Agronomy and philosophy in early China
Roel Sterckx 胡司德
University of Cambridge
	
	Historians of early China draw on variety of texts (in addition to material evidence) to study agriculture. Calendrical texts describe seasonal cycles of farm labour; [footnoteRef:1] studies of soil, fauna, and flora tend to start with the “Yu gong” 禹貢and then move onto technical chapters preserved in the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋and Guanzi 管子.[footnoteRef:2] For specific terminology, entries in the Zhouli 周禮and early lexicons offer a rich source.[footnoteRef:3] In addition, administrative regulations related to agriculture are preserved in legal texts.[footnoteRef:4] The vast majority of these sources are prescriptive.[footnoteRef:5] One of the great merits of Hsu Cho-yun’s Han agriculture: The formation of early Chinese agrarian economy (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), published in 1980, was to bring together many of these materials,[footnoteRef:6] and show that a great deal of information about farming and peasant life is contained in sources other than the later nongshu 農書 “agricultural treatises”. [footnoteRef:7] This is especially relevant when it concerns the social and economic background of farm life.  [1:  These include the much quoted “Qi yue” 七月 in the Shijing 詩經; the Xia xiao zheng 夏小正, versions of the yueling 月令, and the Simin yueling 四民月令 (Monthly Instructions for the Four Classes of People, describing life on a farming estate of a mid-level Eastern Han official). For charts comparing the descriptions of climate and human activity in these sources see He Xin 何新, Xia xiao zheng xin kao夏小正新考 (Shenyang: Wanjuan chuban gongsi, 2014), 174-82.]  [2:  Xin Shuzhi 辛树帜, Yu gong xin jie 禹贡新解 (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1964); Xia Weiying 夏緯瑛, Lüshi chunqiu ‘Shang nong’ deng si pian jiaoshi 呂氏春秋上農等四篇校釋 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1956); Wang Yuhu 王毓瑚, Xian Qin nongjia yan si pian bie shi 先秦农家言四篇别释 (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1981).]  [3:  Xia Weiying 夏緯瑛, Zhouli shu zhong youguan nongye tiaowen de jieshi 周礼书中有关农业条文的解释 (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1979).]  [4:  These include the statutes uncovered at Shuihudi 睡虎地 (Yunmeng county, Hubei province, dating to 217 BCE), where regulations are grouped under the headings of “Agriculture” (tian 田), “Stables and Parks” (jiu 廄), and “Granaries” (cang 倉). Legal texts excavated at Zhangjiashan 張家山 (Jiangling county, Hubei province, dating to 186 BCE), confirm that these statutes on agriculture were fairly stable and did not change much in early Han. See Anthony J. Barbieri-Low and Robin D.S. Yates, Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China (2 vols): A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2015), vol.1, 692 ff.]  [5:  An alternative way to classify the sources would be to distinguish between texts that are mainly theoretical versus those that draw on farming experience. In China the latter came about only in late Han and early medieval times together with the rise of the landed estate. K.D. White notes how Greek and Roman writings on agriculture differ markedly: “Whereas the Greek contribution to our subject comes mainly from the works of philosophers and men of science, Roman agricultural writing was based from its inception on practical farming experience. See Roman Farming (London: Thames & Hudson, 1970), p.18.]  [6:  Hsu Cho-yun 許倬雲, Han agriculture: The formation of early Chinese agrarian economy (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1980); Handai nongye: Zhongguo nongye jingji de qiyuan ji texing 汉代农业:中国农业经济的起源及特性 (王勇译) (Guilin: Guilin shifan daxue chubanshe, 2005).]  [7:  Nongshu are the most comprehensive and user-friendly source of information on the organisation and transmission of agronomic knowledge in pre-modern China. However the earliest extant agricultural treatise today is Jia Sixie’s 賈思勰 Qimin yaoshu 齊民要術 (Essential Techniques for the Peasantry), compiled ca. 540 CE. Although the Qimin yaoshu contains fragments purportedly dating back to earlier times, few technical texts on agriculture have survived for the Warring States and early imperial period. The only extant farming manual dating to the Han, the Fan Shengzhi shu 氾勝之書 (Book of Fan Shengzhi; late first century BCE), is a relatively short text (approximately 3700 characters). Fansheng zhi shu is the only one of nine agriculture titles (of which four with no purported author) in the Hanshu 漢書bibliographic treatise that survives in the Suishu 隋書bibliography. See Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 30.1742-43; Suishu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1973), 34.1010. For translations see Hsu, Han agriculture, 280-94; Shi Shenghan, “Fan Sheng-chih shu. An agriculturistic book of China written in the first century B.C. (Peking: Science Press, 1959). The great agricultural treatises of the Song and Ming such as Chen Fu’s 陳旉 Nongshu (1149), the more extensive work by the same title by Wang Zhen 王禎 (1313), or Xu Guangqi’s 徐光啟 Nongzheng quanshu 農政全書 (Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration; published in 1637) tend to fall back on Qimin yaoshu when quoting or referring to past practice. On nongshu as a genre and their shifting contents see Francesca Bray, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. VI, part 2 “Agriculture” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); and Bray, “Where did the animals go? Presence and absence of livestock in Chinese agricultural treatises,” in Roel Sterckx, Martina Siebert and Dagmar Schäfer eds., Animals through Chinese History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), chapter 6. For a comprehensive bibliographic survey of nongshu see Amano Motonosuke 天野元之助 (tr. Peng Shijue 彭世决 and Lin Guangxin 林广信), Zhongguo gudai nongshu kao 中国古代农书考 (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1992).] 

However, scholars have overlooked the fact that the language used to describe agricultural life in early China was of itself a much used medium for philosophical, social, and political commentary. Both philosophical and ritual texts contain a repository of information on how to “do” agriculture, how to behave as a farmer, and what people observed when tilling the fields. Much of this appears as figurative language in the form of metaphors and analogies. These often appear in contexts that do not announce themselves as technical or particularly preoccupied with agriculture. Rather than showing that people thought about agriculture, figurative language illustrates how the early Chinese thought through or with agriculture. 
	Agricultural activity lends itself well for analogies that play on core themes in early Chinese thought: for instance, the generation of things out of some sort of prior state (germination, seeding), the idea of growth and timeliness (e.g. the seasons), [footnoteRef:8] and, more generally, the forging of patterns of order (civilisation). Prized values such as dedicated collaborative labour, obedience, productivity and self-sufficiency draw on descriptions of peasant life. This paper explores how agriculture figures in the language of philosophical discourse, and what, if anything, the masters of philosophy can teach us about agriculture and the peasant mode of existence in early China. [8:  Chinese historians of agriculture tend to highlight notions of “timeliness” and “seasonality” (rather than order and control) as the central contribution of philosophy to agronomy. See e.g. Ni Genjin 倪根金, “Zhongguo gudai zhexue sixiang dui chuantong nongye kexue jishu de yinxiang” 中国古代哲学思想对传统农业科学技术的影响, in Liang Jiamian nongshi wenji 梁家勉农史文集 (Beijing: Zhongguo nongye chubanshe. 2002), 448-53. Shi Shenghan notes that knowledge about agriculture in the pre-imperial masters texts remains at the level of “common knowledge” (chang zhi 常知), that is, the seasons (tian shi 天时) and soil compatibility (tu yi 土宜). See “Zhongguo gudai nongshu pingjia” 中国古代农书评价, in Shi Shenghan nongshi lunwen ji 石声汉农史论文集 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2008), 330-410 (p.340).] 

	There are good reasons to be sceptical about the (truth) value of metaphors and analogies, and claim that they contain little or no useful technical content. Derk Bodde suggested that those who conjured up figurative language were far removed from the world they describe:

Persons who think of bamboos as ‘men of moral worth’ and of the downward flow of water as an example of the Confucian virtue of propriety (li 禮) are unlikely to have much interest either in the growth of bamboo or the movements of water as scientific phenomena. Or even if they have, they are not going to know the methodology necessary to satisfy this interest.[footnoteRef:9] [9:  Derk Bodde, Chinese thought, society, and science. The intellectual and social background of science and technology in pre-modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991), 263.] 


