08/25/23 - Ancient Chinese Agricultural Technology Edition!

[I came upon an extremely long Zhihu answer that took up all my word count for today. I’ll warn people beforehand that this post is full of Bad History, especially on the European front. I don’t actually know much about European history, so I can’t tell you just how wrong it is, but just by how it buys into the meme that full plate is super cumbersome, I can tell this guy hadn’t done that much research. But he still has some interesting points about agricultural advances in early Chinese society that’s accurate enough.]

---

An askreddit question: “How come for thousands of years, nomadic raiders from Mongolia never attacked Europe and always picked on China?”

The top-voted reply is, “A lot of people may not believe this, but ancient England, and even the entirety of ancient Europe had unbelievably low crop yields for almost their entire history.

Before the industrial revolution, European agricultural yield was calculated by seed to grain ratio—that is to say, how many pounds of seeds do you have to plant in a field in order to receive how many pounds of grain had a set ratio.

Before the 11th century, this number was only 1:2. Even at the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 17th century, this ratio was only 1:4.

What’s the concept of a 1:2 ratio. It means that if you planted 20 pounds of seeds in one mu [0.06 hectares] of land, you would only be able to get 40 pounds of grain out of it.

All of this data is very solidly backed up by evidence by English historian David Nicolle in “Life in Medieval Times”. Back then, in [Location name I cannot translate], every 100 pounds of wheat harvested took 60 pounds of seeds. That statistic literally made my jaw drop.

Compare it to Ancient China…okay, fine. Comparing China during the 11th to 17th century is just bullying. We’ll use Qin Dynasty crop yields from 2000 years ago. At that time, each mu of land required about 20 pounds of seeds, and yielded about 240 pounds of grain.

The seed to grain ratio was 1:12—six times that of medieval Britain.

The Medieval Times in Europe lasted from the 5th century to about the 15th century. That spanned the Northern and Southern Dynasties in China, Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan. During this time, China’s crop yields continued to grow beyond Qin Dynasty technology. The seed to grain ratio eventually grew to 1:20, roughly.

That’s why for 2000 years before the industrial revolution, China was the absolute top of the world. That is why you can take any Ancient Chinese Dynasty, and it would make up a significant portion of total World GDP.

The logic is actually very simple. In agricultural societies, the main source of GDP is obviously agricultural products. Economists simply used the total area of farmed land in China, multiplied by average per mu crop yields, and they can arrive at a simple estimation of GDP. We were BTFO-ing the hell out of Europe’s agriculture (and everyone else’s too, honestly). Europe was 1:2. We were 1:20. Although Ancient China actually had relatively small amounts of farmed land in terms of total world percentage, we dominated total world GDP.

So, now the question is, why is European agricultural yields so pitiful, and Chinese agricultural yields so high?

Famous American Professor at University of Louisville, Robert Temple, had a famous line, “Before the 18th century, European agriculture was primitive and hopeless. It could not even begin to be compared to the advanced Chinese agriculture from 2000 years ago.”

Without exaggeration, before the 18th century, the entirety of European agriculture never moved past the primitive sickle and the torch.

Before the 18th century in Europe, peasants would just scatter seeds evenly into a field that’s been simply turned over once, and not even bother laying down any fertiliser or removing weeds. Once the crops grew out, it would be extremely disorderly, with very random density, and different plants would interfere with each other.

This way, there wouldn’t be good airflow between plants or good distribution of land. The crops would be ready for harvest at different times in the same field, by the difference of several days. So, for a more efficient harvest, often underripe grain was harvested too. The worst part is, this type of farming meant it’s impossible to remove weeds or effectively water crops.

This meant that before the 18th century, Europeans basically lived at the mercy of the weather—no wonder such circumstances would cause Europeans to have such a strong habit of faith in a God.

In Medieval European Church masses, the most popular hymn went, “We have worked hard and planted our fields. We have laid down our best seeds. Oh, great and powerful Lord, please water and feed our crops.”

Just throwing seeds in a field without removing grass, without laying down fertiliser, and even relying on prayer for irrigation—how is that hardworking at all??

This simple form of farming would tire out the soil extremely quickly (because there’s a limited amount of micronutrients in the soil, and it replenished itself at a very slow rate). So ancient European peasants had to let sections of their land lay fallow in alternate years while farming other sections. This was known as the Two-Field System.

It was only after the 9th century, that Europe invented the famous “Three-Field-System”, where they’d divide land into three sections, and farm different crops in two while letting the third one rest.

The Three-Field-System was a vast improvement on the efficient use of land over the Two-Field System (the amount of land being rested was reduced, and more land was able to be farmed), and so European historians brag about it all the time. But in actuality, Europe’s Three-Field System is just a fucking joke compared to Chinese agricultural technology.

