''Fan Shengzhi shu'' ("Fan Shengzhi's book" or "Fan Shengzhi's manual") was a Chinese agricultural text from the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

, written by Fan Shengzhi in the first century BC. The book was lost in the 11th- or 12th-century

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

, possibly during the Jurchen invasion. Several fragments of the text have survived as quotations in other books including ''

Qimin Yaoshu The ''Qimin Yaoshu'' is the most completely preserved of the ancient Chinese agricultural texts, and was written by the Northern Wei Dynasty official Jia Sixie.Wenhua Li, 200Agro-Ecological Farming Systems in ChinaTaylor & Francis, p. 26 -27 Th ...

'', ', ''

Yiwen Leiju The ''Yiwen Leiju'' is a Chinese ''leishu'' encyclopedia completed by Ouyang Xun in 624 under the Tang. Its other contributors included Linghu Defen and Chen Shuda. It is divided into 47 sections and many subsections. It covers a vast number of ...

'', and ''

Taiping Yulan The ''Taiping Yulan'', translated as the ''Imperial Reader'' or ''Readings of the Taiping Era'', is a massive Chinese ''leishu'' encyclopedia compiled by a team of scholars from 977 to 983. It was commissioned by the imperial court of the Song ...

''.

Author

Fan Shengzhi was a

official, possibly from

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

, who served in the

Guanzhong Guanzhong (, formerly romanised as Kwanchung) region, also known as the Guanzhong Basin, Wei River Basin, or uncommonly as the Shaanzhong region, is a historical region of China corresponding to the crescentic graben basin within present-day ce ...

region first as court gentleman for consultation (議郎), then as agricultural development commissioner (勸農使) and commissioner of charioteers (輕車使者). The highest office he attained was that of censor-in-chief (御史).

# "Ploughing" (耕田) # "Harvesting" (收種) # "Irrigation" (溲種法) # "Field usage" (區田法) # "Grain" (禾) # "Millet" (黍) # "Wheat" (麥) # "Rice" (稻) # "Barnyard grass" (稗) # "Large beans" (大豆) # "Small beans" (小豆) # "Nettle-hemp" (枲) # "Hemp" (麻) # "Melons" (瓜) # "Gourds" (瓠) # "Taros" (芋) # "Mulberries" (桑) # "Miscellaneous" (雜項)

References

* *{{cite web, url=http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Science/fanshengzhishu.html, title=Fan Shengzhi shu 氾勝之書 "The Book of Fan Shengzhi", last=Theobald, first=Ulrich, date=2010-07-06, website=

Chinaknowledge Chinaknowledge, with the subtitle "a universal guide for China studies", is an English-language hobbyist's web site that contains a wide variety of information on China and Chinese topics. The site was founded by and is maintained by Ulrich Theo ...

1st-century BC books

Author

Table of contents

References