A Study Of Environmental History In Ming Dynasty

The main task of environmental history study is researching the interactive relationship between human being and the environment in the history. The interactive relationship between human being and the environment is the material transformation process. This process links with the productive labor. Production technology exemplifies this material transformation process. A variety of traditional technology system formed on the history, is the product that human responsed to the natural environment between man interaction with nature. The government of Ming Dynasty divided the population in different regions to different occupational groups(职业户), according to their occupation. In this paper, the writer selected four occupational groups in the Ming Dynasty including Rice Producers(民户), Salt Producers(灶户),Horse Feeders(马户) and Pearl Fishers(蛋户) to research. These occupational groups engaged in production activities were closely related to the natural environment. The writer will research the four occupational groups’ production activities, and particularly pay attention to technology they used, to understand the interaction between human being and the environment in Ming Dynasty.This paper is divided into three parts:The first part is an introduction. This part described the significance of Ming Dynasty environmental history, researching methods, and what had done about occupational groups used to and what I can do in this paper.The second part is the main part of this article including the contents of the first to the fourth chapter. The first chapter of the main content is about Rice Producers cultivating rice. According to research planting techniques included plowing, seedling, transplanting rice seedlings, fertilizing, weeding, reaping, warehousing, we can know the Rice Producers how to observe nature, use planting techniques to response the natural environment and improve rice yield. These planting techniques are reflected China’s traditional intensive agriculture. The second chapter of the main content is about sea salt production. The Picture of Saltworks in Zhejiang Province(《两浙盐场图咏》)reflected the Salt Producers’ life in social-ecological systems. This system demonstrated the process of salt from the natural environment into the human society that the Salt Producers made. The third chapter of the main content is about horses grazing in farming area. The writer wants to study technology in the form of horse keeping in the Ming Dynasty and point out that technology of group herd horses in the form of the early Ming Dynasty official were more in line with the biological property of horses. Later, tensions between people and land, the Horse Feeders had to be dispersed grazing horses. However, this method was not in line with the biological property of horses. Therefore, the quality of horses became worse and worse. Finally, the horse feeding system was going to break up. The fourth chapter of the main content is about fishers fishing pearl in South China Sea. Pearl Fishers’ fishing technique changed three times:fishers dived into seabed to fish for pearl; used an iron rake to fish for pearl from a boat; netted the pearl in sea. Technological change reflects process that the fishers respond to natural environment and both the safety and efficiency of pearling. Pearl as a symbol of imperial power, Ming government in order to get more pearl resource, Government broke out pearling system, led to indiscriminate pearl resources and the depletion of natural resources pearls.The third part is the summary of the paper. This paper have researched four occupational groups’ production technology. The technical dimensions of environmental history in Ming Dynasty is the main contents of this article. The traditional technical system reflected the process of interaction between specific geographic populations and the environment.