水稻与中国传统社会晚期的政治、经济、技术与环境

On the Rice and Chinese Traditional Society in the Last Phase:Politics,Economy,Technology and Environment

本文主要论述水稻是明清以后中国社会的主要食物依赖,唐宋以来经济重心向南方转移,由水稻作为主体的农业在其中扮演重要角色,美洲作物传入中国以后,没有改变水稻在其中所占的主体地位。作者认为,水稻对中国传统社会后期的各个方面产生重要的影响,包括正面和负面两个方面,涉及经济结构、技术进步、环境变化、文化特征等多个方面。其正面作用主要是养活了大量人口,成为多熟种植的主体作物,使得江南稻作产区成为经济与文化中心,促成了稻鱼共生系统的发展与梯田农业的演进;与此同时,水稻生产的特殊原因与其它因素共同作用,又限制了工具,特别是犁的进步,此外,还因为挤占了洪水泄洪的空间,促成了南方雨季洪灾的发生。

Chinese economic center had been transferred to the South since Tang and Song Dynasties,in which rice had been playing a very important role.Although the American crops were introduced into China afterwards,the role of rice had not been affected.As a result,rice had become the main food supply since China entered Ming and Qing Dynasties.The author believes that rice had a great influence at every aspect of Chinese traditional society in the last phase,positively and negatively covering economic structure,technical improvement,environmental changes and cultural characteristics,etc.Being the main multiple cropping plant,the positive role of rice is to feed up a large amount of population,to make South China become the economic and cultural center and to stimulate the formation of development of paddy-fish system and terrace agriculture;at the same time,the special reason for the rice production and other factors had limited the improvement of farming tools,ploughs,for example.In addition,paddy fields occupied the area of flood spillway in South China,which had caused the frequent flood in the rainy season.