For Bodde, Chinese views of nature are almost exclusively moralistic and he singles out some prominent examples of natural objects and substances that serve frequently as metaphor or analogy: water, jade, and bamboo. Bodde’s quest for “scientific phenomena” leaves him irritated. How is it possible, he asks, that centuries later, a twenty-year old Wang Yangming王陽明 (1492) and his friend still could do no better than to fall ill after days of concentrated study of how bamboos were growing in front of his pavilion? What does it take to get a philosopher to look at bamboo as bamboo?
	The opposite of outright scepticism of the value of figurative language is to fall prone to philosophical reductionism and assume that the way in which philosophers (the “schools” or lineages we have pigeonholed them into) think about the world has a direct influence on technical or practical decisions. The following comment in Robert Marks’ otherwise excellent survey of Chinese environmental history wades into this zone:

Two schools developed [in early imperial times] for how to deal with the problems of flooding and silting of the Yellow River, broadly reflecting Confucian and Daoist views. Those with more Daoist leanings argued that the river (mostly) should be allowed to follow its “natural” course, with relatively low dikes built a very long way from the riverbed --- basically simply defining a flood plain. Confucians tended to want to build higher dikes to confine the river to a narrower course (much as they wanted to define proper human behaviour). Neither approach proved totally effective over the next two thousand years, but Yellow River dikes did get higher as the silt deposits raised the river bed – until unusually heavy rainfall broke the dikes and flooded the surrounding plain.[footnoteRef:10]  [10:  Robert B. Marks, China. Its Environment and History (Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 89 [my italics].] 


To be sure, both Bodde and Marks have a point: the early Chinese rarely separated the technical from the moral or philosophical. Explaining “how” to do something is regularly done through metaphor or analogy.[footnoteRef:11] Yet, the implication of this then has to be that metaphors and analogies cannot simply, or invariably, be taken as purely literary devices aimed at making a moral or philosophical point. We ought to be open to the idea that figurative language belonged to the normal register of tools used to analyse and describe nature and the management of natural resources (alongside definitions, lexicographical comment, etc.). It also follows then that “as if” or “just as” descriptions may have functioned as regular communicative or didactic devices to convey social and political ideas and perhaps even to transmit a modicum of technical knowledge.  [11:  I use the terms “metaphor” and “analogy” loosely to denote any kind of figurative or figural language: [Metaphor] “I have a new crop of students” and [analogy] “You should foster your students in the same way as a farmer tends to his crops.” I take it in its simplest form as a particular image that serves as a referent to an idea behind the image. Several scholars have thought about the issue at great length. Sarah Allan (The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue, SUNY Press, 1997) is interested not so much in metaphors as literary or concrete images to illustrate primary philosophical concepts; she believes, with Angus Graham, in the existence of pre-logical conceptual schemes that shape a particular philosophical tradition and the vocabulary it uses. Other scholars such as Edward Slingerland and Christoph Harbsmeier attempt to unveil metaphoric deep structures in the cognitive make-up of Chinese thought or within the lexicon and syntax of the literary Chinese language.
] 

Hardly any aspect of agricultural labour escapes the eyes of early China’s masters of philosophy and ritualists: irrigation, seeding and sowing, reaping and harvesting, storing, weeding, etc. In what follows I approach figurative language in a way somewhere in-between Bodde’s scepticism and Marks’s philosophical optimism. I start from the premise that the technical (or “scientific”) and the philosophical (or moralistic and political) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I will focus on a set of examples that each offer different interpretative possibilities, and show that figural language involving agronomy offers a useful lens into early Chinese socio-political thought and philosophy. At times, it also helps us understand farming practice itself.

Irrigation, levees, dikes
	Let us start with the flood-fighting Confucians Marks refers to. No element of nature has done more to massage the brain of the masters of philosophy than the handling and mishandling of water. Embankments and flood defences appear frequently as images for ritual guidance and the orderly society (pace Karl Wittfogel’s hydraulic societies). The following example from the Liji 禮記illustrates the idea:

夫禮禁亂之所由生，猶坊止水之所自來也。故以舊坊為無所用壞之者，必有水敗；以舊禮為無所用而去之者，必有亂患
Ritual prevents the rise of disorder and confusion, like the embankments that stop the overflow of water. Therefore he who thinks the old embankments useless and destroys them is sure to suffer from the desolation caused by overflowing water; and he who considers the old rules of propriety useless and abolishes them would be sure to suffer from the calamities of disorder.[footnoteRef:12] [12:  Liji jijie 禮記集解. Edited by Sun Xidan 孫希旦 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1995), 48.1257 (“Jing jie” 經解).] 


The image is carried through in a Liji chapter title, “Fang ji” 坊記 “Record of the Embankments” and throughout this chapter. It starts by stating that “the way of the gentleman may be compared to the dykes” (君子之道，辟則坊與), and then uses expressions such as “framing rites to dyke (= preserve) virtue” (禮以坊德), “embanking someone’s desires” (坊欲) and rituals that “serve as dykes for the people” (以爲民坊者).[footnoteRef:13] The Lunheng 論衡paraphrases the above Liji passage, concluding that “scholars are the old embankments of li and yi”; just as old embankments have become part of the landscape, the Ru operate as the unnoticed gatekeepers of moral values: [13:  Liji jijie, 50.1281. See also Michael Ing, The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 31-32, 124-25, 165-66.] 


故以舊防為無益而去之， 必有水災； 以舊禮為無補而去之，必有亂患。儒者之在世，禮義之舊防也。有之無益，無之有損。
Thus if old dykes are discarded as useless, there will inevitably be a flood. If old rituals are discarded as good for nothing, there will inevitably be chaos and disaster. The Ru in the world are the old dykes of propriety and righteousness. When they are there they are of no direct use, but their absence is fatal.[footnoteRef:14]  [14:  Lunheng jiaoshi 論衡校釋. Compiled by Wang Chong 王充 (27-ca.100 CE), edited by Pansui 劉盼遂(Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990), 10.433 (“Fei Han”).] 


The embankment analogy is widely attested. In Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露, for instance, it helps describe how the sage sets limits to excessive wealth or poverty: “The way of the sage corresponds to the category of levees and dikes. He promulgates regulations and limits, he promulgates ritual restrictions.”[footnoteRef:15] Embankments and canals are a didactic image, they offer a political vocabulary for the notion of preservation and control of resources: [15:  Chunqiu fanlu yizheng 春秋繁露義證. Edited by Su Yu 蘇輿 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1996), 27.231 (“Du zhi”): 聖人之道眾隄防之類也. 謂之度制, 謂之禮節. ] 


魚得水而游焉則樂，唐決水涸，則為螻蟻所食。有掌修其堤防，補其缺漏，則魚得而利之，國有以存，人有以生。國之所以存者，仁義是也；人之所以生者，行善是也。
When fish have water, they swim in it and enjoy themselves, but if (the dikes) break and the water dries up, then they will be eaten by insects. If you strengthen and repair the dikes and embankments and replace the water that leaked out, the fish will be restored and benefit from it. A country has something by means of which it is preserved; people have something by means of which they stay alive. What preserves a state is humaneness and rightness, what keeps people alive is good conduct.[footnoteRef:16] [16:  Huainanzi honglie jijie 淮南子鴻烈集解. Edited by Liu Wendian 劉文典 (Taipei: Wenshizhe, 1992), 9.316 (“Zhu shu”); cf. John Major et al., The Huainanzi. A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 339 (9.31).] 