Maybe people in the modern day don’t have much of a concept of farm work. Without a good comparison, you don’t grasp what I’m talking about. So I’m gonna explain a bit about how Dynastic China went about farming.

First, the greatest invention in all of Ancient China—the Long Geng farming method. This is an incredible invention in the field of agriculture. It was far meaningful to China than any of the Four Great Inventions people might be familiar with.

As the name suggests, you till long rows of embankments (Long, a small raise in the land, see in picture below), and then put down seeds in a row along the embankment. There needs to be a certain distance between each row of embankments, and there is a dip of a small valley between each row. The height is differenced based on what you’re farming. Sometimes, the field is almost flat.

Why would you plant crops this way? The reason is simple. Because that was the only way to guarantee high crop yields back in the day. Our ancestors had awe-inspiring wisdom. They invented this great farming method 2000 years ago.

First, this can guarantee that each individual plant has plenty of room to grow, without interfering with each other. The farmers walk in the valley between each embankment when they weeded, so they never trampled over any crops. And it guaranteed airflow between each plant, so roots weren’t susceptible to rotting. And it’s incredibly efficient to lay fertiliser and water crops this way.

And the most amazing part is that, embankments and the valleys could be used interchangeably. After harvest every year, when it’s time to till the whole field over again, the embankments are turned into valleys, and the valleys into embankments, so that the land could be farmed every year. Every single embankment was taking a year off while the valleys were being farmed. Isn’t that amazing compared to the Three Field System?

Even today, the Long Geng farming method is in widespread use. You can see it in China’s northern great plains, or the America western great plains, all the neat rows of wheat or potatoes or corn. What they’re using is the Long Geng Farming Method invented in China’s ancient past. I’m not exaggerating when I saw that the Long Geng Farming Method is the greatest guarantee of farm yield next to irrigation.

We can no longer trace exactly who invented this farming method in China, but it probably wasn’t one person. It was probably put together out of generations of experience by Chinese farmers. This Long Geng Farming Method has appeared as early as the Warring States Period, and quickly became the mainstream way to farm in Dynastic China.

So, another question. How was Dynastic China able to invent such an advanced Long Geng Farming Method, and yet ancient Europe fiddled with the Three Field System until the 18th century?

Let’s look at the Long Geng Farming Method. Although this technique is incredibly magical, but there’s a requirement before you can even think about adopting it—and that is, you need iron farm tools. Specifically, you need an iron plow.

Only iron plows can actually plow the fields deep enough to form embankments and valleys. And as the iron plow went through a field and turned the soil up, it was very effective at killing weeds too.

Although Europe had invented iron-working quite early, they were stuck at forging at temperatures of below 1000 degrees for a long time. Blacksmithing at below 1000 degrees has to be performed in a kiln, and once it’s done, the iron couldn’t be extracted from the kiln. You needed to smash the kiln to retrieve the iron. Sort of like killing the chicken for the egg.

This is an incredibly costly way to go about forging, and so it was very difficult to mass produce iron using this method. Primarily, it was turned into weapons for a small number of nobility. The average peasant couldn’t afford such expensive iron farm tools.

And even in the Spring and Autumn Period, China was able to grasp the technology of forging liquid iron at 1300 degrees. Don’t look down on a mere 300 degrees. That’s the difference needed to make sure that the iron was produced in a liquid form, and could flow out of the kiln and poured into various molds.

This form of forging made iron incredibly cheap and affordable. Not only could iron weapons be mass produced, but so could iron farm tools. And China’s production ability leapt centuries ahead of its neighbours, and that allowed the Long Geng Farming Method to be invented.

It wouldn’t be until the 13th century that Europe was able to grasp forging at 1300 degrees. As for why then, we’ll talk about it later.

Their lack of iron working technology meant their agricultural technology lagged far behind China too.

Modern day historians summarised that Chinese agricultural technologies led Europe in every aspect by centuries, including:

China’s Long Geng Farming Method led the west by 2000 years.

China had incredibly advanced farming machinery. Europe lacked curved axle plows, automatic seed dispensers, weedkiller and fertiliser sprayers, etc.

China’s iron working, steel working led the west by 2000 years. Prinny’s Natural History read, “Although there are many types of iron, nothing compares to the steel from China.” Europe may have had iron, but their could not produce raw iron until the 13th, 14th century. And in the 11th century, Northern Song produced over 100,000 tons of iron per year—more than what Britain produced in the 18th century.

Chinese animal gear led Europe by 2000 years. China’s horses could pull three times the weight that European horses could, thanks to more advanced harnesses. China rested the weight along the horse’s shoulders and chest, whereas Europe rested it around the horse’s neck, which is very costly and dangerous.

China’s livestock led the West by 2000 years. Oxen plowed fields far better than horses, for far lower costs too.

Due to their lack of agricultural technology, the entirety of Europe’s history was severely impacted.

