Cui Ai was born into a noble family. Starting from his great-grandfather, Cui Chao, many generations have held positions of more than 2,000 stones, such as county satrap. Grandfather Cui Jian was a famous writer in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as well as Ban Gu and Fu Yi. His father, Cui Yuan, is a calligrapher, who also studies astronomical calendars and The Book of Changes in Jing Fang, and is "particularly friendly" with Fufeng Ma Rong and Nanyang Zhang Heng. He served as the county magistrate in Hanoi for seven years and made considerable achievements. Pay more attention to agricultural production, and once "opened hundreds of hectares of rice fields for the people". Life is unconventional, I like to make friends and spend my salary on entertaining guests. Therefore, financial constraints have led to "no family to bear the burden of storing stones." On his deathbed, he told his family, "My wife lives by the flexibility of heaven and earth. In the end, she will master heaven and return to the ground. Don't hide anywhere, don't go back to your hometown. " His words and deeds have a certain influence on Cui Ai.
When Cui Ai was young, she was introverted and loved reading. As an adult, he was twice called as a negotiator by the court when he was in Emperor Huan. He once worked with Bian Shao, Yan Du and others in Dongguan (Royal Library) and wrote The Five Classics with Dr. Zhu Ru. He also served as a foreign official twice. First, he served as the prefect of Wuyuan (northern Hetao, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and western United Banner of Darhan Maoming). He did two good things during his tenure: Wuyuan was relatively backward at that time. Although the soil is suitable for growing fiber crops, such as hemp, people don't know about textiles. In winter, ordinary people sleep in grass nests without clothes, and when they meet local officials, they will "wear clothes and grass." After Cui Mang arrived in Wuyuan, he "sold Chu Zhi (accumulated through hemorrhoids) and got more than 200,000 yuan. Yi Yanmen and Guangwu welcome weavers and teach them how to weave, perform, knit, sew and ■■■■ to keep the people warm. " Another good thing he did was that during Yuanjia and Yan Xi period (A.D.151-KLOC-0/59), Xiongnu, Wuhuan and Xianbei invaded the military forces in Yunyun, Shuofang and Cui Aide year after year, closely guarding the border to ensure the stability of one party and prevent the people from burning, killing and looting. Because of his outstanding achievements in Wuyuan, three or four years later, he was recommended as the governor of Liaodong, and he was responsible for border defense. On the way to her post, her mother died, and she was allowed to have a funeral. Later, he was promoted to Shangshu, but he was prevented from coming back in less than a year because of the party disaster. Cui Mang is relatively incorruptible as an official. Jianning, the spiritual emperor, died of illness for three years. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty said that he was "surrounded by his family and could not receive it". Finally, some good friends prepared a coffin for him.
"The Biography of Cui Bi in the Later Han Dynasty" said: "Cui Shi is a talented person in the world and a Confucian Lin Wen." Cui Ai is one of the most famous writers in Lin Wen after the relay of Cui Ai in Cui Shi, and he is as famous as Cai Yong later, so-called Cui Cai. In his life, he has ten categories 15 works, including "tablet, essay, topic, answer, seven words, inscription, table, record and book", among which "political theory" is the representative work. After the book "On Politics" is completed, the main content is "There are dozens of articles about current politics". Judging from the lost articles in On Politics compiled by Yan Kejun in The Whole Ancient Three Generations, Qin, Han, Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties, the specific contents include advocating frugality, prohibiting extravagance and tyranny, opposing corruption and oppression, advocating long-term tenure of local officials, and improving the treatment of officials to keep clean and honest. When the world's evaluation of "On Politics" is "to the point, argue with reason and be accurate". Zhong Changtong said, "Whoever is the host should write a letter and sit on it." Mao Cui's other masterpiece is the Moon Order for Four People related to agricultural production, whose name is not mentioned in Ye Fan's Biography of the Later Han Dynasty. Perhaps according to the eyes of people at that time, it did not belong to the category of "six arts" and was not elegant enough. Judging from Cui Min's words and deeds all his life, he was willing to be poor, paid more attention to agricultural production and cared about people's lives, which was rare among aristocratic landlords and officials at that time.
