A Brief Comment on Chinese Agricultural
3 min readChina was one of a few world’s birth-places of agriculture，and also one of the important places of the origin for human civilizations.When many other civilizations began to germinate，Chinese agricultural civilization had already become mature，like the sun athigh noon shining all over the world.In history，Chinese population had been comparativel large，with the settled and stable life ensured by comparatively stable agricultural yields.
In ancient times，two Chinese economies，agricultural and nomadic，were indivisible like Siamese twins，full of ambivalent feelings of love and hate，and destined to integrate through blood and fire.All through our history，most of the dynasties had been harassed and tortured by the border skirmishes as well as all-out wars.Most of those Han emperors and their generals had usually adopted passive defensive strategy，even humiliatingly pacified kings of nomadic people by marrying daughters of the Han royal families to them，but peace usually proved transient as this kind of peace had solved no problems for which the wars were launched.The Han Chinese emperors and their courtiers had seldom made a thorough study of those horse-riding people and their lifestyle，but only reprimanded them for conducting themselves immorally and avariciously，even cursed out those treacherous and faithless”barbarians”and“uncivilized men”in order to make the Han Chinese emperors and their people psychologically comforted and balanced.Most of the Han Chinese rulers thus had long been bogged down in this passive abyss of mentality and could never have worked outany effective solutions to all these troubles once for all.For thousands of years，on the vast east Asian landmass，a wretched and miserable drama of nomadic people forever chasing agricultural people had been staged continuously.
The Han Chinese had known very little about the real state of existence and grassland of the nomadic people，seldom connected their militancy and aggression with their ways of nomadism，even nobly and proudly claimed that they had never coveted their grassland and wealth.The agricultural people’s mentality had thus been formed，reinforced and finally consolidated as a result of their settled ways of comparatively stable and easy life.Thanks to two major minority regimes，the Yuan and Qing dynasties，and many other lesser dynasties of minority which had had their reigns well established in the Central Plains over the whole country，the Han Chinese mentality and their horizons，previously agricultural in nature，had been revitalized and broadened，with the repeated“injections”of nomadic elements in the process of integrations of the agricultural people with the nomads from the grassland.
The ancestors of the Chinese nations，with unprecedented wisdom and courage，had ushered in a new epoch of glorious agricultural civilization in the remote past of human history，but the mentality resulting from their early successes in agricultural productionshad become deep-rooted habits and historical burdens，negatively affecting the evolution of Chinese society and their descendants in their future choices and progresses.Of course，this is no fault of our ancestors，to whom we，as successors of their great civilization，owe so much and are extremely grateful.It is rather for us，the descendants，to be committed to the great task of smashing the“long-standing mental shackles”and innovating on our future work，if we want to prove ourselves worthy of their splendid achievements.