To be sure, embankments and dikes respond to the need to contain floodwaters; they do not originate from an instinctive “Confucian” desire for order and proper human behaviour: the Ru do not build embankments, nor would they know how to do it. Nevertheless, the image of raising levees appears so frequently as a simile for the idea of governance through ritual that we must assume that those who used the image were somehow familiar with a hydraulic landscape. [footnoteRef:17]  [17:  Another fine analogy between governing people and managing natural resources occurs in the (late 4th-early 3rd cent BCE) “Qi fa” 七法 chapter in the Guanzi: “Governing the people is like controlling a flood, nurturing them is like feeding the six domestic animals, and employing them is like making use of grass and trees (治人如治水潦，養人如養六畜，用人如用草木).” See Guanzi jiaozhu管子校注. Edited by Li Xiangfeng 黎翔鳳 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 6.111-112 (“Qi fa”). For other examples see Fayan 法言, 8.25-26; Yang Xiong, tr. Michal Nylan, Exemplary Figures (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013), 135: “From the fact that rivers have their dikes and utensils their molds, we see the ultimate utility of instruction in the rites (川有防，器有範。見禮教之至也)”; and Yantielun jiaozhu鹽鐵論校注. Edited by Wang Liqi 王利器 (Beijing: Zhonghua), 1996. 24.299 (“Lun fei”): “Therefore, when the dams and dikes are kept whole, the people never suffer from floods; when rituals and righteousness are established, the people will not behave disorderly (故堤防成而民無水菑，禮義立而民無亂患).] 

The analogy above tells us little about irrigation or dike building methods. The ritualist only knows how to restore old rituals. To find out how to deal with old dikes (舊防) we must turn to the Guanzi, where it is suggested that dike-building involves social engineering: people are spatially assigned to them for upkeep and defence:

歲埤增之，樹以荊棘，以固其地；雜之以柏楊，以備決水，民得其饒，是謂流膏。令下貧守之，往往而為界，可以毋敗。
Each year increase the size of the dikes and plant them with thorns and brambles in order to make their earthwork more secure. Mix in juniper and pussy willows to provide against flooding. From this the people will enjoy such abundance that it will be said to flow like hot lard. Order the poorest people to stand guard on the dikes and everywhere mark out their sectors. The dikes then will never fail.[footnoteRef:18] [18:  Guanzi jiaozhu, 57.1063 (“Du di”); cf. W. Allyn Rickett, Guanzi. Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China (2 vols.)(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985-1998), vol. 2, 250 (my italics).] 


Here it is suggested that dikes are not simple man-made but also manned structures. They are populated by and depend on a human presence. Thus the interpretative distance between the image of dikes that form an orderly grid across a populated landscape and the idea of ritual as a mechanism of social control gets tighter. It may not be a simple case of analogy; the observer who witnesses the construction of levees and dikes notices that it involves manipulating both soil and people, both material as well as human labour.

The well-sweep
	On occasions, figural language offers technical insights not found elsewhere. An example of this is the case of the well-sweep (jié gāo桔槔), a device to bring up water by lowering a bucket into a well by means of a long pole (the so-called sweep).[footnoteRef:19] The earliest descriptions of this device are in the Zhuangzi 莊子, where it occurs twice. [19:  The best known image of a well-sweep occurs in the 1637 edition of the Tiangong kaiwu 天工開物. Han murals contain depictions of well-sweeps but most are set in domestic (kitchen or stable) scenes, not in fields or  an agrarian setting. See e.g. Zhou Xin 周昕, Zhongguo nongju tongshi 中国农具通史 (Jinan: Shandong kexue jishu chubanshe, 2010), 348-49.] 


子貢南遊於楚，反於晉，過漢陰，見一丈人方將為圃畦，鑿隧而入井，抱甕而出灌，搰搰然用力甚多而見功寡。子貢曰：「有械於此，一日浸百畦，用力甚寡而見功多，夫子不欲乎？」為圃者卬而視之曰：「奈何？」曰：「鑿木為機，後重前輕，挈水若抽，數如泆湯，其名為槔。」為圃者忿然作色而笑曰：「吾聞之吾師：『有機械者必有機事，有機事者必有機心。』機心存於胸中，則純白不備；純白不備，則神生不定；神生不定者，道之所不載也。吾非不知，羞而不為也。」子貢瞞然慙，俯而不對。
Zigong had been wandering south to Chu, and was returning through Jin. As he passed (a place) on the south bank of the river Han, he saw an old man who was just about to work in his vegetable garden. He had dug his channels, gone to the well, and was bringing from it in his arms a jar of water to pour onto his garden. Toiling away, he expended a great deal of effort, but with little result. Zigong said to him, “There is a tool (xiè械) here, by means of which a hundred plots of soil may be irrigated in one day. With the expenditure of very little strength, the result is great. Would you not like to try it, Sir?' The gardener looked up at him, and said, “How does it work?”. Zigong said,

“One cuts a lever from wood, heavy behind, and light in front. It picks up the water as quickly as you could do with your hand, as fast as the bubbles on boiling water. Its name is ‘well-sweep’.”
The gardener put on an angry look, laughed, and said, “I have heard from my teacher that where there are ingenious contraptions, there are sure to be ingenious affairs, and where there are ingenious affairs, there are sure to be ingenious minds. But, when there is a scheming mind in the breast, its pure simplicity is impaired. When this pure simplicity is impaired, the spirit becomes unsettled, and the unsettled spirit is not the proper residence of the Dao. It is not that I do not know (a well-sweep and how it works), but I should be ashamed to use it.' Zigong looked blank and ashamed, hung down his head, and did not reply.[footnoteRef:20] [20:  Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋. Edited by Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩 (Taipei: Guanya, 1991), 12.433 (“Tian di”); tr. Victor Mair, Wandering on the Way (Honolulu: Univesity of Hawai’i Press, 1994), 111 (modified; my italics).] 


The second occurrence is in a passage where Yan Hui 顏回 is told that Confucius’ way is nearing its end.

且子獨不見夫桔槔者乎？引之則俯，舍之則仰。彼，人之所引，非引人也，故俯仰而不得罪於人。故夫三皇、五帝之禮義法度，不矜於同而矜於治。故譬三皇、五帝之禮義法度，其猶柤梨橘柚邪！其味相反，而皆可於口。
Have you not seen a well-sweep? When you pull on it, it goes down, and when you let go of it, it comes up. Because it is pulled by men (human force) and does not pull men around, it can go up and down without committing an offense against men [manipulating or damaging the person who pulls it]. Therefore, the decorum and regulations of the Three August Sovereigns and Five Emperors were not prized because they preserved the status quo, but because they could bring good government. Thus we may compare the decorum and regulations of the Three August Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the hawthorn, the pear, the orange, and the pomelo. Although their flavours are quite different, they all taste good.[footnoteRef:21] [21:  Zhuangzi jishi, 14.514 (“Tian yun”); tr. Mair, Wandering, 137.] 


The context in which these passages occur is essentially philosophical. In the first fragment the argument is that tools and technology (“civilization”) spoil the purity of experience (“drawing water with jars”). In the second fragment the idea is that rules and decorum should change over time, and that change and adaptability to circumstances need not be harmful. Just as the well-sweep has no mind of its own and follows the impulse of those who pull and release it, so humans should avoid clinging to a strong sense of self and go along with the times. Change can be instigated by humans without it taking control over them.
Yet the narrative is interesting beyond the philosophical point made. First, and most obviously, both passages describe the mechanics of a well-sweep, how to cut the sweep and the method of pulling and releasing it (the story of Zigong instructing the gardener is, if not the only, than certainly the most quoted anecdote or gloss for commentators explaining the graph for a well-sweep). The Huainanzi 淮南子 contains a reference to it in a passage that contrasts past and primitive techniques with present technological innovation. As in Zhuangzi’s gardening encounter, the well-sweep in Huainanzi is hailed as an alternative for handling jars (bào wèng/zhuì 抱甕/甀) to draw water.[footnoteRef:22] Secondly, these passages also contain clues as to whether or not people were familiar with the device. In the first story, the gardener insists that “it is not the case that I do not know this thing” (吾非不知); in the second, the interlocutor wonders “are you then the only one who has never seen such a device” (子獨不見)? One can take these comments simply as rhetorical overdrive; or should we infer from them that the well-sweep was widely familiar to folk at the time? If the power of an analogy or metaphor rests on the recognition of its imagery, this would be a logical conclusion (although it would still not explain its rare occurrence in texts). [22:  Huainanzi, 13.422-23 (“Fan lun”).] 

