Chapter 32 Section 12 Jia Sixie and "Qi Min Yao Shu"

Jia Sixie lived from the end of the 5th century to the middle of the 6th century, and served as the prefect of Gaoyang (now Qingzhou, Shandong) in the Northern Wei Dynasty.Due to the lack of documentation, his experience has been unable to check.The famous agricultural book "Qi Min Yao Shu" written by him is a classic work in the history of Chinese agricultural science.The book was written by him "collecting the biography of Jun [Jun County], Yuan and ballads, inquiring about his experience, and experimenting with his actions".The book consists of 10 volumes and 92 articles, citing more than 160 documents. At the same time, it collects agricultural proverbs, and includes Jia Sixie's investigation and personal experience.

In "Qi Min Yao Shu", Jia Sixie established a relatively complete system of agronomy, and made a reasonable division of the categories of agronomy characterized by practicality.From land reclamation to farming, from pre-production preparation to post-production processing, brewing and utilization of agricultural products, from planting, forestry to livestock and poultry breeding, aquaculture, the discussion is comprehensive and clear.This system of agronomy was continued by the compilation of agricultural books by later generations. Jia Sixie lived and was active in northern China, so "Qi Min Yao Shu" mainly reflects the agricultural technology in the arid areas in the north.

From the collection, collation and research of agricultural classics and production experience, Jia Sixie realized that the climate changes throughout the year, the soil can be divided into warm, cold, dry, wet, fertile, and barren, and the life and growth of crops have their own characteristics. In order to obtain good harvests in agricultural production, it is necessary to understand the life rules and living conditions of crops and comply with their growth requirements.He inherited the Chinese agronomy's thought of focusing on the three elements of weather, location, and manpower, especially emphasizing that "when the weather is right, if the location is right, the effort will be less and the success will be greater. If you go back to the way, you will get nothing if you work hard" ("Second Grain").However, he did not ask people to just passively adapt to the weather and location. He attached great importance to the role of manpower, and asked people to actively use the "location" while mastering the relationship between weather and crop growth in order to obtain better harvests. .In each chapter of "Qi Min Yao Shu", he deliberately introduced and commented on how to rationally utilize manpower and material resources to improve business management.This idea of ​​organically combining weather, location, and manpower, emphasizing adapting measures to local conditions, intensive farming, and rational management has a profound impact on agricultural production in later generations.

"Qi Min Yao Shu" has very rich descriptions, including various soil management methods, moisture conservation techniques in dry land, seed selection, seed treatment (seeding, drying, etc.), maintaining and improving soil fertility, etc.The record in the book on the germination technology of rice is the earliest record in the history of Chinese agronomy. "Qi Min Yao Shu" also reflects the rich biological knowledge of ancient China.At that time, people had already used cuttings, that is, the grafting method of vegetative propagation. For example, using Tang trees (that is, Du pears) as rootstocks and pear saplings as scions, the pears were large and dense.When grafting, it is noted that the scion should choose sunny branches, which shows that the role of light in plant growth has been recognized.It is emphasized that xylem and xylem, and phloem and phloem should be closely connected during grafting, which shows that there is a deep understanding of the growth characteristics of plants.The understanding of the biological advantages of mules produced by crossbreeding horses and donkeys and the castration and fattening of poultry and livestock are also deeper than before.When reclaiming woodland wasteland, the book summarizes the method of ring mowing (yi meaning) of trees. Cut off a ring of the phloem of the tree to prevent the passage of sap, make the tree dead, and then set fire to remove the roots. This is very helpful for reclaiming wasteland. It is very useful.In terms of agricultural product processing, my country has a long history of using microbial fermentation to process beans, brew wine, and make cheese. "Qi Min Yao Shu" records a wealth of microbiological content, and uses it to process a variety of foods, and some of them have risen to a more systematic regular understanding.

During the Northern Dynasties, a large number of nomadic peoples entered the interior, which developed the animal husbandry in the Central Plains. "Qimin Yaoshu" not only summarizes the experience of raising livestock in the past dynasties, but also absorbs the experience of raising livestock of various northern ethnic groups.The book contains the knowledge of distinguishing good and bad breeds based on animal morphology, and introduces various measures for raising livestock, and proposes that various animals should be managed according to their growth characteristics and their nature. "Qi Min Yao Shu" attaches great importance to the cultivation of breeding stock, and describes how to keep good breeds, pay attention to the environment during pregnancy, and the methods of breeding young animals, etc.For example, it is best to choose lambs born in the twelfth lunar month and the first lunar month for sheep, and for hens to choose those with small body, light coat color, short legs, more eggs, and nest-keeping.The book also collects 48 kinds of veterinary medicine prescriptions, covering surgery, infectious diseases, parasitic diseases and common diseases, etc. This is the earliest existing record of veterinary medicine in my country.