Song Yingxing's Exploitation of the Works of Nature records farming, textiles, metallurgy, salt making, and other productive activities. Its text and illustrations explain materials and processes.
The title draws on language from ancient classics, while the contents focus on specific working techniques. It is an important source for studying Ming craftsmanship and material production.
Historical context
The Tiangong Kaiwu, or The Exploitation of the Works of Nature was a Chinese encyclopedia compiled by Song Yingxing. It was published in May 1637 with funding provided by Song's patron Tu Shaokui. The Tiangong Kaiwu is an encyclopedia covering a wide range of technical issues, including the use of various gunpowder weapons. Copies of the book were very scarce in China during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) (due to the government's establishment of monopolies over certain industries described in the book), but original copies of the book were preserved in Japan.
It featured detailed illustrations that were valuable for historians in understanding many early Chinese production processes. For example, illustrations for brick-making; one shows a kilnmaster checking the temperature of a furnace while an assistant stands by and douses the kiln to induce superficial glazing; another illustration shows a brick-maker filling a wooden mold with clay while he dresses the brick's surface with a finishing wire strung on a bow.
As historian Joseph Needham has observed, the vast amount of accurately drawn illustrations in this encyclopedia dwarfed the amount provided in previous Chinese encyclopedias, making it a valuable written work in the history of Chinese literature. At the same time, the Tiangong Kaiwu broke from Chinese tradition by rarely referencing previous written work. It is instead written in a style strongly suggestive of first-hand experience. In the preface to the work, Song attributed this deviation from tradition to his poverty and low standing.
Agriculture
Master Song observes that, while the existence of the Divine Agriculturalist of antiquity is an uncertain matter, the truth denoted by the two words of his name has existed down to the present day. Man cannot live long without the sustenance of the five grains; yet the five grains cannot grow of themselves; they must depend on man to cultivate them. The nature of the soil changes with time, and the species and properties differ according to the geographic environment. But why was it that the classification and explanation of the numerous varieties of grain had to await the coming of Houzhi, even though a thousand years had elapsed between the time of the Divine Agriculturalist and the Emperor Taotang, during which interval grain was used as food and the benefits of cultivation had been taught throughout the country?
It was because the rich men regarded the straw hat and cape as convicts garb, and in aristocratic households the word "peasant" had come to be used as a curse. Many a man would know the taste of his breakfast and supper, but was ignorant of their sources. That the First Agriculturalist should have been called "Divine" is certainly not the mere outcome of human contrivances.
Song wrote about the general terms used in agriculture, saying that the "hundred grains" referred to crops in general, while the "five grains" were specifically sesamum, legumes, wheat, panicled millet, and glutinous millet (rice was not included in this, says Song, because the ancients were only used to the environment of northern China, which was devoid of rice at the time). He wrote about the meticulous and proper cultivation of each crop, as well as how to avoid agricultural disasters in the process.