	Leaving aside the unanswerable question of what audience these stories might have been directed at, the Zigong passage is also interesting sociologically. Its setting is an encounter between a supposedly knowledgeable person (usually an official, disciple, etc.) and an ignoramus tilling the land, who happens to possess the key to wisdom. The image here is that of seeking recourse to the fields to preserve a sense of integrity. The fields (or wilds 野), and the plough, act as a buffer against the tribulations of officialdom, corruption, and moral decay.  A similar setting appears in the Zhuangzi’s “Tian di” 天地  chapter:

When Yao was ruling the world, Bocheng Zigao was appointed by him prince of one of the states. From Yao (afterwards) the throne passed to Shun, and from Shun (again) to Yu; and (then) Bocheng Zigao resigned his principality and began to cultivate the ground (辭為諸侯而耕). Yu went to see him, and found him ploughing in the open country (耕在野). Hurrying to him, and bowing low in acknowledgment of his superiority, Yu then stood up, and asked him, saying, 'Long ago, when Yao was ruling the world, you, sir, were appointed as one of the feudal lords. Then Yao passed the throne to Shun, and Shun passed it to me, whereupon you, sir, resigned your position as feudal lord, and are (now) ploughing (here) (辭為諸侯而耕). I venture to ask the reason of your conduct.' Zigao said, 'When Yao ruled the world, the people encouraged one another (to do what was right) without his offering them rewards; they stood in awe (of doing wrong) without his threatening them with punishments. Now you employ both rewards and punishments, and yet the people are not benevolent (今子賞罰而民且不仁). Consequently virtue is on the wane and punishments are on the rise; the disorder of future ages begins with this. Why don’t you just go away, sir, and not interrupt my work?' With this he resumed his ploughing with his head bent down, and did not (again) look round (for Yu) (俋俋乎耕而不顧).[footnoteRef:23] [23:  Zhuangzi jishi, 20.413; tr. Mair, Wandering, 107 (modified).] 


The theme of the hermit-plowman recurs elsewhere. Yi Yin 伊尹delights in the way of Yao and Shun while plowing the fields of the ruler of Xin before responding to King Tang’s 湯 call to office.[footnoteRef:24] Then there is the story of the noble Chu minister Sunshu Ao孫叔敖 (6th cent. BCE): “Becoming a prime minister and yet not (particularly) happy (about it); returning to plowing (退耕), and yet (not particularly) sad (about it): such was the virtue of Sunshu Ao.”[footnoteRef:25] Yan Ying 晏嬰 (Yanzi) resigns his service to Lord Jing for a period of seven years, when he “withdrew to his humble home, moving east to plow the fields by the sea. Herbs grew beneath the hall and brambles flourished outside his gate.”[footnoteRef:26]  [24:  Mengzi, 5A.7; cf. Mengzi, 6B.15.]  [25:  Shizi 尸子; cf. Paul Fischer tr., Shizi. China’s First Syncretist (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012),
140 (63).]  [26:  Yanzi chunqiu jishi 晏子春秋集釋. Annotated by Wu Zeyu吳則虞 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 7.482; cf. Olivia Milburn, The Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr Yan (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2015), 2.7.22 (pp.395-96).] 

	These narrative settings contrast with descriptions of farm labour as a physical chore and anti-dote to intellectual self-realization. Confucius did not handle the plough himself: officials are there to manage the fields and its farming folk, but they do not work them personally. Shang Yang 商鞅, Xunzi 荀子and Han Fei 韓非 present farm labour as way to keep people simple of mind and obedient: all a farmer needs to know is farming.[footnoteRef:27] “When the gentleman serves in office, he does not farm (君子仕則不稼),” in the words of Dong Zhongshu 懂仲舒.[footnoteRef:28]  [27:  See Roel Sterckx, “Ideologies of the Peasant and Merchant in Warring States China”, in Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China: Studies in Early Chinese Political Thought, ed. Yuri Pines, Paul Rakita Goldin, and Martin Kern (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2015), 211-248. Farming as both hardship and pleasure converge in early medieval farmstead poetry.]  [28:  Hanshu, 56.2521; Chunqiu fanlu yizheng, 27.229.] 

Therefore, I would argue that these well-sweep scenes can be read as an implicit criticism of the idea that officials understand what happens on the fields. To speculate further, it is possible that Zhuangzi’s gardener’s refusal of a well-sweep is a reflection on the alienating effects of increased technical advances and managerial interference in agriculture that had started to take place in the Warring States period (iron tools that were beyond the reach of common farmers, the introduction of single-ox plowing etc.). As Albert Galvany has suggested, anecdotes involving trees and vegetal imagery in the Zhuangzi draw their metaphorical power from the fact that trees, and the cultivation of trees, were an integral element of what was perceived to be ordered, agrarian society. Tree metaphors therefore should be read in the political context of a society in which the cultivation of wood and the symbolism of trees was important in economic and religious terms.[footnoteRef:29] I believe that Zhuangzi’s well-sweep encounters are more than just metaphors. We can read them, as historians of science and technology would have it, as indicative of the importance of irrigation or as evidence of advanced techniques in hydrology. Yet, equally, and by contrast, these narratives may represent an implicit criticism of advanced technologies that shift ownership of skill and tools away from the farmer and towards the official.[footnoteRef:30] [29:  Galvany, “Discussing usefulness: trees as metaphor in the Zhuangzi,” Momumenta Serica 57 (2009), 71-97.]  [30:  The best chronological overview of officials related to agrarian management is Wang Yong 王庸, Zhongguo gudai nongguan zhidu 中国古代农官制度 (Beijing: Zhongguo Sanxia chubanshe, 2009), 6-96 (chapters 1 and 2).] 


Planting, harvesting, weeding, soil
Craft analogies make up a large share of agricultural imagery. Planting, sowing, growing, weeding and harvesting appear frequently as metaphors for education, moral cultivation and scholarly or literary achievement. The Mencius sets the tone here with arguments on nature and nurture (and/or both) that are steeped in agrarian imagery, from “pulling up seedlings to help them grow” (2A.2),[footnoteRef:31] to the lopped-down trees on Ox Mountain (6A.8). In 6A.7, all humans are said to possess the seed of sagehood: “Now, let barley be sown and covered by earth; the ground being the same, and the time of planting also being the same, it grows rapidly, and in due course of time, it all ripens. Though there may be differences in the yield, this is because the fertility of the soil, the nourishment of the rain and the dew, and the human effort invested are not the same. Things of the same kind are thus like one another. Why is it that we should doubt this only when it comes to human beings? The sage and we are of the same kind.”[footnoteRef:32] Humaneness needs to develop through maturity like the five grains develop from the finest seed (6A.19). A gardener who neglects his wu 梧 and jia 檟trees while nurturing thorns and brambles is an inferior gardener; a person who, unknowingly, nurtures a single finger while neglecting his back and shoulders, is a confused animal (6A.14).[footnoteRef:33] [31:  For the image of humans drawing their energy from food just as plants rely on the soil, and the pulling up of roots causing premature death, see also Lunheng jiaoshi, 7.336 (“Dao xu”).]  [32:  Tr. Irene Bloom, Mencius (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 125.]  [33:  Bloom, Mencius, 129. For other analogies see Mencius 6A.13; 7B.10 (a store of grain to stand for a store of virtue); 7B.32 (neglecting your own fields while going to weed those of others).] 

