In the historical records of ancient agricultural science in China, the earliest, most complete and comprehensive agricultural scientific works are preserved, even Qi Min is a master. Although it came out more than 400 years ago, it still shines with the brilliance of science.
The author of this book is Jia Sixie, an outstanding agricultural scientist in the Northern Wei Dynasty. He worked hard for more than ten years and compiled the agricultural book Qi Yao Min Shu.
When he was young, Jia Sixie was addicted to reading. Throughout the year, even in the sunny, green and pink spring outing season, he sits alone in his study and concentrates on reading at his desk. Books are an important source of strength and wisdom for people. Jia Sixie, a young man, studied hard and made a great wish to compile agricultural books and benefit the people.
On one occasion, he read the biography of Han Gong Sui, and Gong Sui's deeds of attaching importance to agriculture deeply infected him. Gong Sui was from the Western Han Dynasty. When he was the governor of Bohai, he formulated many practical measures to encourage people to farm and raise silkworms and develop production. As a result, the eastern part of Hebei Province, where production is relatively backward, has gradually become rich, and people's lives have improved to a certain extent. Jia Sixie is determined to follow Gong Sui's example and do something for the country and people.
Jia Sixie attaches great importance to book knowledge and practical knowledge.
He looked down on those who only knew how to read dead books, thinking that they had no real talent and knowledge, and that real knowledge existed among farmers who produced every day. Therefore, Jia Sixie spent most of his life, not in officialdom, nor in his study, but traveling around, visiting old farmers, investigating and collecting information. He traveled all over Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and Shandong today. Wherever he went, he discovered new problems and accumulated new experiences with full enthusiasm and curiosity.
One year, Jia Sixie went to Bingzhou and found that the radishes there grew well and the roots were as thick as bowls. He asked local farmers for cultivation methods, which were nothing special compared with other places. The farmer also told him that the weeds here have never grown so big, and even the seeds taken from other places will grow very thick after the second year. At the same time, he also found that garlic cloves from Chao Ge were planted here, and they all turned into small garlic cloves, just the opposite of Wuqing. Jia Sixie thought about the reasons for this variability, and finally figured out that the garlic cloves in Chao Ge turned into garlic in Bai Zi in Bingzhou because of the different soil conditions in the two places. Jia Sixie not only went deep into practice and absorbed nutrition from farmers with practical experience, but also obtained first-hand information on some difficult problems himself. One year, he raised 200 sheep, but he didn't expect to store enough forage in autumn. In winter, he froze to death and starved to death Later, although he bought a lot of hay and threw it into the sheepfold, most of them were trampled by sheep, and the sheep died one after another, almost half of them were left, and they all looked so ugly and pitiful. He was puzzled by this problem, so he asked the old farmer who had experience in raising sheep and found the crux of the problem. In the autumn of the following year, Jia Sixie learned the lesson of the first year, stored enough feed for the sheep, and thought of a way to pile the green grass on the high ground in the middle of the sheepfold and enclose it with a fence, so that the sheep could smoke grass around the fence at will. In this way, every sheep grows fat and strong, and the newly added lamb is also full of fruits. Jia Sixie finally got the successful experience of raising sheep. He combined these experiences with previous lessons and wrote them vividly and concretely in Qi Yao Min Shu. Jia Sixie's practical experience of in-depth practice, careful observation and personal practice can be found everywhere in Qi Yao Min Shu. In many aspects, people have discovered, invented, created and made progress, and made new contributions than before.
Jia Sixie's series of theories on developing agricultural production have scientific basis and made great contributions to the development of agricultural science in China. He not only preserved the agricultural technical heritage for us since the Warring States Period, but also promoted the agricultural production at that time, and had a far-reaching influence on later agronomists such as Wang Zhen in Yuan Dynasty and Xu Guangqi in Ming Dynasty. In this sense, Jia Sixie is an important scientific and technological figure in the agricultural history of China, and his brilliant achievements are indelible.