Wang Zhen Agricultural Book
Text
Wang Zhen's Treatise on Agriculture-Wang Zhen Nong Shu
Wang Zhen's treatise on agriculture Wang Zhen Nong Shu , this comprehensive work on agriculture was written by Wang Zhen of the Yuan Dynasty. Wang twice served as county magistrate. To guide local agricultural production, he spent much time on the study of agriculture and finished this work in 1313. The book consists of three parts: the first part deals with various aspects of agriculture in general; The second, the cultivation of various crops, fruits, vegetables, bamboo, and trees; the third and the major part of this book, a collection of farm tools and other instruments with more than 270 illustrations. As some of the tools have long been lost, the records in the book are invaluable. In many places the author makes a comparison of farming in north China and in south China, including the differences of farm tools and their advantages and disadvantages. In an appendix, Wang Zhen tells readers of the movable type printing technique he used to print this work, which was based on previous but improved by the author himself. All in all, Wang Zhen Nong Shu has exerted great influence on the development of the agriculture in ancient China.
Picturing Tools for a Perfect Society: Wang Zhen's 'Book of Agriculture' and the Northern Song Reforms in the Yuan Dynasty
The Book of Agriculture ultimately sought to articulate the relevance of the compromised positions of the early Yuan clerks and their Confucian learning. Modern scholars consider the early 14th-century Book of Agriculture by Wang Zhen an important scientific achievement consolidating and expanding research on contemporaneous agricultural technology. The original publication with a preface dating to 1303 is no longer extant, but a general consensus among historians of Chinese science and technology is that later editions reliably attest to the state of Yuan-dynasty agriculture. The content of these editions suggests that the original included an extensive number of woodblock prints integral to the text. This agrarian imagery, unprecedented in amount and scope, provides an unusually rich resource chronicling procedures and tools used for the cultivation, harvesting, and storage of grains and the equipment employed in the raising of silkworms and the production of silk fabric. This article seeks to reconstruct the larger discourse that surrounded the Book of Agriculture 's technological information and imagery, which at times has been ignored in favor of a narrow focus on the material that conforms to modern-day notions of the scientific.
HUANG-LU RICE IN CHINESE HISTORY
Zhan-cheng is also recorded in Song and Yuan Dynasty’s "Wang Zhen Nong Shu" showing southern rice production concerns a variety of dry paddy rice. It says "As zhan-cheng is suitable for cultivating in higher Fujian fields, farmers call it hen zhan (hen=dryland; zhan=first word of zhan-cheng). Except for its big tasty grain making a good early-variety, data on place of import, suitable fields for cultivation, etc., appear to be quoted from previous books. However, "Song History, Section of Food and Merchandise" shows it "compares to typical Chinese rice, but zhan-cheng has longer spikes and awnless, with little difference in grain size". Two possible reasons exist for grain size discrepancy in both books: (1) obvious error by Wang Zhen, author of "Wang Zhen Nong Shu"; and (2) rice imported from Fujian is another zhan-cheng variety, which was only in Fujian when Wang was writing his book. Obviously, neither "Chen Fu Nong Shu" nor "Wang Zhen Nong Shu" recorded the famous zhan-cheng imported by Emperor Zhen Zhong of Song Dynasty.
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 The wooden movable type was described in Wang Zhen's publication of 1313 AD, known as the Nong Shu , or Book of Agriculture.
2 Wang Zhen wrote the masterpiece of the Nong Shu for many practical reasons, but also as a means to aid and support destitute rural farmers in China looking for means to improve their economic livelihoods in the face of poverty and oppression during the Yuan period.
3 The Nong Shu was an incredibly long book even for its own time, which had over 110,000 written Chinese characters.