A Study On "Qi Min Yao Shu"

The "Chinese ancient agricultural encyclopedia"."Qi Min Yao Shu", by Jia Sixie,born in the Northern Wei Dynasty, is the earliest and most complete Ancient Agronomy book. The book includes ten volumes,and the first nine volumes is made up of91pieces, covering agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, vice, brewing, food and many other aspects, also contains various aspects of economic and trade, literature, history, philosophy and other content. Volume tenth includes149kinds of non China products."Qi Min Yao Shu" is rich in content, involving a wide range of areas of production, life, culture, is an important medieval Chinese literature classics."Qi Min Yao Shu" mainly wrote agriculture technology, so it has important value in agricultural science and technology, and it also contains profound philosophy, history and other humanities thought. It’s humanistic spirit and cultural thoughts still plays a great role.That is why it still has the important theory significance, academic value and application value.About the author of the book Jia Sixie,whose life story is in lack of study. And from the related research data and practical investigation,we can make a judgement that Jia Sixie is not Jia Sitong, but they are probably fellow clan peer cousins. Therefore Jia Si Xie’s ancestral hometown was in Wuwei. Their ninth generation came to Qi County in Qingzhou of the Northern Wei Dynasty (the county was seated in about ten in Shouguang south today). The accurate location of the hometown of Jia Sixie may be in Diaotaili,Qingzhou County in the Northern Wei. The Northern Wei Dynasty administrative division map is different at Yidu County of Qingzhou city (1986name Yidu county administrative division map). Jia Sixie’s home i s different in different dynasties.Because of the lack of historical and physical evidence, we can not make an accurate judgement about Jia Sixie’s official position. In "Qi Min Yao Shu",there was records of production about fruit, vegetables and other items and also the use of dialects in "Qingzhou","Yingzhou" county, so we can sayJia Sixie was an official in Qingzhou Gaoyang prefecture. According to the "Qi Min Yao Shu" in developed koji, brewing industry research records, the Northern Wei Qingzhou Gaoyang County (Linzi Jun Zhijin) history of brewing wine, vinegar, sauce for thousands of years developed, but also an important proof for Jia Sixie was an official in Qingzhou Gaoyang. "Qi Min Yao Shu" quotes, cites more than180reference books and documents.and of which a hundred has been lost.The preserved lost books "Qi Min Yao Shu" referenced are very important documents very precious historical data to our understanding of ancient bibliography. The56lost bibliographic sink "Qi Min Yao Shu" references I gathered involves the vast areas, relates to a rich diversity of species and multi technology category. The science and technology documents referenced by "Qi Min Yao Shu" are very important for us to study agricultural technology,cultural ideology of ancient times, and also an important inheritance of modern agricultural technology and culture, so they have high historical value."From the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Northern Song Dynasty, there are different versions spread is for sure. Later in Tang Dynasty,there appeared "Qi Min Yao Shu" handwriting copying manuscripts in Japan. And this version is three volume more than today we can see.But we are not sure whether Longshu edition in the Southern So ng Dynasty or Huxiang edition was passed from Chongwen Institute, the Northern Song Dynasty. Most probably they are different editions."Qi Min Yao Shu" embodies the ideology of pacifying the people and benifitting the people,and it reflects the harmony of the nature,the earth and the human being and the relation of everything in the world.All these have immediate significance till today.In Qi Min Yao Shu the author tells us the ideology of agricultural economy, management commercial trade, the market exchange of agriculture productions, different agricultural products in different seasons, the continuity of production, reasonable allocation of factor of production, improving the return on investment, increasing the scale of production, reducing the labor cost, put ting forward land management principles etc. All these have important inspiration and practical significance on the modern agricultural economic and trade."Qi Min Yao Shu" systematically describes the reclamation, cultivating land soil moisture, taking measuers suited to the time, suiting one’s measures to local conditions, intensive and meticulous farming, raising cropland, improving soil conditions and farming techniques, and to some extent forming farming technology thought. That marks maturity of the Chinese traditional tillage technology. These farming techniques and thoughts, which not only embodies the mainstream technical thought of intensive and meticulous farming of Northern Wei Dynasty and also lay the foundation for modern methods of soil tillage. Modern farming techniques are both on the "Yao" farming technology inheritance, also have further development In minimum tillage or no tillage, farming and raising land, green manure crop rotation, tillage technology."Qi Min Yao Shu" recorded dozens of crop cultivation technology, mainly about the technical thought of crop varieties, characteristics, category selection, planting method, soil preparation, sowing time, sowing quantity of soil moisture, plant spacing, row spacing, depth of sowing, seedling management, watering, fertilization, pest control, harvesting seed, storage, etc.."Qi Min Yao Shu" has reached a relatively high level for crop research. Inheritance and development of science and technology of planting cultivation thought to "Qi Min Yao Shu" influenced modern crop cultivation broadly.By learning,studying improving and developing the ancient technology, we gradually formed a theory of cognition and practice operation today."Qi Min Yao Shu" recorded32kinds of vegetable cultivation method."Qi Min Yao Shu" provides an important inspiration and reference for the later in Vegetable Genetics and breeding, cultivation, harvesting, storage, processing and other aspects, in the aspects of theory and practice."Qi Min Yao Shu" describes the cultivation technology of jujube, peach, plum, plum, apricot, pear, chestnut, persimmon, A Ishi, papaya, pepper, dogwood and other12kinds of fruit trees.It recorded systematically the growing condition gathering and planting methods, breeding ways, raising standard,cutting technology, main usage,commercial value of main fruit trees and commercial trees. Its fruit cultivation thought of science and technology in the breeding and cultivation technology, economic and industrial development, diet health, ecological efficiency and fruit processing has the important enlightenment and meaning to our country modern fruit cultivation thought of science and technology.