Cui Mang's main active period almost coincides with the reign of Emperor Huan (A.D. 147- 167). This is the dark and destructive period of political economy in the Eastern Han Dynasty. After the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties, the landlord class developed to a new stage in the Eastern Han Dynasty, that is, aristocratic landlords appeared. In addition to rural areas and gardens, dock walls and camps, which were rare in the Western Han Dynasty, also appeared, and they became the manor form of aristocratic landlords. All ethnic groups live in the manor, and clan leaders and elders are called "parents", which is the core of the manor. The main feature of manor economy is self-sufficiency. For example, the case of Fan Hongjia Manor in Nanyang in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Children and grandchildren respect each other day and night, often for the public, and their interests are not abandoned. ..... is a vast field open to more than 300 hectares. All its houses have heavy halls and high pavilions, and they are full of evil canals. There are also fish and livestock, and you can give them if you want. " After nearly 200 years of development in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the manor economy reached its peak in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, forming the rule of a big family.
The Monthly Order for Four reflects the family affairs of a clan landlord manor with a considerable amount of land at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it is planned for twelve months a year. The so-called "four people" refers to scholars, agriculture, industry and commerce. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, China appeared the theory of "separation of the four people"; History of Hanshu Food: "Learn to be a scholar by position, cultivate the land for agriculture, learn to be a worker, and make money by business." As for the name "Moon Order", The Book of Rites has a moon order, and Yizhoushu has a moon order. The latter is lost. The Book of Rites and the Moon Order, some people say that it is a work of the Warring States period, while others think that it is a Confucian work compiled by two Han people. It records the seasons of the twelve months of the summer calendar every year and the sacrificial ceremonies, duties, decrees and bans that rulers should perform, and summarizes them into a five-element system. Judging from the existing data of four-person monthly orders, the outline and content arrangement are generally similar to the monthly orders.
Cui Mang said with emotion in "On Politics" that "a rich family" has "hundreds of millions of wealth" and "a land of kings". The "next family" (poor people) is "nothing"; He also said that "agriculture is diligent, industry and commerce are easy to advance" and "if you don't climb a grain, you will starve to death"; "The country takes the people as the root, the people take the valley as their life, and when their lives are exhausted, they are uprooted, which is the most poisonous worry of the country." These remarks show that he has a strong idea of attaching importance to agriculture. He is also very concerned about agricultural production technology. In "On Politics", he commented on the inconvenient plows in Liaodong and introduced the sowing equipment "three-legged cymbals": "Three plows * * * a cow, one person will. When planting cymbals, take whatever you want. "
Cui Yuan, the father of Cui Ai, is heroic and hospitable, and he is indifferent to his family's livelihood. Everything is run by Cui Ai's mother. Cui Ai helped her mother with some housework when she was young. In management, she gradually learned a lot of methods to arrange the time of farming and weaving according to the season. After Cui Yuan's death, Cui Ai had to do her best to show filial piety, support the "noble family" and hold a grand funeral. After he buried his father, the family's economy was even more embarrassed, and farming alone was not enough. Therefore, in addition to strengthening the sale of expensive goods at a fair price, he also used his old knowledge of brewing technology at home to operate the brewing, vinegar and sauce industries. Biography said that he "made a living by brewing and selling candied fruit, but many people laughed at him and he never changed;" It's enough, it's not redundant. " Based on years of personal experience, Mao Cui deeply realized that both agricultural production and industrial and commercial management based on agricultural production must consider the seasonal growth of crops and make reasonable and proper arrangements in order to obtain greater benefits. So, he summed up the old and new experiences accumulated by predecessors and mother and son, sorted them out on a monthly basis, and wrote a manual on the operation of the four seasons in the form of a "memorandum", which may be passed on to his children and grandchildren for reference at any time, so as to keep the life of an "aristocratic family" under consideration. In the first month of the four-person monthly order: this note under "Chen Gen can pull out" reads: "This week, I learned the method of the capital. Its Jizhou County is far away, and each has its own cold and hot days, but it doesn't stop there. " This passage clearly shows that this book is set in Luoyang. It was written when Cui Ai lived in Luoyang in middle age.