A wide range of similar analogies occur beyond the Mencius. Good rulers exploit the most appropriate circumstances for state building, just as a good farmer chooses the most suitable land and plants when the rains are seasonal.[footnoteRef:34] Without a strong husbandman crops do not grow; unless a state possesses good writers, its virtues remain hidden.[footnoteRef:35] Farmers know that the exuberant growth of grain is due to the natural fertility of the soil, so people ought to understand that abundant literary productions are the upshot of extraordinary talents.[footnoteRef:36] Several analogies are variations on the theme that one reaps what one sows.[footnoteRef:37] Weeding, hoeing, and harrowing are common images for the elimination of unwanted rivals or subjects; weeds represent unwelcome elements that can overtake regular or normal society.[footnoteRef:38]  [34:  Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi呂氏春秋校釋. Edited by Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷 (Shanghai, Xuelin, 1995), 14.791 (“Zhang gong”).
]  [35:  Lunheng jiaoshi, 12.539-40 (“Cheng cai”).]  [36:  Lunheng jiaoshi, 13.581 (“Xiao li”). See also Lunheng jiaoshi, 1.10 (“Lei hai”)]  [37:  E.g. Huainanzi, 18.597 (tr. Major, 728): “Planting glutinous millet will not get you a crop of pannicled millet, planting resentment will not be repaid with virtue” (樹黍者不獲稷，樹怨者無報德). See also Lunheng jiaoshi 18.780 (“Ziran”).]  [38:  For examples of obstructive weeds see Mencius 7B.21; Huainanzi, 16.537 (“Shui shan”). Weeds appear first as a metaphor in the first two stanzas of “Fu tian” 甫田 (Mao 102): “Do not till too big a field/ Or weeds will ramp it/ Do not love a distant man/ Or heart’s pain will chafe you/ Do not till too big a field/ Or weeds will top it/ Do not love a distant man/ Or heart’s pain will fret you.” The idea here is that one should not exert oneself beyond one’s own strength. The poem is quoted in Yantielun by the literati who criticize Sang Hongyang’s 桑弘羊 preoccupation with reaching out to trade with or cultivate frontier regions. See Yantielun jiaozhu, 16.208 (“Di guang”).] 


為國家者，見惡如農夫之務去草焉，芟夷蘊崇之，絕其本根，勿使能殖，則善者信矣。
Someone who runs a state or clan looks upon evil relations as a husbandman devotes himself to removing weeds. He cuts down, kills them, collects them, and heaps them up, extirpating their roots so that they may not be able to grow; and then the good grain stretches itself out.[footnoteRef:39] [39:  Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu 春秋左傳注. Edited by Yang Bojun 楊伯峻 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1995), 50 (Lord Yin, year 6); see also Dong guan Han ji東觀漢記 (Sibu beiyao ed.), 13.4a.] 


Like the dykes and embankments that signify ritual and order, weeding furnishes the political language for countering dissonance and opposition: “The principle of governing a country consists in removing the noxious and hoeing out the unruly. Only then will the people enjoy equal treatment and find satisfaction under their own roofs.”[footnoteRef:40]  The following passage uses the analogy of weeds to explain obstacles to ritual propriety: [40:  Yantielun jiaozhu, 14.179 (“Qing zhong”). See also Huainanzi, 16.553 (“Shui shan”): “Governing a country is like hoeing a field. One gets rid of harmful plants; that is all.”] 

 
The farmer’s weeding is the ridding of that which harms the sprouts. The worthy’s ordering is the ridding of that which harms propriety. To contemplate things that do not increase propriety and yet to (still) think them, this is a weed of the mind (心之穢). To speak about things that do not increase propriety and yet to speak of them, this is a weed of talking (言之穢). To do things that do not increase propriety and yet to do them, this is a weed of action (行之穢).[footnoteRef:41]  [41:  Shizi, 7.1 (tr. Fischer, 92).] 


The “Li yun” 禮運extends the metaphors and explains that ritual and righteousness act like agrarian tools that regulate and control human emotions: “Emotions were the field (to be cultivated by) the sage kings. They cultivated ritual propriety to plough it. They set forth righteousness with which to seed it. They instituted schools to weed it. They considered benevolence the root by which to gather all its fruit and they employed training in music to give repose (to the minds of learners).”[footnoteRef:42] [42:  Liji jijie, 23.618 (“Li yun”)] 

As in the case of the well-sweep, a description of technique can take up a significant share in the political analogy. A nice example of this occurs in the Han Feizi which contains descriptions of political pruning and planting. The efficient ruler manipulates his subjects and ministers like a tree surgeon who keeps wild growth under control:

為人君者，數披其木，毋使木枝扶疏；木枝扶疏，將塞公閭，私門將實，公庭將虛，主將壅圍。數披其木，無使木枝外拒；木枝外拒，將逼主處。數披其木，毋使枝大本小，枝大本小，將不勝春風，不勝春風，枝將害心。公子既眾，宗室憂吟。止之之道，數披其木，毋使枝茂。木數披，黨與乃離。掘其根本，木乃不神。
He who acts as the ruler of men should frequently stretch the tree but never allow its branches to flourish. Luxuriant branches will cover the gates of public buildings, until private houses become full, public halls empty, and the sovereign deluded. Therefore, stretch out the tree frequently but never allow any branch to grow outward. Any branch that grows outward will obstruct the position of the sovereign. Stretch out the tree frequently but never allow any of the branches to grow larger than the stem. When the branches are large and the stem is small, the tree will be unable to endure spring winds. When the tree cannot endure spring winds, the branches will damage its kernel. Likewise, when illegitimate sons are many, the heir apparent will have worries and anxieties. The only way to control them is to stretch out the tree frequently but never let its branches flourish. If the tree is stretched out often, partisans and adherents of the wicked ministers will disperse. When the roots and the stem are dug up, the tree is no longer alive.[footnoteRef:43] [43:  Han Feizi jishi韓非子集釋. Edited by Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷 (Gaoxiong: Fuwen, 1991), 2.124 (“Yang quan”); for another example see Han Feizi jishi, 7.442 (ten men planting trees that are easy to grow cannot overcome one person pulling them out; it is harder to plant them than to pull them out).] 


Nowhere is the weeding metaphor used more famously than at the notorious banquet where Liu Zhang 劉章（Marquis of Zhuxu 朱虛侯） uses “a ploughing song” (耕田歌) to direct criticism at Empress Lü. The scene is reminiscent of encounters between snooty officials and the humble-yet-insightful peasant. The empress laughs and sneers: “Only your father knew anything about working the fields, you were born a prince, how can you know anything about fields (安知田乎)?” “I know a little,” counters Liu Zhang. “Then try telling me about the fields,” challenges the empress. Next Zhang leaves the empress wordless by reciting a de facto political song to the tune that all growth that is extraneous and not born from the crop (i.e. the Lü scions) should be weeded out:

深耕穊種，立苗欲疏，非其種者，鉏而去之
Deep we plough and thick we sow the seed
In setting out the little plants we want them to have room to grow.
Whatever comes up that is not from our seed,
We hoe it out and throw it away![footnoteRef:44] [44:  Hanshu, 38.1991; Shiji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 52.2000-01.] 


