After Kublai Khan made Beijing his capital, he felt that it was urgent to develop agriculture. Therefore, he set up a large company to take charge of farming and mulberry water conservancy, and classified it as a book "Agriculture and Mulberry Summary", which was distributed throughout the country. Agricultural officials were sent to various places to inspect agriculture, and the development of agriculture was regarded as the main basis for evaluating the achievements of local officials. Lu Mingshan's Outline of Agriculture, Mulberry and Food and Clothing
13 14, Lu Mingshan went to Anhui as an inspector. During his tenure, he strongly rewarded agriculture and mulberry and developed production. In order to help farmers arrange their production activities for one year, he is determined to write a useful agricultural book that farmers can easily read. So he studied all kinds of books hard, often went deep into rural fields to understand the laws of agricultural production and collected the experience and knowledge of folk agricultural planting. Over time, I finally wrote a summary of food and clothing for farmers and mulberry. Summary of Agriculture, Mulberry and Food and Clothing is written in monthly style and divided into twelve months. Farming activities are listed every month and various practices are explained. The book is divided into two volumes, with more than eleven thousand words, but there are two hundred and eight articles about farming, which are extremely rich in content. Such as meteorological phenology, irrigation and water conservancy, crops, vegetables, melons, fruit trees, bamboo and mulberry cultivation, silkworm breeding, livestock and poultry breeding and medical treatment, service, beekeeping and honey collection, grain and seed storage, non-staple food processing, clothing storage, etc.
The book first embodies Lu Mingshan's thought of attaching importance to agriculture. He said: "Planting mulberry leaves ample food and clothing; There is more than enough food and clothing, and the people can teach etiquette; People can teach etiquette, so the country and the world can maintain long-term stability. " Secondly, the guiding ideology of developing agriculture is intensive cultivation, increasing soil fertility and increasing yield per unit area. Third, in the agricultural management thought, it advocates diversified management of agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry, emphasizes comprehensive utilization and stresses economic benefits. The fourth is to advocate thrift and pay attention to preventing famine. As he said in the preface: "The right time, the right place and the right people are harmonious, and the method of planting, storing and mining is exquisite, which is a book." Under the conditions at that time, this is a practical encyclopedia of cultivators' agriculture, with clear practicability, concise language and convincing attitude. It can be seen that Lu Mingshan is a local official who cares about people's livelihood. As a Uighur agronomist, Lumingshan not only summarized and disseminated the production experience of working people of Han nationality, but also summarized and disseminated the production experience of brothers in northwest China, adding new contents to the agricultural classics of the motherland.
Lu Mingshan's Summary of Agriculture, Mulberry, Food and Clothing has always been highly praised, including Yongle Dadian in Ming Dynasty and Sikuquanshu in Qing Dynasty. Later generations listed this book as the three major agricultural books in the Yuan Dynasty, together with Nongsang Official Collection and Wangzhennongshu. In the summary of the general catalogue of Sikuquanshu, it is commented as follows: "Mingshan books are divided into December orders, and the pieces are connected in series, which is concise and easy to understand, so that the planting art collection festival is clear, and the shade is covered to make up for the lack of farming and mulberry collections. It can also be said that you can be a doer! " He also said that the two books, "Summary of Agriculture and Mulberry" and "Summary of Agriculture and Mulberry's Food and Clothing", "it is easy to distinguish between products and seasons, and it is also easy to get them." Thus, this small agricultural book occupies a unique and important position in the agricultural history of China.
The Outline of Agriculture, Mulberry, Food and Clothing, which will be exhibited at the Xinjiang Historical Literature Exhibition to be held in the National Library, is a series of books engraved with the golden pots of Qing Jiaqing Mohai.