According to the existing materials and their order of appearance, the main contents of the Four People's Moon Order include: (1) Sacrifice, family ceremony, education and maintaining and improving the old and new relationship between family and society; (2) Arrange the cultivation, planting and harvesting of grain, oilseeds and vegetables according to the seasonal climate; (3) sericulture, spinning performance, weaving and dyeing, bleaching and training, cutting, washing and restructuring; (4) Food processing and brewing; 5] Renovation of residential and farmland water conservancy projects; (6) collecting wild plants, mainly medicinal materials, and preparing medicinal materials; (7) keep all kinds of utensils in the collector's office; ⑻ ⑻ ⑻; (9) Other chores, including nine items such as "keeping sanitation". These contents are obviously not the scale of ordinary small-scale peasant economy, and can only belong to a peasant-style official with a considerable amount of cultivated land. The master personally manages the grange; A large number of laborers, such as "tenant farmers", "needle and thread" (referring to female workers specializing in performance, weaving and dyeing), "tenant concubines" (specializing in brewing and drinking), "silkworm concubines" (specializing in sericulture) and "sewing people" (specializing in sewing, disassembling and washing), engage in agricultural and workshop-style handicraft production, and sell yours cheaply. According to the scholar's "four people", that is, agriculture, industry and commerce, that is, the income of agriculture and handicrafts is the mainstay, supplemented by commercial income, to maintain the life of a scholar-bureaucrat family. Therefore, the "four-person monthly order" is actually the management manual of the manor owner. However, its monthly agricultural production arrangements, such as plowing, accelerating germination, sowing, dividing plants, hoeing, harvesting, storage and management of fruit trees and trees, are indeed agricultural production knowledge.
Among the existing 237 1 words in the Moon Order for Four People, 522 words are really related to narrow agricultural management, accounting for 22% of the total words, and the total of sericulture, spinning performance, weaving and dyeing, food processing and brewing is less than 40%. Others such as education, dealing with social relations, trading, pharmacy, crown jewelry, women's health care and health account for more than 60%. The book is planned on a monthly basis, in which agricultural measures and agricultural operations are still the decisive factors, and everything is planned according to the needs of farming, mulberry and other matters, which is different from the general monthly book. Therefore, it has always been regarded as an agricultural book, and it is the earliest representative work of China's ancient agricultural book "The Farmer's Moon Book".
As an agricultural book, the four-person monthly order has the following meanings:
First of all, there is a time gap of more than 500 years between Xi Sheng in the Western Han Dynasty and Qi Yao Min Shu in the later Wei Dynasty. During this period, there was only one book about agricultural production, Four People's Monthly Order, which reflected the great progress of agricultural technology compared with Taisheng Book. Although the description of operation technology is very short and incomplete, we can't completely rely on it to trace the development process of agricultural technology for more than 500 years, but it can provide some clues after all. From its description, we can see the development of agricultural production and agricultural technology in Luoyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty: agricultural production is dominant, sericulture is also very important, animal husbandry is only in a subordinate position of agriculture, and vegetables are seasoned with meat and fish. As for agricultural production technology, the "four-person monthly order" recorded "different rice" (that is, rice transplanting) and layered propagation of trees for the first time. As for agricultural management, in addition to reflecting the basic aspects of the self-sufficient feudal economy, there are commercial activities that use price fluctuations to buy and sell agricultural and sideline products such as grain, silk floss and silk products.
Secondly, The Moon Order for Four People is similar in form to The Moon Order for the Book of Rites, but quite different in content. "The Book of Rites and the Monthly Order" describes the etiquette duties performed by the government-emperors and officials every month, as well as daily life, diet, costumes, utensils and so on. The emperor's, that is, "the trip to the house in December"; The Monthly Order for Four People is a "farming calendar", which describes the farming, handicrafts and commercial operations that a manor owner will carry out for twelve months a year. Then there are many decorative materials of yin and yang and five elements in the Book of Rites and the Moon Order. Yin-yang school appeared in the Warring States period, and its theory developed into divination in the Han Dynasty, which was very popular in the Eastern Han Dynasty. However, all the existing words in the Four People's Moon Order are copied from the Book of Rites Moon Order, such as "Yin and Yang should be taboo", and most agricultural and handicraft operations are only based on seasons and phenology, with no trace of superstition and taboo, and the order of each month is more detailed and reasonable. It can be said that the Moon Order for Four People is an agricultural book written by borrowing the genre of "Moon Order" from the traditional concept of attaching importance to "farming season". It was the founder of the Monthly Book of Peasant Households, and later such as Collection of Four Seasons, Summary of Agriculture, Mulberry, Food and Clothing, Civil Affairs Records, Farmer Nursery Manual, etc. They all inherited the genre of the four-person monthly book, but the content has developed. Nongshu is a special genre in China's ancient agricultural books, and it is also a genre subject worthy of recommendation.