The term “deep plowing” (shen geng 深耕)(together with weeding thoroughly) is first attested in Mencius 1A.5 where it is presented as part of good government.[footnoteRef:45] “To deepen one’s plowing” (shen qi geng 深其耕) and harrowing thoroughly are used similarly in the context of governing people in the Zhuangzi.[footnoteRef:46] “Deep plowing” almost never occurs in a technical context.[footnoteRef:47] There has been no shortage of discussion of the term and the contested origins of the plough by historians of agriculture. However they are missing an important point: the use of the term is primarily political, hence its power in Liu Zhang’s ditty. The subversive power of the agricultural metaphor works both a linguistic level (the imagery itself) and the social setting in which it is cast: why should royals, after all, lower themselves to the level of the peasant to communicate. [45:  “With a territory of no more than one hundred li, one can become a true king. If the king bestows humane government on the people, reduces punishments, and lightens taxes, causing the plowing to be deep and the weeding thorough, the strong will be able to use their leisure time to cultivate filiality and brotherliness.” (Cf. Bloom, 5).]  [46:  Zhuangzi jishi, 25.897 (“Ze yang”); cf. Mair, Wandering, 259-60.]  [47:  In fact, aside from later references to the banquet story, it is very rare. In one Guanzi passage, it occurs as one of the tasks of the totally dedicated farmer. See Guanzi jiaozhu, 8:20.401 (“Xiao kunag”). It is not until Qimin yaoshu that the term occurs outside the context of Mencius or Liu Zhang’s banquet song (in the context of planting beans, but twice only). ] 

“Planting (zhong 種, shu 樹) people” appears as a metaphor for the proper use of human talent:

夫種麥而得麥，種稷而得稷，人不怪也。用民亦有種，不審其種, 而祈民之用，惑莫大焉。
If you plant wheat, you harvest wheat, and if you plant millet, you harvest millet. There is no one who thinks that is strange. Using people also involves something like planting: not paying proper attention to “planting” and yet praying that the people will be properly used, there can be no greater delusion than this.[footnoteRef:48] [48:  Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi, 19.1270 (“Yong min”). For a similar statement see Han shi waizhuan jishi 韓詩外傳集釋. Attributed to Han Ying 韓嬰 (fl. 150 BCE), annotated by Xu Weiyu 許維遹 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1980), 7.20; tr. James R. Hightower, Han shi wai zhuan: Han Ying's Illustrations of the didactic application of the Classic of Songs (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), 244: “If you plant peach and pear trees in the spring, in summer you will have shade beneath them and in autumn you will be able to eat their fruit. If you plant caltrop in the spring, in summer you will not be able to gather its leaves, and in autumn you get thorns from it. If you look at it this way, it depends on what you plant. Now those you planted were not the right men. Truly, the superior man first makes a selection before he plants the seed.”] 


The message here is that if you deploy your own kind (seed people), you will get better results. Subtle shifts in the use of vocabulary can appear intentional. In the following example from the “Quan xiu” 權修chapter in the Guanzi, Master Guan emphasizes several times the need to put agriculture as a basic profession at the heart of good government. He then argues that planting people (shu ren 樹人) delivers the best economic return:

 一年之計莫如樹穀； 十年之計莫如樹木；終身之計莫如樹人。一樹一獲者穀也；一樹十獲者木也；一樹百獲者人也。我苟種之，如神用之。擧事如神，唯王之門。
When planning for one year, there is nothing better than planting grain. When planning for ten years there is nothing better than planting trees. When planning for a lifetime, there is nothing better than planting men. Grain is something that is planted once and only produces a single harvest. Trees are things that are planted once but may produce ten harvests. Human beings are things that are planted once but may produce a hundred harvests. Having once planted them [or: 苟, if indeed I sow the seeds], spirit-like I make use of them. To undertake affairs as would the spirits, such is the gate to kingliness.[footnoteRef:49] [49:  Guanzi jiaozhu, 1:3.55 (“Quan xiu”); cf. Rickett, vol.1, 96.] 


Two interesting issues are at work in this passage. The first six parallel phrases provide the planting analogy in terms of quasi-economic return. Then the verb shifts from shu to zhong. Was the author merely chasing rhyme (tsyowngH, yowngH); or is there also a semantic shift implied: from planting trees to sowing the seeds of something that generates greater potential, which, in turn, leads to the “spirit-like” deployment of the people. This would also correspond to the lexical difference between shu and zhong: the former is explained in the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字as a general term for living plants; the latter as a process of sowing something first with a view that it will ripen later.[footnoteRef:50] [50:  Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字注. Compiled by Xu Shen 許慎 (30-124 CE) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1983), 6A.21 for shu (木生植之緫名), versus 7A.39b for zhong (先穜後孰也).] 

	Another widely used image is that of soil as a potential facilitator of growth.[footnoteRef:51] The following example in the Lunheng contains a description of procedure that is as interesting as the intellectual point it makes: [51:  See e.g. Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi, 6.335 (“Yin chu”); Huainanzi, 17.572 (“Shui lin”).] 


夫肥沃墝埆，土地之本性也。肥而沃者性美，樹稼豐茂；墝而埆者性惡，深耕細鋤，厚加糞壤，勉致人功，以助地力，其樹稼與彼肥沃者相似類也。地之高下，亦如此焉。以钁鍤鑿地，以埤增下，則其下與高者齊。如復增钁鍤，則夫下者不徒齊者也，反更為高，而其高者反為下。使人之性有善有惡，彼地有高有下，勉致其教令，之善則將善者同之矣。善以化渥，釀其教令，變更為善，善則且更宜反過於往善。猶下地增加钁鍤，更崇於高地也。
Fertility or sterility constitutes the original nature (本性) of the soil. If the soil is rich and moist, its nature is good/beautiful, and the planted crops will be exuberant. If it is barren and stony, its nature is bad. However, if one adduces human effort such as deep ploughing, thorough tilling, and a generous use of manure in order to increase the soil’s power, [footnoteRef:52] its crops will become like that of rich and well-watered fields. Such is also the case with the elevation of the land. If you fill up low ground with earth, dug out by means of hoes and spades, the low land will be on a level with the high one. If you continue adding dug up soil, not only will the low land be on a level, it will in turn become higher than the high ground. The high ground will then revert to becoming the low one. Let us suppose that human nature is partly good and partly bad just as the land may be either high or low. By making an effort to adduce the good effects of education to it, goodness can be spread and generalized. If one is good at reforming (i.e. “transforming the moisture content” 化渥) and perseveres (literally “brews” niàng 釀) with education, people will change and become still better. Goodness will increase and reach a still higher standard than it had before, just as low ground, filled up with hoes and spades, rises higher than the originally elevated ground.[footnoteRef:53] [52:  A fragment attributed to Mengzi (but not preserved in the transmitted text) uses the term “to fertilize the heart” (fen xin 糞心). See Shuoyuan jiaozheng 說苑校證. Edited by Xiang Zonglu 向宗魯 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), 3.66-67 (“Jian ben”).]  [53:  Lunheng jiaoshi, 2.73-74 (“Shuai xing”)[my italics].] 


The passage offers a discussion of human nature in an analogy with working the soil (note again the use of the term “deep ploughing”). Humans can emulate their teachers; social mobility is possible through education just as low lands can be made to be higher than their originally surrounding highlands by heaping them up. In this example the description of how to work the soil is longer than the actual analogy with human nature itself. It has information value at the surface level (terms for soil quality, moisture levels), but it also plays on ideas that are social-political. In this case there is an inference that, like human nature, soil can be “good” (善) or “bad” (惡). Similar terms occur as descriptors for fertile or barren fields elsewhere.[footnoteRef:54] Furthermore the analogy exploits a theme that had become recurrent by Han times, namely, the idea that soil (i.e. biotope) shapes the character and temperament of those who inhabit or work it.[footnoteRef:55] In the Lunheng example, transforming bad fields into good fields is presented as a process of moral transformation. [54:  E.g. Shang jun shu zhuizhi 商君書錐指. Edited by Jiang Lihong 蔣禮鴻 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1996), IV.15: 86–87 (“Lai min” 徠民), where the terms are liang 良 and e 惡; cf. Yuri Pines, The Book of Lord Shang. Apologetics of State Power in Early China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 200 (15.1). See also Ma Zongshen 马宗申, Shangjun shu lun nongzheng si pian zhushi 商君書論農政四篇注釋 (Beijing: Nongye chubanshe, 1985), 44.]  [55:  See e.g. Huainanzi, 4.140-41 (“Di xing”); Yanzi chunqiu, 2.6.10 (cf. Milburn, p.350). See also the discussion in Roel Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 101-10.] 


