Some information on the period of agricultural development in Chinese history (for reference only)
Agriculture during the reign of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty
The Tang government attached great importance to irrigation of farmland water conservancy. According to historical records, in the more than 130 years of the early Tang Dynasty, more than 160 water conservancy projects were built, distributed in a wide range of parts of the country. For example, during the Zhenguan period, Zhuquan Pond, Yongfeng Pond, Hengtang and Guoqing ponds were built in Putian (Putian, Fujian), with a total of 1200 hectares of irrigation. Another example is that in 714 (the second year of the new century), in Wenshui (Wenshui, Shanxi), the Wenshui Valley water opened Ganquan Spring, Dangsha, Primate, and Thousand Mu Four Canals, and irrigated thousands of hectares of fields. These irrigation projects play an important role in agricultural production. With the development of water conservancy, irrigation tools in the Tang Dynasty also made corresponding progress. At that time, in addition to the existing orange mallets, reels, and rollovers that were still in common use, people created new irrigation tools such as cylinders, barrel trucks, cylinder trucks and water wheels, which greatly improved irrigation efficiency. After the Tang unified the country, agricultural production began to recover, and it reached its peak in the first year of Xuanzong's reign (713-741). As a result of the development of agricultural production, food prices have become cheaper and cheaper. In 725 (the thirteenth year of the new century), "Dongdu Doumi fifteen dollars, Qing and Qi five dollars, and Millet three dollars". From then until the last year of Tianbao, prices stabilized for a long time.
Part of the development of traditional agriculture in the South:
The Song Dynasty's mining industry, porcelain industry, textile industry, shipbuilding industry, paper industry, printing industry, military industry, financial industry, catering industry, tea planting industry, sugar industry, winemaking industry, construction industry, salt industry, cultural industry, entertainment industry, etc. are all far ahead of the Tang Dynasty. The gap between many places in the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty is not a little, a half-point, not just a double or several times, but a dozen times, or even a hundred times, a thousand times. The Song Dynasty was an era of revolution, an era of rapid progress, an era of big explosions. What is a revolution in "steel revolution", "fuel revolution", "printing revolution", "urban revolution", "agricultural revolution", "commercial revolution", "financial revolution", "porcelain revolution", etc.? Revolution is innovation, revolution is great change, revolution is qualitative change. The gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty was not just a quantitative gap but a qualitative gap. The Japanese literary historian Naito Hunan believes that "the Tang Dynasty was the end of the Chinese Middle Ages, and the Song Dynasty was the beginning of China's modern era." "How big is the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty? It is the gap between ancient and modern times.
It took the Tang Dynasty more than 100 years from Zhenguan to Tianbao to increase the area of reclamation by more than two million hectares. The Song Dynasty spent more than 40 years from Kaibao to Tianxi to increase the area of reclaimed land by more than two million hectares. In terms of the development efficiency of agricultural arable land area, the Song Dynasty was the Tang Dynasty's 2. 5 times. How big is the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty? It's a 2-5 gap.
The maximum cultivated land area in the Tang Dynasty was about 6.2 million hectares, and the maximum cultivated land area in the Song Dynasty was about 5.24 million hectares. The Tang ruler is smaller than the Song ruler, one mu in the Tang Dynasty is about 0.783 mu today, and one mu in the Song Dynasty is about 0.974 mu today. Converted to the current mu, the cultivated land area of the Tang Dynasty was more than 4.85 million hectares, and the cultivated land area of the Song Dynasty was more than 5.11 million hectares. Both the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty had the phenomenon of hidden fields, and the Song Dynasty was even more serious. The highest estimated area of cultivated land in the Tang Dynasty was 600 million mu, and the highest estimated area of cultivated land in the Song Dynasty was 800 million mu. How big is the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty? It's a 6-8 gap.
The average of the Tang Dynasty was about 1.5 stones per mu, and the average of the Song Dynasty was about 2 stones per mu. The Average Per Mu of the Song Dynasty increased by 30% compared with the Tang Dynasty. How big is the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty? It is a gap of 1.5 and 2. The Tang Dynasty cultivated land once a year, and the highest yield was 2 stones per mu. In the Song Dynasty, there were two kinds of cultivated land a year, and in some places there were even three or four kinds. The highest yield per acre is 6 to 7 stones. The Tang Dynasty repeatedly banned brewing because of the consumption of grain, while the Song Dynasty, on the contrary, encouraged brewing by the Song government. This shows the strength and development of agriculture in the Song Dynasty. How big is the gap between the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty? It's a 2-7 gap.
