What does the word "hoeing" in "hoeing day at noon" mean? Professor Mengman almost overturned because of this

In our primary school Chinese textbook, there is a Tang poem called "Compassion for the Farmers". There is a sentence in the poem "It is noon on the day of hoeing". Many people think this "hoeing" is very strange.

Why do farmers need to "hoe"? Does "hoeing" mean harvesting crops or pulling out weeds? Textbooks and many dictionaries do not explain this clearly.

In the second scene of the fifth season of "Chinese Poetry Conference", this poem was also mentioned in a link. The special guest of the program, Professor Mengman, also gave an explanation of "hoeing", but unexpectedly it caused a storm.

Netizens came forward one after another and accused Mengman of misleading viewers who did not understand farming. "Hoeing" cannot be interpreted as the process of "seeding". It should obviously be interpreted as removing the weeds next to the seedlings.

We all understand the truth, but is there any basis for Mengman’s statement? In fact there is. Regarding the correct explanation of this "hoeing", scholars have actually studied it many years ago.

Jia Sixie’s "Essentials for Qi Min" once mentioned in the part of planting grains that "hoeing should not be tired of counting, start over and over again, and do not stop because there is no grass." The Tang Dynasty's "Essentials of the Four Seasons" said " "Tianhe: If the grass grows half an inch, hoe it once."

This means that when planting crops, you need to weed, do not be afraid of hoeing too many times, go around and over again, and diligently remove the weeds next to "He". This work should not be stopped even when there are no weeds. The soil should be turned over frequently to loosen it. This work will begin when the "grass" reaches half an inch.

From this point of view, the true meaning of "hoeing" certainly does not refer to "sowing", but refers to a series of activities that are helpful for planting, including "hoeing" and "turning the soil". Farming activities.

1. "Hoe" means "millet"

Li Shen's "Two Poems of Compassion for the Farmers" is actually a whole. When we studied it in the past, we only learned " One", I don't know "one".

Li Shen said in the first sentence of "One": Plant one grain of millet in spring and harvest ten thousand grains in autumn. This actually makes it clear that the crops farmers grow are not rice from the south, but corn.

Millet has always been the staple food in the north before the Song Dynasty. The millet is now called millet after the shells are removed. At least before the Tang Dynasty, "hoeing" was already an agricultural term exclusively used in the north. It was not coined by Li Shen on his own whim or to "make up for the rhyme of poetry".

So "禾" means "millet", and "millet" is grown on dry land. Therefore, when weeds appear on its edge, they must be removed promptly in order to prevent the weeds from competing with it for nutrients. When there are no weeds, the soil should be loosened frequently to allow air and rainwater to penetrate and allow its roots to grow well.

Jia Sixie believes that "hoeing" should be done more often, weeding must be done frequently, and the soil must be turned over frequently. Planting millet for one season requires "hoeing" at least ten times to get a 70% to 80% harvest. This explains why farmers go "hoeing" under the scorching sun at noon in summer.

The weather is dry in summer, not to mention that in the north, there is less rain. In order for the seedlings to grow well, farmers only need to loosen the soil from time to time and water them appropriately to ensure their healthy growth.

In addition, some people think that the meaning of "hoeing" should include "removing seedlings". When crops are sown, they are arranged in an orderly manner, but when sowing manually, there will inevitably be times when there are too many crops. Many seedlings are crowded together in one place, which is not conducive to growth, so sometimes some excess seedlings are hoeed off.

Therefore, "hoeing" can be defined as: in order to ensure the healthy growth of "grass seedlings", the tasks include "hoeing weeds", "loosening the land", "removing seedlings" and "watering". A series of auxiliary actions including "fertilizing".

2. "Netizens" quoted out of context

I opened the video of the second session of the fifth season of "Chinese Poetry Conference" and watched it many times, but I didn't hear what Mengman said The word "seeding", she always said: "the process of farmers planting crops."

Obviously, whether "hoeing" means "weeding", pruning excess seedlings, or even fertilizing, they all fall into the category of "planting process". Therefore, saying that Mengman has misled the audience who do not understand farming is "missing the target."

In my memory, she once published a book interpreting Tang poetry, and compared Du Fu's joyful mood in "Spring Night with Happy Rain" to hot pot. When interpreting "Wo Yi Lane", he used "class thinking", so he was "bombarded" on the Internet one after another.

However, there is a saying called "Poetry has no meaning". Poetry is something that inspires people to associate and move people through language and words, so everyone can see something different in poetry.

Therefore, just because Mengman’s explanation is different from what you have studied or what you have understood yourself, you cannot criticize her as talking nonsense.

Moreover, in her interpretation of the poem "Compassion for the Farmers", Mengman did not "mislead" anyone, because she never said that "hoeing" is "sowing".

Let’s go back to the agricultural terms involved in "Compassion for the Farmers". In China today, the pace of urbanization has been accelerating. Two years ago, two netizens had a quarrel on a well-known forum. One netizen said that "China has 800 million farmers" and was immediately ridiculed by the other party.

Onlookers also jumped out and said: Are you sure there are still 800 million farmers in China today? The farmers around me have all entered the city.

As of 2018, the number of registered farmers in China has dropped to 560 million. Among the population of 13.4 billion, most people live in cities. Many younger children may have never seen a real farmland, and they are even less familiar with the processes related to agricultural planting, so it is normal for them not to have heard agricultural terminology.

In the Tang Dynasty, Li Shen's "Two Poems of Compassion for the Farmers" was once a poem with popular language and reflecting the reality of agricultural society. However, our society today is no longer the traditional agricultural society of the past. Although people today are still very shocked by the idea of ??"compassion for farmers" in the poem, it is difficult not to understand the details without creating a barrier.

Conclusion

Due to the advancement of science and technology and the acceleration of the pace of modern urbanization. Today's Chinese people are slowly becoming the kind of "new human beings" mentioned in "The Analects of Confucius" who "have no limbs and no grains." However, this is not entirely due to our laziness.

The biggest problem with the controversy over "hoeing" lies in the writers of textbooks and dictionaries, who did not "explain" it clearly. Experts and scholars who specialize in poetry research did not initially understand "hoeing" as an agricultural term.

There are still some experts who don’t understand, let alone ordinary people? Although Mengman did not use the word "misunderstanding" on TV, she is not an "expert" in the field of poetry. She is just a professor majoring in history.