The granary
The granary (qun 囷, cang 倉, lin 廩, jing 京) covers several semantic fields: it is a receptacle and storage facility for the harvest and, as such, it gathers and collects. It also functions as the engine for distribution and circulation (dispensing salaries in grain or grain as food supplies, or supplying seeds for sowing). In its function as a storage facility of seeds or seed material it represents an entity, unit, container, vessel, or enclosure that preserves things in a state before diversification, germination, growth and development. Several granary-themed analogies make this point. Just as crops are produced in the fields and stored in granaries, sages pay attention to where things are born so that they know where things will end up.[footnoteRef:56] Inexhaustible granaries and treasuries are stock images for sage rule.[footnoteRef:57] Filling a warehouse without planting or harvesting is contrary to the Way.[footnoteRef:58] Granaries also appear in medical analogies.[footnoteRef:59] [56:  Huainanzi, 20.694 (“Tai zu”; tr. Major, 835): “Water emerges from the mountains but flows into the sea. Crops are born in the field but are stored in the granaries. Sages, by seeing where things are born, know where they will end up.”]  [57:  For example, the image of the granary and the treasury are invoked in a description of the methods of the sage in Wenzi shuyi 文子疏義, edited by Wang Liqi 王利器 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2000), 2. 104 (“Jing cheng” 精誠): 聖人之法，始於不可見，終於不可及，處於不傾之地，積於不盡之倉，載於不竭之府。]  [58:  Huainanzi, 17.575 (“Shui lin”; tr. Major, 691).器]  [59:  Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問 (chapter 8), notes that “the spleen and the stomach are the officials responsible for grain storage; the five flavours originate from them”. The spleen and stomach are the organs that hold the five grains, as Wang Bing 王冰 (ca. 672 CE) suggests. Elsewhere (“Su wen”, chapter 17) we read that: “When the granaries do not [keep what they] store, in this case the doors are not under control”. Commentators note that the granaries here refer to the spleen and stomach, whereas the doors refer to the anus and tight. The stomach stores up and the spleen circulates. For the image of the stomach and spleen as storage depot of grain, see “Su wen”, chapter 9.] 

A striking image is that of the granary as a storage space of things in their germinal stage. In a passage in the “Guan” 觀 section of the Mawangdui Jing 經 (the Canon) the Yellow Emperor, in what is a fragmentary sentence, speaks of things possibly amassing or grouping together (qun qun 群群) to make a single qun 囷 “round granary” [*k’iwen], out of which all things (yin and yang, the seasons, etc.) are then differentiated.[footnoteRef:60] The Mawangdui “Dao fa” 道法section contains another occurrence of the granary. There it possibly symbolises a realm of undifferentiated stuff awaiting weights and measures to be identified and uncovered: [60:  The reference to a qun (a round-shaped granary) here could be inspired by a phonetic pun with qun 群, but the sentence lacks six characters in-between. There are fewer textual references to (round) qun 囷 type granaries in comparison with the cang 倉 or lin 廩 (or the square jing 京). Yet we know that qun were used as the supply station for seed material at the beginning of the agricultural season. As such it appears for instance in a ritual prayer dedicated to Xian Nong 先農 (First Tiller) in the recipe miscellany in tomb no. 30 at Zhoujiatai周家臺 (Hubei) (ca.210 BCE). There the qun is clearly the granary containing seeds for planting, and the place for a sacrifice to Xian Nong prior to and after village participants go to “set out the seeds” (chu zhong 出種). See Hubei sheng Jingzhou shi Zhou Liangyuqiao yizhi bowuguan, Guanju Qin Han jian jiandu 關沮秦漢簡牘 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2001), 132 (slips 347-53).] 

事如直木，多如倉粟，斗石已具，尺寸以陳，則无所逃其神.
Affairs are like straight trees and are as numerous as grains in a granary. When the dou and shi measures have been provided, and the chi foot and cun inch rules have been arranged, then no item will escape its true spirit.[footnoteRef:61]  [61:  See Robin D.S. Yates, Five Lost Classics (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 53.] 


Again we have the image of a forest of trees and a granary full of grains, the true value or “essence” of which can only be measured by means of weights and measures. A similar use of imagery occurs in the Heguanzi 鶡冠子, where the granary (and forest) refer to a state of indifference, the essence of which needs to be uncovered by measurement and good judgement.
天度數之而行，在一不少，在萬不眾；同如林木，積如倉粟，斗石以陳， 升委無失也。
If one uses Heaven’s laws of calculus, one is not few, and a myriad does not make up great quantity. Things can be as similar as trees in a forest or as packed up together as grains in a granary, but it is with the dou and shi measures that we can set them out in detail and sheng and wei measures would not lose out on any of them.[footnoteRef:62]  [62:  Heguanzi huijiao jizhu 鶡冠子彚校集注. Edited by Huang Huaixin 黃懷信 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 9.218 (“Wang fu” 王鈇).] 


	Similar to the granary as a container storing things before they reach a germinal stage is the image of the circular animal pen, or juan 圈. In an entry in the Shiming 釋名 qun 囷 is glossed as quan 綣, “to be bound up”.[footnoteRef:63] The animal pen also appears as an image for containing or fencing off entities in a state of in-differentiation. An example occurs in a line from Huainanzi where it is stated that “when viewed from the perspective of their similarities, the ten thousand things are in one single pen (自其同者視之，萬物一圈也).”[footnoteRef:64] Further down in the same passage a similar idea emerges: [63:  See Shi ming shu zheng bu 釋名疏證補. Compiled by Liu Xi 劉熙 (d. ca. 219 CE), annotated by Wang Xianqian王先謙 (1842-1918)(Beijing: Zhonghua, 2008), 17.193 (no.71).]  [64:  Huainanzi, 2.55 (“Chu zhen”); tr. Major, 93: “the myriad things are a single set”.] 


夫與蚑蟯同乘天機，夫受形於一圈，飛輕微細者，猶足以脫其命，又況未有類也！
Now, alike with centipedes and worms, we (humans) mount the Heavenly Mechanism, and we receive our form as part of one set [of living things; in the same “penning”], but it is the things that fly and are light and that are tiny and minute that find [their form] sufficient to escape with their lives. How much more is this so for that which has no category![footnoteRef:65]  [65:  Huainanzi, 2.58 (“Chu zhen”); tr. Major, 95 (my italics).] 


And yet another passage uses juan in the sense of “encircling” or “cornering off”: “Therefore what exists is born from what does not exist, the full emerges out of the empty, if all under heaven is encircled by it [“the world sets up “pens” for them”], names and realities will exist at the same time (是故有生於無，實出於虛，天下為之圈，則名實同居).”[footnoteRef:66]  [66:  Huainanzi, 1.29 (“Yuan dao”); tr. Major, 64-65.] 

Granaries and animal pens are much attested as burial goods (mingqi 明器) in Han tombs, where they are usually explained as items that provide sustenance for the afterlife, or supplies for post-mortem sacrifices. Yet, if we think of the tomb as a dark realm of increasingly undifferentiated identity, a world slipping away from the living but containing within itself the seeds for ever-lasting life, could these granary models impart onto the death the wish to “germinate” in perpetuity in the afterlife? Might they represent a wish for continuity, or even for the renewal of life, “setting out the seeds” for the next life? Perhaps one can conceive of tomb occupants as seeds stored away in the dark interior of a granary, sheltered from light until they are exposed again to the potential for germinating life.