Europe was practically a barbarian state before the industrial revolution. First, because agricultural yields were too low, each European country was very limited in its power as a nation. Before the industrial revolution, not a single country in Europe was able to unite the continent. This caused Europe to exist in a split state long-term, causing ethnic problems over distances. And these ethnic problems could cause later cultural clashes. That’s why after the industrial revolution, first Napoleon, then Hitler tried to unite Europe, and both of them failed because of complicated messes of ethnic groups and their varied cultures.

Before China was able to grasp liquid ironworking, the nation states in the Spring and Autumn period could only fight back and forth among them and never unite the continent either. The fundamental reason is just because low production capability meant no nation could sustainable go to war for long periods of time. But once liquid ironworking was invented, in the Warring States period, nations would actually be wiped out in wars, until Qin Shihuang united China.

If we hadn’t harnessed liquid ironworking so early and leapt ahead in our agricultural yields, and the Spring and Autumn status quo continued on, China would end up with ethnic and cultural differences born out of different regions. And China would become another continent split between two dozen nations just like Europe.

In the Spring and Autumn period, every nation had their own language and currency. If this period had went on for too long, then every nation would form a unique individual people, and Qi, Chu, Yan, Zhao, and Qin wouldn’t just be geographical names, but ethnic names too.

Because of bad agricultural yields, there was a hard limit on how much population Europe could support with seed to grain ratios of 1:2. They couldn’t afford to keep large amounts of population away from food production and dedicated to study and scientific invention.

In the 11th century, the entirety of Europe had a mere 15 million population. At the same time, China had reached 120 million people in the Northern Song Dynasty. European population didn’t explode until after the 13th century (ahh, that century again). Their population wouldn’t reach 45 million until the 14th century.

Similarly, because of low productivity, Europe couldn’t afford large infrastructure projects either. Ancient China had the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, they had thousands of kilometres of levies along the Yellow and Yangtze River. These grand agricultural projects were miracles that Europe could only dream about.

Because of low agricultural yields, Europe suffered famines almost all the time. Based on English history, before the 18th century, England suffered famine about once every 10 to 20 years. Countless numbers of people died of starvation. This frequency is far higher than Dynastic China, which suffered a major famine once every 200 years roughly, and usually as a result of a Dynastic change.

Because of the lack of food, Medieval Europe was a world of savages. Kings and nobles often held feasts of human flesh, eating POWs and slaves. They were as savage as Shang Dynasty in China.

Because of low agricultural yields, European cities were basically large shitheaps.

Not only was the streets of medieval European cities covered in shit with no one to clean it up, but residents there would dump excrement out of their windows.

It wouldn’t be until 17th century Paris that there would be explicit laws banning the dumping of excrement during the day. People had to wait until night time. And they had to call out a warning before they dumped, in case needless conflict was roused.

A modern person wouldn’t be able to imagine just how shitty European society was back in the day. A real story from history is that in 1776, America began its war for Independence, and Benjamin Franklin sailed across the Atlantic to ask for help from France. The moment he stepped into Paris, he was knocked unconscious by the stench. And by then, Paris had already gotten much better from its state from medieval times.

Why was Europe such a shitheap, but you didn’t see that phenomenon in Chinese cities?

Because not only did Dynastic Chinese cities have a fully developed sewage system, we had organised people collecting excrement from cities, because you can sell it for money once you drove it out to the countryside!

Chinese people had known for a long time the importance of fertiliser. If livestock didn’t produce enough faeces, they’d use human faeces to substitute. Even the Shang Dynasty had public bathrooms, and professional excrement transporters. In fact, it was a state monopolised industry—peasants couldn’t take any poop on their own.

By the Tang Dynasty, state-owned poop distribution had started to become inefficient, and it was privatised, and people became millionaires on the back of shit.

Even in the 20th century in rural China, a lot of rural families have the habit that if they pooped outside, they needed to find a leaf to wrap it up and take it home. (My grandpa had this habit.)

Europe never grasp the concept that human shit can be turned into fertiliser. There were plenty of ancient texts in Europe talking about how livestock faeces could be used to fertilise fields, but not human faeces. My guess is that ancient European villages was too spread out, and thus the amount of poop generated was negligible, and thus nobody ever looked into it.

And once cities were formed, it took too much manpower and effort to transport poop from cities to the countryside, and agricultural production was too low anyways. There wouldn’t be any farmers who were willing to pay for shit. That’s how European cities became a shit heap.

See? It’s all fertiliser, but just because of a difference in production capability, Dynastic China knew it was a treasure, and ancient Europe just thought it was a pile of shit.

What changed Europe’s barbarian state was an invasion from Eastern civilisation—that is, the Mongolian hordes.

In 1219, a 20,000 man army from Mongolia began their western invasion under the leadership of Batu Khan.

