Brief introduction of Wang Zhen, an agronomist and letterpress printer in Yuan Dynasty.

& gt extraordinary life >> Wang Zhen, whose name is Boshan. Dongping, Shandong. Meta-agronomists and reformers of letterpress printing. During the four years from Zhenyuan to Dade (1295- 1300), when he served as Yin in Jingde and Yongfeng County, he advocated planting mulberry, cotton, hemp and other cash crops and improving agricultural tools, and wrote 37 volumes of agricultural books (36 volumes today). There were wooden movable types. He designed a wheeled typesetting frame with movable types arranged in rhyme. When typesetting, the wheel is rotating to let people use words. In the second year of Dade, Jingde County Annals was printed with wooden movable type. The book "Making Movable Type Printing Calligraphy" is attached at the end of Agricultural Book. This is the earliest document that systematically describes movable type printing. He is also good at poetry, including Farming Collection. & gt& gt's date of birth and death is unknown, except that he worked as Yin in Zongyuan Zhenyuan (1295) Jingde County (now Anhui Province) for six years. Later, in the fourth year of Dade (1300), he was transferred to Yin in Yongfeng County (now Jiangxi Province), and the history after that was not recorded. & gt& gt Wang Zhen is an upright official. During his tenure in Yin County, he has been living the same life as ordinary people. He donated his salary, built schools, built bridges and donated medicine to help those who had no money to treat diseases. As soon as the locals mentioned his name, they were full of praise. & gt& gt When Wang Zhen was a county magistrate, he often encouraged people to grow good crops. He exposed those faint officials who only knew how to oppress the people but didn't know how to do practical things for them in the Agricultural Book. He said that these people do nothing all day, hinder the farming season and exploit the people indefinitely. They only know how to eat, drink and be merry. They go to the countryside to encourage farmers to work hard, and they also want the people to provide them with more servants; Some local officials also took the opportunity to blackmail farmers and collect more taxes. Wang Zhen hates these people very much. & gt& gt Wang Zhen really wants to be a good official who benefits the country and the people. Therefore, he highly praised the local officials who built water conservancy projects, persuaded farmers and sang farmers in ancient times, such as Ba Huang, the satrap of Yingchuan in Han Dynasty, Gong Sui, the satrap of Bohai Sea, and others. History books call these people "officials", which means "good officials" for the public and the people. Both Historical Records and Hanshu have biographies of officials. Wang Zhen believes that local officials should follow their example. & gt& gt Wang Zhen believes that a local official should be familiar with agricultural production knowledge. If the local official is right about Nong Sang, how can he shoulder the responsibility of persuading Nong Sang? Therefore, he usually pays great attention to farming, observes it anytime and anywhere, and asks experienced old farmers for advice if he doesn't understand anything. After such accumulation and study, he finally mastered rich agricultural knowledge and wrote the famous book Wang Zhennong. & gt& gt At that time, in addition to Wang Zhen's agricultural books, there were two famous agricultural books, The Summary of Agriculture and Mulberry and The Summary of Agriculture and Mulberry. In this historical period, it is not accidental that several agricultural scientific works can be produced one after another. It is precisely because of the hard work of our ancestors that they have accumulated rich agricultural production experience in the long-term production practice from generation to generation. As early as the Warring States Period, China's agricultural production technology began to be intensively cultivated. From the Warring States to the early Yuan Dynasty, it has gone through 1700 years. During this period, the technology of agricultural production has been continuously improved, and agricultural production has also been continuously developed. & gt& gt In the process of unifying China in the Yuan Dynasty, feudal rulers gradually saw that developing agricultural production was beneficial to feudal exploitation. During the reign of Yuan Shizu, he began to take some measures to develop agricultural production, set up officials to persuade agriculture, and set up institutions specializing in agriculture, mulberry industry and water conservancy, which promoted the compilation of agricultural books. But these agricultural books can be written well, and the greatest contribution is to those farmers who master technology. & gt& gt Wang Zhen was not only a famous agronomist in ancient China, but also an inventor. As we know, China began to use block printing to print books, but carving wooden