Large livestock such as cattle and horses were mainly used to providecarnivorousLater, it was gradually used for military, transportation and agriculture.Soil tillage and crop sowing are the basic links of agricultural productionfarm cattleAnimal power as the main force is the main power source for farming and sowing, and cattle farming has become thetraditional agriculture Establish and frequent signs.
Chinese name
animal power
Pinyin
chù lì
Foreign name
Animal power
Basic explanation
Power of livestock transporting or towing farm implements
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, "the victims of the ancestral temple are the diligent barkers", and livestock farming gradually rose.Cattle, with mild temper, strong body and lasting strength, are the first choice for farming and carting, and the popularization of cattle farming has become an important symbol of the establishment of traditional agriculture.From the Niuzun unearthed in Hunyuan County, Shanxi Province in 1923, it can be seen that in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the cattle in the State of Jin had worn nose rings.Lu Tian Chun Qiu Chong Ji also recorded that a cow wears a nose ring.Cattle with nose rings are easy to pull and control, and their temperament becomes more tame, which can be used for farming or driving.According to Zhanguoce · Zhaoce, the state of Qin used cattle to farm and transported grain by water. The level of agricultural production was much higher than that of Zhao and other eastern countries. A strong army with enough grain should be the basis for Qin to defeat the enemy and unify the world.At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, animal power was extremely scarce. Later, after recuperation, by the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there had been a situation of "horses in the streets and alleys of the common people, and flocks among the strangers".The substantial increase in the number of large livestock such as horses and cattle and the improvement of farming tools have provided conditions for the widespread use of livestock in agriculture.In fact, the soil farming system in the Guanzhong area of the Western Han Dynasty, which combined farming, forestry and forestry, Zhao Guo's invention of the cart, the promotion of the field replacement method, and the promotion of winter wheat planting after the Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were all closely related to the popularity of cattle farming: Ying Zhao of the Eastern Han Dynasty said, "Cattle are the root of farming, which is restrained by the people, is the most useful, and the country is the strong or weak." It can be seen that cattle are the basic source of agricultural power,At that time, it was highly valued: after the founding of New China, many areas of the country had unearthed Han Dynasty painted crop stone "cattle farming map", and more iron birches were unearthed, which also showed that cattle farming in the Han Dynasty was quite common.
Animal power and farmland irrigation
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Irrigation is an important means to increase crop yield, and also a production project that consumes more energy.Farmland irrigation in China began in the Warring States Period, while the use of animal powered irrigation machines and tools, such as turning a cow into a cart, began in the Tang Dynasty at the latest;The principle of animal power drainage and irrigation is to use the continuous work of animal power at a certain place, that is, to use rotary motion and transmit the power to the machine body from the rotary motion on the ground plane, and finally make the machine act and do work. This requires a pair of helical gears to transmit.
The structure of the cattle roll over car is complex and the cost is high, so it is estimated that wealthy families can afford or use it: as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Chinese people had applied animal knives to grain processing and invented the roll over car (or keel car) as an irrigation tool.The Old Book of the Tang Dynasty · Wenzong Ji records: "In the second year of Dahe (828), a water cart was produced inside, so that Jingzhao Mansion could build water carts and distribute them to the people of Yuanzheng Boqu to estimate the paddy field." The water cart here is meant to overturn orKeel waterwheel。In the early days, rollover was a manual rollover with pedal and hand, with various shapes.In the Tang and Song dynasties and later, the economy of the south came from behind, land was reclaimed in large areas, and the promotion of water and early crop rotation system increased the irrigation and drainage task per unit area of land.In particular, many fields are not suitable for gravity irrigation by using canals and weirs, so they need to use mechanical weighing animal power and natural power to draw water or lift water.In particular, it is necessary to have matching animal power input to ensure the power source of farmland irrigation budget: with the increasingly mature production and use technology of water tankers, animal power, wind power and hydraulic rollovers have emerged one after another, and have been popularized in Jiangnan and other places, among which animal power rollovers are widely used.
Cultural Significance of Traditional Animal Power Utilization
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The use of animal power in China's agriculture began around the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when cattle were used to pull plows.After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the range of animal power utilization gradually expanded, and the power source of agriculture formed the characteristics of combining animal power traction with human operation.The massive use of the power of cattle and horses and the widespread family raising have provided the power guarantee for the formation of intensive farming technology system, which has freed people from heavy agricultural labor to a certain extent, and improved theAgricultural labor productivity。Because of the family breeding of cattle and livestock for farming and their important role in traditional agricultural production and life, farmers and cattle and horses live together all day long, rely on each other, and work together under the cold wind and hot sun, so there is often some emotion between people and livestock.On the one hand, in the historical period, people took great care of cattle and horses, accumulated rich experience in disease prevention and breeding, and the governments of past dynasties also issued laws to protect cattle;On the other hand, a large number of poems and articles extolling farming cattle and livestock and related anthropomorphic descriptions have been formed in history.On the contrary, if ancient China raised livestock mainly to eat meat, then its animal husbandry culture must be another scene.The following is a brief description of the former aspect, which roughly reflects the cultural significance of animal power utilization in the traditional era.[1]
Replacement of animal force and mechanical force
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In modern China, agricultural production relied on animal power and used less mechanical power. Although the number of livestock raised in the United States was far more than that in China, most of its livestock were used as production livestock and less servitude.This difference arises from the fundamental difference in the agricultural production environment between the two countries.The United States is a sparsely populated country. It has adopted a relatively extensive management mode in agricultural production. The sufficient agricultural funds, the support of national policies and the farmers' attention to work efficiency have made the United States reach a high level of agricultural mechanization as early as the early 20th century.In China during the Republic of China, although the introduction of agricultural tools or the development and transformation of agricultural tools in some agricultural colleges and universities were started at that time, and advanced agricultural machinery had appeared sporadically in experimental fields or rich rural areas, this was only an individual phenomenon, not widely promoted.Agricultural machinery force is strongly resisted by animal force. The reason lies in the difference in the use cost of machinery force and animal force.In the 1920s, Bukai made a thorough calculation of the farming cost of livestock and machinery, and the results showed that "the cost of using machinery to cultivate land is 10.43 yuan per hectare", while "the cost of using cattle to cultivate land is about 4.00 yuan per hectare".The cost of machine farming is 2.61 times that of animal power.The poverty of farmers and the lack of agricultural funds have made it impossible for farmers to buy and raise a draught animal, let alone to pay for the purchase and use of agricultural machinery.Secondly, at that time, there were very few manufacturers that could manufacture large-scale agricultural machinery in China, so it was difficult for farmers to buy the agricultural machinery they needed.Even if agricultural machinery is purchased, farmers will not use and maintain it under the condition of backward agricultural technology and poor education.In addition, farmland fragmentation is not convenient for large-scale agricultural machinery operation, and backward traditional farm tools cannot match the farming needs of advanced agricultural machinery, especially tractors. If you buy matching agricultural machinery, it will be a big expense.Therefore, animal power has become a more economical and convenient agricultural power than mechanical power, and more high-energy and efficient than human power. It plays an important role in agricultural production activities and rural economic life.Even in the period of collectivization, this situation has not changed. The state attaches great importance to the number of draught animals on hand, and it is strictly prohibited to kill draught animals arbitrarily, which shows the importance of animal power for agricultural production activities at that time.The application of mechanical force in Xidouzhuang's agricultural production began in the 1960s and began to increase in the middle and late 1970s. The three tractors purchased by Xidouzhuang from 1979 to 1980 promoted the application of mechanical force in its agricultural production more and more widely.[2]