Transmission of knowledge
Peasants acquire their skills through practice. Yet the world of the agronomic manual (nongshu) is mostly a tool of officialdom (and later on, the landed gentry and literati). Technical texts rarely explain how agronomic knowledge is passed on (except by quoting from other texts, or attributing sayings to figures such as Shennong). To get closer to what peasant life might have entailed, it is the anecdote, analogy, image or lyrical text contained in poems and songs that can be more revealing.[footnoteRef:67] In the fields, knowledge was transmitted in a performative way. One example is a rhymed passage describing the “Grand Method of Plowing” (耕之大方) in the Lüshi chunqiu.[footnoteRef:68] End rhyme and wordplay (final characters repeat at the start of the next line) indicate that pieces such as this may have been didactic, possibly a song or ditty farmers knew, or a piece they could intone while working the fields: [67:  Even Jia Sixie admits that much in his preface to Qimin yaoshu: “Now I have collated materials from classics and commentaries all the way to songs and ditties. I have checked these with old farming hands and verified them with my own practice.” See Miao Qiyu 繆啟愉, Qimin yaoshu jiaoshi (Beijing: Nongye, 1982), p.18 (今採捃經傳，爰及歌謠，詢之老成，驗之行事).]  [68:  Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi，26.1731 (“Ren di”); cf. John Knoblock and Jeffrey  Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei. A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 655.] 


	Strong soils need weakening
Weak soils need strengthening;
Fallow soils need working,
Overworked soils need fallowing;
Lean soils need fattening, over-fat soils leaning;
Compacted soils need loosening
Loose soils compacting;
Waterlogged soils need drying out,
Parched soils moistening.

	力者欲柔 
柔者欲力 [lik]
息者欲勞 
勞者欲息 [sik]
棘jí者欲肥
肥者欲棘 [kik]
急者欲緩 
緩者欲急 [kip]
溼者欲燥
燥者欲溼 [syip]




	There are other contexts in which agronomic knowledge transferred to other domains of life and vice versa. Analogies that juxtapose military weaponry with agricultural tools suggest that the battlefield may have been one. Several texts make the point that working the fields and waging battle are transferrable skills. As one passage in the Guanzi states: “Repair agricultural tools as though it were making war. Push and pull grubbing tools or hoes as though they were swords and halberds. Put on rain hats as though they were shields.”[footnoteRef:69] Once familiar with agriculture, people will become skilled at war (and vice versa). In the example from the Liu tao 六韜below, agriculture is presented as warfare with the soil: hoes are spears; spades, axes, saws, mortars, and pestles are tools for attacking walls; units of five people in the fields and villages create the bond that ties men together on the battlefield. The passage contains a dozen or so technical terms for agricultural tools and techniques, some are explained through the analogy with a weapon; some the other way round.  [69:  Guanzi jiaozhu, XVII.53: 1016 (“Jin cang” 禁藏); tr. Rickett, vol. 2, 220. The final “Qing zhong” chapter ends with similar martial imagery. See Guanzi jiaozhu, XXIV.85: 1540 (“Qing zhong, ji” 己); cf. Rickett, vol.2, 516.
] 


The implements for offense and defence are fully found in human activity. Digging sticks serve as chevaux-de-frise and caltrops. Oxen and horse-pulled wagons can be used in the encampment and as covering shields. The different hoes can be used as spears and spear-tipped halberds. Raincoats of straw and large umbrellas serve as armour and protective shields. Large hoes, spades, axes, saws, mortars, and pestles are tools for attacking walls. Oxen and horses are a means to transport provisions. Chickens and dogs serve as lookouts. The cloth that women weave serves as flags and pennants. The method that the men use for levelling the fields is the same for attacking walls. The skill needed in spring to cut down grass and thickets is the same as needed for fighting against chariots and cavalry. The weeding methods used in summer are the same as used in battle against foot soldiers. The grain harvested and the firewood cut in the fall will be provisions for the military. In the winter well-filled granaries and storehouses will ensure a solid defence. The units of five found in the fields and villages will provide the tallies and good faith that bind men together. The villages have officials and the offices have chiefs who can lead the army. The villages have walls surrounding them that are not crossed; they provide the basis for the division into platoons. The transportation of grain and the cutting of hay provides for the state storehouses and armories. The skills used in repairing the inner and outer walls in the spring and fall, in maintaining the moats and the channels, are used to build ramparts and fortifications. Thus the tools for employing the military are completely found in ordinary human activity. One who is good at governing a state will take them from ordinary human affairs. Then they must be made to accord with the good management of the six animals; the opening up of wild lands; and the settling of people where they dwell. The husband has a number of acres that he farms, the wife a measured amount of material to weave – this is the way to enrich the state and strengthen the army.[footnoteRef:70] [70:   Tai Gong liu tao jinzhu jinyi 太公六韜今註今譯. Annotated by Xu Peigen 徐培根 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu, 1993), 30.138-39 (“Nong qi”); tr. Ralph Sawyer, The Six Secret Teachings on the Way of Strategy (Boston & London: Shambala, 1995), 112-13.] 


The analogy taps into two spheres of knowledge, warfare and agriculture. But this passage can also be read beyond the analogy. It may hint at ways in which military and farming knowledge were communicated. One can envisage a scene in which farmers, demobilised from war, are instructed how to handle tools and work in units based on their experience of the battle field; or a scene of soldier-recruits being told how to handle weapons and look out for each other based on what they are familiar with on the fields during peace time. Here agronomic techniques translate into military affairs.
	
Conclusion: looking beyond the metaphor.
To be sure, in selecting the examples above, I am not arguing that farmers learnt from philosophers, ritualists, and pundits. It is the masters of philosophy, the ritualists, and (in our final example) the military strategist who draw on agricultural information to make their point. Here a parallel can be drawn between the Chinese textual landscape and the general dearth of technically-intended illustrations in pre-modern China: both texts and images operate at a figurative level; they are mostly about ideology, symbolism and moral themes. As Peter Golas points out: 

Paintings of farming practices … could be intended in the first instance to symbolize a well-ordered society under the benevolent rule of the emperor, or to encourage officials to carry out their responsibilities for the welfare of the hardworking people under their jurisdiction, or perhaps to serve as a warning that all was not well in the countryside. For the most part the viewers of these images would have little or no particular interest in the technology portrayed.[footnoteRef:71] [71:  Peter J. Golas, Picturing Technology in China. From Earliest Times to the Nineteenth Century (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2015), xx.; cf. p.12: “The technology portrayed in the farming paintings tended to be there as a by-product, the focus was mainly on the people doing the work and the conditions in which they worked rather than on exactly how the work was done. And given that the paintings often represented the perspective of the elite, there were strong tendencies even in the genre paintings to idealize peasant life while at the same time regarding the peasants as curiosities, sometimes not so far different from the way barbarians were viewed.”] 


Nevertheless, figurative language can be instructive as a guide on “how to do” farming, even if this is unintended. The agronomic information that makes up many of the metaphors and analogies through which early Chinese thinkers conveyed their views amounts to a sourcebook as rich as any technical manual from this period. In one way or another, figurative language intends to be didactic. The agronomic information embedded in it travels and circulates together with the (more abstract) ideas it helps convey. It is also in these analogies and metaphors that the sensory and physical engagement with land, tools, and crops comes to bear more eloquently than it does in dry and prescriptive “technical” literature. This then is perhaps where philosophy and technology meet: it does not matter whether the philosopher looks at bamboo as bamboo; what is important is how much detail he imparts in his description of bamboo to make his point. If the force of argument depends on the choice of imagery, what is described must be recognized. A more systematic inquiry might be able to chart the range and volume of agricultural metaphors out over time, and link them more closely to socio-economic and technical developments. For now I hope to have shown that figural language helps us understand how agriculture figured in Chinese thought and practice, even if that was not necessarily the intended purpose of those who devised the imagery to make their particular arguments.


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