After the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, it attached great importance to agriculture, paid attention to summing up agricultural production experience, and edited agricultural production books, such as "Nongsang Jijiao", "Wang Zhen Nongshu" and "Nongsang Clothing and Food Summary". The Nongsang Jijiao is the earliest surviving official nongshu in China; the Book of Wang Zhennong summarizes the rich experience of agricultural production before the Yuan Dynasty and occupies an extremely important position in the history of Chinese agronomy; Lu Mingshan's "Summary of Nongsang Clothing and Food" in the Yuan Dynasty has always been highly respected and has been included in the Ming Yongle Canon and the Qing Siku Quanshu. The "Nongsang Jijiao", "Wang Zhen Nongshu" and "Nongsang Clothing and Food Summary" are also known as the three major agricultural books of the Yuan Dynasty, which have a profound impact on guiding the development of traditional Chinese agriculture.
Agriculture during the Ming Dynasty reached a new height, relying mainly on Zhu Yuanzhang's policy of resettlement and reclamation, which encouraged the people to return to farming, reduce taxes, implement tun tian, and introduce cash crops. In particular, attention was paid to the improvement of production technology, such as the invention of a kind of "substitute farming" agricultural tools that used mechanical principles at that time, which not only saved effort but also improved the efficiency of farming; at that time, the fertilizer of "squeezing oil dry cake", "Zhang Wudian cotton method", and Xu Guangqi imitated the "dragon tail car" for irrigation, which greatly promoted the development of agriculture. The Ming Dynasty carried out a major innovation that can be called the "agricultural revolution" in human history, one is to improve and widely promote Rice seeds in Vietnam, which greatly increases rice yields; second, Jiangnan began to adopt ecological breeding methods; third, it pioneered the comprehensive treatment of flood drains and reservoirs, and the treatment of floods has achieved remarkable results.
(Reference when revising pages 12-13) This article is excerpted from: "Thirteen Years of Qianlong", author: Gao Wangling, published by: Economic Science Press
In the process of forming new countermeasures, some traditional practices have gradually been "marginalized". One of them is the land reclamation policy.
China is a traditional agricultural country. For agricultural production, the first step is to reclaim the land, leaving nothing else. As for irrigation, fertilization, and even replanting and planting cash crops,...... That's later.
According to official statistics, the cultivated land area in China in the Ming Dynasty has reached more than 700 million mu, and by the early years of the Republic of China, it reached 1.4 billion mu. Still according to the official statistical caliber, about 700 million mu was opened up for the Qing Dynasty, occupying half of it. In other words, the land reclamation in the three hundred years of the Qing Dynasty is roughly equivalent to the reclamation in the previous three thousand years, which is of course a considerable achievement.
From other historical sources, it can also be confirmed that "global reclamation" appeared in the Qing Dynasty, see Wang Yejian's research. Its waves and historically unexplored deep mountains and old forests, raw wasteland, of which the most famous new development areas are the southwest, central south and northeast and other places, compared with the Ming Dynasty's economic center of gravity on the southeast canal line, has formed a great contrast.
After the continuous reclamation of the "recovery period" in the early Qing Dynasty, by the Yongzheng period, the number of cultivated land in China reached 900 million mu. It is not possible to stop abruptly, but it has to roll forward, albeit at a much slower rate. Therefore, it is estimated that of the 1.4 billion mu of arable land in the early years of the Republic of China, perhaps 1.2 billion mu was reclaimed during the Qianlong period.
However, the reclamation of the Qing Dynasty underwent major changes, and it did not blindly attach importance to reclamation as the previous dynasties did. On the one hand, land development supported a large part of the qing dynasty's economic development, see Perkins' study. Reclamation policies, on the other hand, have undergone a "timely" shift. It was completed in the early years of Qianlong.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the most reclamation was beneficial and con. Regardless of personal or other reasons, Emperor Shengzu did not want to "search" since the 1920s of the Kangxi Dynasty, and then put forward the idea that "there is no idle place in the interior" and "in addition, there is no land that should be reclaimed".
However, land reclamation is, after all, one of the most effective traditional methods, and has been tried and tested for the "restoration period" of the dynasties; in terms of administrative style, the Yongzheng Emperor changed "leniency" to "strict core", so he re-emphasized land reclamation, and the history said: "Yongzhengjian supervised the reclamation of the provinces, which was quite useful for strengthening the people." This has caused dissatisfaction among the government and the public.