Growing rice in North Zhili

Early in the fourteenth century, Wang Zhen proposed in his Nong shu (Treatise on agriculture, 1313) that Chinese agriculture divided at the Huai River: the land to the north of the Huai was suited to millet, the land to the south to rice. ¹ This was a reasonable characterization, and one that has continued to be accepted down to the present. During the Ming dynasty, however, attempts to spread rice cultivation into north China challenged the absolute validity of this tenet. At the close of the Ming, the prominent official Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) in his Nongzheng quanshu (Complete handbook of agricultural management) criticized Wang Zhen for his view and insisted that rice could be grown in north China as well. "There could not be more than one or two places in a hundred where the topographical character is unsuitable," he insisted. ²