Like Bi Shengshu, The Moon Order for Four People mainly relies on the citations of Qi Shu and other books to preserve some materials. It is impossible to know what the original appearance of the book is now. From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it passed through the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty. Sui Shu Gyeonggi Branch, Old Tang Shujing Branch and New Tang Shuyi Wenzhi are all recorded as four-person monthly orders (1). This is because in the Tang Dynasty, the name Li Shimin was taboo, and the word "person" was rewritten as "person". Taiping Yulan and Shupu are recorded as Cui Ai's Moon Order for Four, which shows that this book was still circulated in the early Song Dynasty. Probably lost in the Song Dynasty, or in the Yuan Dynasty, so it is not included in the history of the Song Dynasty. There are three versions in Qing dynasty. During the Qianlong period, Ren and Wang Mo produced two versions, both of which were of poor quality. During the Jiaqing period, the lost books of Ren and Wang were collected and sorted out, and the four-person monthly order 1 volume was compiled, which was collected as the 47th volume of Chinese for Later Generations and the 46th volume of Political Theory in Three Ancient Scholars. Modern Tang people think that Yan Ben is the better of the three versions, but there are still some places where the annotations are upside down from the text and some misquoted sentences. Therefore, he compiled a new edition with Jade Candle Collection written in Sui Dynasty as the main body and Yan Ben as the supplement. 1962, Professor Shi Shenghan of Northwest Agricultural College collated The Moon Order for Four People on the basis of predecessors, and made in-depth research and analysis on its circulation, genre and agricultural significance. Mao Cui dared to attack the dark politics at that time and advocated innovation. It is pointed out that the national system should change according to the change of the situation, and must not be "eager for success". He is the author of five volumes of political theory. The whole book has been lost, and some of its contents are contained in the Biography of Cui Bi in the Later Han Dynasty and the Collection of Books. There are also four moon orders, which have been lost, but most of them are kept in the book Jade Candle Collection.
On the issue of legal system, Cui Mang mainly has the following views: ① He thinks that "the punisher is the medicine stone to cure chaos"; Moral education is a good way to promote peace. The usage of "morality" and "punishment" varies from time to time. At that time, it was a troubled time that "bears the embarrassment of a hundred kings and is worthy of bad luck" and should be severely punished. He praised Xuan Di, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, for adopting strict laws to stabilize the society. Criticizing the Han and Yuan emperors' pursuit of Confucianism and "lenient politics" became the "basic disaster" of the Western Han Dynasty. ② Oppose pardon. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, especially in the later period, rulers frequently issued pardon orders to pardon criminals in order to ease class contradictions. Cui □ is extremely opposed to this practice, and thinks that "it is fun to be lenient with others and be lenient with others". Frequently pardoning criminals can not only stop crimes, but also make people "despise mistakes" and "do more evil". So mutual promotion, "two can't rest." It is advocated that pardon should not be granted easily, and it is best to pardon it after more than ten years.
In ancient times, there were many skills that needed to be handed down from family, the so-called family heirloom. Therefore, there are many cases where father and son come down in one continuous line and brothers are taller, such as the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, Ou Yangxun and Ouyang Tong, Wen Zhiming and Wen Peng. Paintings by Dai Kui, Dai Qing, Huang Quan, Huang Jucai, Mi Fei, Mi Youren, Zhao Mengfu and Zhao Yong; The article was written by Su and his son. Yan Shu, Yan Daoji and his son's words and so on. First, contact from an early age. First, the father taught his son not to keep secrets, but to give everything to each other. Cui Yuan family is a big family in Dongzhi, Cao Zhang, and has inherited his father's career and achieved fruitful results. [1] (written by Han), Shisheng Han School: Simin School, Agricultural Press, 1965.
[2] Liang Jiamian, Editor-in-Chief: Historical Draft of Agricultural Science and Technology in China, Agricultural Press, 1989.
[3] Wang Yuhu: China Agricultural Journal, Agricultural Press, 1964.
(Biography of Ancient Scientists in China by Science Press)