The invasion lasted 40 years, and reached all the way to the Danube, creating a 30 million square kilometre vast Empire.

How could a 20,000 army trounce half of Europe?

Modern historians have come up with all kinds of reasons, like advanced tactics, or high mobility, but honestly, that all didn’t matter. The fundamental reason is that European production capability was far too low.

How the hell could a society with a seed to grain ratio of 1:2 possibly stand up against a 13th century Mongol army?

A society with a seed to grain ratio of 1:2 couldn’t possibly actually fund a professional military. So before the 13th century, European wars was just a duel between a small number of nobles. All other soldiers were farmers pulled off of their fields without any training, just to show for numbers.

Similarly, because of low agricultural yields, the King had a hard time saving up enough military logistics. They could only fight short wars against their equals, they couldn’t keep up a wartime economy for long. So in the Mongolian western invasion, you would see it come up again and again that the Mongolian commanders would trick the enemy into extending their lines too far. And the European military would fall for it every time and advance too far, and get wiped out in the Mongolian’s chosen field. It wasn’t that European commanders were stupid—they didn’t have any logistics. If they didn’t take a chance and buy time, they would run out of food and lose the battle anyways.

And most importantly, Europe hadn’t grasped liquid ironworking yet. Steel armour and weapons were luxury goods that only a few nobles were able to own. After the Mongolians took over the Jin, they already had the most advanced metalworking from China. Not only were Mongolian soldiers well armoured and well equipped, but the weapons they were using led Europe by an entire era. It’s like if a 13th century Mongolian army went up against a Shang Dynasty army from 2000 BC. Of course it was a one-sided slaughter.

For example, because of their lack of liquid ironworking, even if Europe didn’t care about cost at all, the only form of armour they were capable of making is awkward and heavy full plate. But a Dynastic China with full grasp if liquid ironworking could mass produce light, efficient lamellar and gauntlets.

In Northern Song’s war against the Jin, the elite soldiers would wear three layers of armour (an innermost leather layer, with lamellar on top, and finally breastplate on top, with steel gauntlets. This kind of soldier was practically a human-shaped tank. Normal weapons couldn’t even make a scratch on them. A Mongolian army with this kind of equipment fighting a European army that couldn’t even issue steel weaponry to every soldier was basically like bullying a little kid.

The Mongolians went west in 1219, and that war lasted until 1260. But in 1234, the Mongolians already wiped out the Jin and reached Southern Song Dynasty.

They had a treasure right in front of their eyes with the Southern Song Dynasty, with countless women and jade and silk. Why would they leave Southern Song alone for decades while they rode thousands of kilometres to fight in Europe?

Because Europe was way too weak. They couldn’t put up a resistance against the Mongols at all. Although the journey was difficult, at least the profit was very stable. But Northern Song wouldn’t be such a soft opponent. They might lose a claw or two on that.

The Mongolian conquest of Europe was earth-shattering on European culture, because not only did the Mongols bring the Four Great Inventions of China to Europe, but they brought China’s liquid iron working to Europe too. That’s how Europe was able to access the technology in the 13th century, and started having real population numbers. That’s how Europe was able to enter the renaissance a couple of decades later.

However, the Mongolians were nomads. They hadn’t learned any agricultural technologies. So although all kinds of advanced Chinese technology was taken to Europe by Mongolians, the core of China’s agricultural technology was never spread to Europe. So European agricultural yields only licked up from 1:2 to about 1:3 or 1:4 right before the industrial revolution.

To be more accurate, Europe was probably only able to have an industrial revolution thanks to being forced there by its low agricultural yields.

Because their agricultural yields were so low, they could never create products like silk or porcelain, and so they were always dependent on the Silk Road. Later on, because of the Ottoman Empire’s rise, Europe was cut off from the Silk Road, and they had to look for a way to connect to the East on the seas at any cost.

Because of such low crop yields, the standard of living was extremely poor in Europe. That’s why a large number of people was willing to take a risk by sailing out to sea. (And of course, the introduction of compasses from China helped with that). And that happened to enable the Age of Sail.

And in the Age of Sail, countless land was discovered, and that opened Europeans’ eyes to the world for the first time, and gave them improvements of their technology. The cotton jenny, for example, was only able to be proliferated because agricultural yields were so low, that it didn’t take much persuasion to convert farms to factories or ranches.

And China never went into the industrial revolution because its agriculture was just too strong. Throw a pound of seeds down, and you’d get 20 times returns within a year. Farming was the highest reward for lowest risk job one could find.

Before the 18th century, China was at the very top of the world for the longest time. They saw every nation other than China as barbarians. And no one would have any motivation to leave China and go sailing around the world.

To put it simply, because of how advanced its agriculture was, China became dependent on the easy way out. And it was a much more desperate Europe who much more willingly abandoned agriculture for something else.