boards is a very complicated job. In order to improve printing, in the eleventh century, the outstanding inventor Bi once invented the typography of clay movable type. However, this method was not widely used, so most books in Song and Yuan Dynasties were printed by block printing. When Wang Zhen was writing an agricultural book, he hoped that his book would be published as soon as possible, so he invented wooden movable type printing. & gt& gt The typesetting method of wooden movable type is: first, carve the characters on the board, then cut the carved board with a small saw, and then use a sharp knife to make square wooden movable type with the same size, which often makes more commonly used characters. After the wooden movable type is completed, it is arranged on two wheel frames, which are called rhyme wheel and miscellaneous word wheel respectively. Rhyme wheels are arranged in rhyme order; The miscellaneous word wheel is to arrange common miscellaneous words with commonly used words such as "Zhi", "Hu", "Zhe" and "Ye". The word checker sits between two wheels, and you can get the words you need by turning the rhyme wheel or the miscellaneous word wheel, which is very convenient. After picking up the wooden movable type, typesetting and printing. After a board is printed, the wooden movable type should still be removed and restored to the wheel frame, and then installed when it is used next time. & gt& gt The printing time of wooden movable type in Wang Zhen is several times shorter than that of block printing. & gt& gt In addition, he designed and drew many patterns of production tools. For example, he saw a tea house in Jiangxi, and according to the principle of this tea house, he designed and drew a schematic diagram of "water keeps grinding". Water-to-water continuous grinding is a machine started by water power, which can greatly save manpower. This machine has good performance, and each machine can irrigate 100 mu of farmland. & gt& gt In his Agricultural Books, there are many kinds of tool maps. All these fully show his outstanding creative talent. & gt& gt Wang Zhen is also a poet. Gu Yuan's Selected Songs contains his poems, which are called Farming Collection. In a word, Wang Zhen is a versatile man, but his main achievement is in agronomy. Below we will introduce the contents of his agricultural books in detail. & gt& gt Wang Zhennong's book with outstanding achievements:> The agricultural books written by Wang Zhen are usually called Wang Zhen's agricultural books. Because ancient agricultural books include the Agricultural Books written by Chen (Fu) in the Southern Song Dynasty and the Agricultural Books written by Shen Shi in the late Ming Dynasty, it is easy to distinguish them with such a generic term. Wang Zhennong's Book is one of the most famous agricultural books in ancient China. & gt& gt Wang Zhen's agricultural books have 36 volumes, which are divided into three parts: Nong Sang Tong Ji, Nong Qi Tu and Gu Pu. & gt& gt The book is about136,000 words, with 28 illustrations1piece. > > Wang Zhennong's Book made a comprehensive and systematic exposition of agriculture for the first time. A series of problems in agriculture are generally discussed in the book "Nong Sang Tong Ji". Before this, Qi Yao Min Shu written by Jia Sixie at the end of Wei Dynasty was a complete agricultural book. Although many problems have been discussed, the area involved is limited to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and various production technologies are mainly described separately, without systematically summarizing the problems and principles involved. This book by Wang Zhennong is the first encyclopedia that discusses both the North and the South at the same time, trying to systematically discuss the whole agriculture from the whole country, and analyze and compare the similarities and differences and functions of agricultural technologies and farm tools between the North and the South. Another feature of Wang Zhennong's book is the creation of Atlas of Agricultural Instruments. Atlas of Agricultural Machinery accounts for about four-fifths of the book, with more than 200 illustrations, including more complex mechanical graphics. We can further understand the structure of these tools through their shapes. Each picture is accompanied by a text description, which clearly introduces the source, structure and usage of various farm tools. In the Atlas of Agricultural Machinery, almost all the tools and parts related to agriculture that I can see are listed. Before that, there were generally no pictures in agricultural books. After it, the Qing Dynasty's "Complete Book of Agricultural Administration" and "General Examination of Timing", although there were maps of agricultural tools, were generally copied from Wang Zhen's agricultural books, not their own creations. It can be said that the Atlas of Agricultural Tools in Wang Zhen's agricultural books is the most detailed agricultural book in ancient China.