower in vegetables.The utilization of edible fungi was very early in our country, but the cultivation of edible fungi was first seen in the agricultural books of the Tang Dynasty, and it was very common in the Song Dynasty, and the monograph "Fungus Spectrum" on edible fungi appeared.Vegetables introduced during this period included spinach, lettuce (lettuce) and junda [junda] (beets for leaves) in the Tang Dynasty, loofah, carrots, Chinese kale, and arrowroot in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.Another important feature of this period is the flourishing of floriculture as a branch of horticulture.With the southward shift of the economic center of gravity, the fruit trees in the southern tropics and subtropics have developed rapidly, and their cultivation in the north is moving forward.There are also fruit trees such as dates, almonds, pistachios, pineapples, and olives. An important turning point in my country's animal husbandry production also occurred in this period.In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, my country's government-run animal husbandry reached its peak, and Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty raised 760,000 horses.Private farming is also well developed.After the Anshi Rebellion, the traditional Longyou ranch fell into the hands of Tubo (bobo). The government-run large-scale animal husbandry of the Central Plains Dynasty and the private large-scale livestock breeding gradually declined, and the small-scale animal husbandry became the main animal husbandry in agricultural areas. form.A considerable part of the horses needed by the Central Plains Dynasty was obtained from the northwest or southwest minority areas through the tea horse trade and silk horse trade.However, during this period, the folk breeding industry of pigs, sheep and other poultry continued to develop. After the unification of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the sericulture industry in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, which had been damaged during the long-term war, recovered and developed. At that time, most of the silk fabrics collected by the government still came from this area.After the Anshi Rebellion, the focus of the sericulture industry gradually shifted to Jiangnan.In the Northern Song Dynasty, Liangzhe Road, one of the 25 roads in the country, paid a quarter of the country's silk silk to the government, especially in Jiaxing and Huzhou, where sericulture was the most prosperous.However, the original advantages of northern sericulture did not completely disappear at this time. my country's fish farming industry also experienced a turning point in the Tang Dynasty.In the past, carp was the main species of artificial fish farming in my country. During the Li Tang Dynasty, because of the taboo of carp and Li homonym, it was stipulated that common people were not allowed to eat carp, and offenders would be punished heavily.Ordinary people have to change to raise other fish.The cultivation of fish such as green carp, grass carp, silver carp and bighead carp (yongyong) developed from this, forming the four major carp.In the Song and Yuan dynasties, the fish farming industry developed greatly.From freshwater fish farming to sea area fish farming, people have bred wild golden crucian carp into ornamental goldfish.The artificial breeding of shellfish also began to be seen in the literature of the Song Dynasty. The pattern of agricultural and animal husbandry divisions continues to be maintained, but the situation has undergone some changes.If we say that before the Tang Dynasty, the nomadic people's threats to the Central Plains mainly came from the Northwest, then after the Tang Dynasty, this threat has shifted to the Northeast.The semi-nomadic Khitan, Jurchen, and Mongols that originated in the Northeast successively entered and ruled the Central Plains, and the farming culture of the Central Plains once again withstood severe historical tests.But this time, although the agriculture in the Central Plains was damaged, there was no large-scale and continuous conversion of farmland to pasture.For example, the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty soon realized that the nomadic way of the Mongols could not be copied to the Central Plains. They established institutions to encourage agriculture, formulated regulations to encourage agriculture, and organized the compilation of agricultural books, taking the restoration and development of the traditional farming culture of the Central Plains as their own responsibility.At the same time, the farming culture of the Central Plains also accelerated its expansion to the northern grasslands.For example, during the Liao and Jin dynasties, a considerable number of agricultural populations entered the Northeast, leading to the initial development of some areas in the Northeast; in the Yuan Dynasty, a considerable number of agricultural populations also entered the Mongolian grasslands, which increased the proportion of local planting and changed the appearance of pure nomadism.

---

Notes: