How does The Book of Songs record the general situation of geography?

The Book of Songs was born in a geographical and ecological environment completely different from the existing one, which directly influenced the lifestyle of our ancestors. It not only recorded people's mental journey and feelings at that time, but also recorded the geographical information at that time in some chapters.

The geographical information recorded in The Book of Songs, including the appearance of geographical environment, rich phenological experience, weather phenomena, the choice of settlements and city sites, the concept of the shape of the earth and the idea of crustal changes, reflected the geographical knowledge level of people at that time.

The Book of Songs recorded the geographical environment at that time. For example, in "Daya Hanyi", there is: "Yiyi Liangshan, Yuwei Hall." "Hole soil, Sichuan ze wu wu. You are fine. You are a deer. There are bears and cockroaches, cats and tigers. " Give it skin, red leopard and yellow scorpion.

The translation of this passage is: the majestic Liangshan is even more majestic, and Dayu once ruled. I am very happy in Korea, and Kawasawa is full of water. The bream and silver carp are fat, and the females gather. There are bears, bobcats and tigers in the mountains. Precious fur made a contribution, and the red leopard oriole was also sent to Beijing.

Some people say that Liangshan in the poem is in Hancheng, Shaanxi, while others say it is Shijingshan in Beijing today.

The poem describes the geographical environment at that time, with wide rivers and numerous lakes, among which many bream and fish are swimming around. Flocks of deer, their cries resounded through Yuan Ye. Bears and brown stalks haunt the forest. Bobcats and tigers hide from time to time on the edge of forests and grasslands. This is a landscape of forests and grasslands, in which lakes and swamps are widely distributed and there are many wild animals.

"Daya Sang Rou" describes the animals and plants near the good scenery, and "looking at the forest to roast its deer". It means, look at the endless jungle, how happy the deer are. At that time, there were really few people and many animals here.

This was recorded in The Book of Songs and also confirmed in Mencius Teng Wengong. It is said that Zhou Wuwang once "drove away tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses and elephants", which shows that there were many wild animals in the Yellow River basin and even in the suburbs of Beijing in the early Zhou Dynasty.

At that time, the vast area of the Yellow River Basin was the time when agriculture was booming and human society was about to intervene and influence the original geographical environment on a large scale. Therefore, the record of The Book of Songs is meaningful to restore the original geographical features of the Yellow River Basin in China before the large-scale intervention of human activities.

Rich phenological experience has been accumulated in ancient times, which is also recorded in the Book of Songs. According to legend, the poem July in Qi Feng was written in 1 100 BC. When Duke Zhou assisted Zhou Chengwang, because he was young and didn't know the difficulties of agricultural production all the year round, he told him the knowledge of agricultural phenology in detail.

July in Qi Feng is a typical chapter in The Book of Songs that reflects the phenological experience, involving every month of the year.

In the first month, the plow was repaired; Farming in February, ancestor worship first; Prune mulberry branches in March; April polygala seed; Smell the grasshopper jump in May; June weavers flap their wings and eat plums and grapes; In July, shrike crows, and crickets in the field can eat melons, boil sunflowers and boil beans; Cut reeds, weave hemp, beat red dates and pick gourds in August; In September, pockmarked seeds were picked, the threshing floor was built, and first frost began. Women sew cold clothes, crickets enter the door and then get under the bed. In October, the leaves on the trees fell, the rice in the field was harvested, the threshing floor was cleaned, and the crops were collected in the warehouse; 1 1 month hunting in the mountains; Hunters get together in1February and continue to practice their hunting skills.

The seasons in the poem have both a weekly calendar and a summer calendar. The content of the poem reflects a thorough understanding of the germination, flowering, heading and tillering stages of insects, fish, birds, animals and many plants at that time, and the activities of agricultural production were decided accordingly, so that the farming season would not be delayed and the season would be followed.

In the astronomical records of the Book of Songs, the most outstanding scientific contribution is Xiaoya's "Gradually Stone", in which there is a poem: "The moon leaves the end and makes it torrential." No sooner had the moon moved than it began to rain cats and dogs.

This wonderful astronomical and meteorological phenomenon was recognized by our ancestors more than 3000 years ago and recorded in poetry. The moon phase has always been closely related to precipitation.

The change of the moon phase is caused by the change of the position of the sun, the earth and the moon. Whenever the moon is far away from Bixing, it will cause strong winds or hurricanes and bring heavy rain.

This astronomical and meteorological phenomenon has also been recorded in ancient books such as Shang Shu Hong Fan and Sun Tzu's Art of War.

In addition, "Xiaoya at the Turn of October" records: "At the turn of October, the bright moon is in the sky. It is ugly to have food every day. The moon is very small, and this day is also very small; Today, the people are also mourning. "

It means that from the end of September to the beginning of October, the first day of October is a new day. The sudden solar eclipse in the sky is really a scandal. The moon is dark and colorless, and the sun is bleak and streamer. Nowadays, all the people in the world are very sad.

The solar eclipse recorded in the poem took place on September 6, 776 BC. This is the earliest solar eclipse record in the world.

It can be seen from the singing of The Book of Songs that people at that time had a clear understanding of various weather phenomena.

"North Wind": "The north wind is cool and the rain and snow are wet." "The north wind roared and the rain and snow fell." It means that the north wind is cold and the rain and snow are all over the sky; The north wind is fierce and the rain and snow are flying all over the sky.

Xiao Ya Xin Nan Shan: "The sky is the same as the clouds, and the rain and snow are lingering." It means that the sky is covered with thick clouds, and rain and snow will follow.

Xiaoya April: "Summer in April, summer in June." "Autumn is sad, flowers have flies." "In the severe winter, the wind is blowing hard." April is the beginning of a long summer, and June is a hot summer. The autumn wind is bleak When it comes, flowers and trees wither and leaves fall. It is very cold in winter, and the wind is biting.

"Wind, Wandering": "Face west and worship the rain." It means that rainbows hang in the early morning in the west, and it rains most of the time from morning to noon.

"Xiaoya Gu Feng": "Learn from Gu Feng, the mountains are verdant, no grass will die, no wood will die." It means that the scorching wind blowing from the valley is hot and dry, and there is no grass, no wood and no withering everywhere.

In these poems, many concepts of weather phenomena are correctly used, and the interrelated causes and processes of some weather phenomena are also expressed.

There are also records of settlements, urban site selection and residential area planning in The Book of Songs.

Daya Gong Liu praised the achievements of Gong Liu, the ancestor of Zhou Wenwang XII. He led the Zhou family to move to land, so he went to see the terrain and chose the settlement address.

Gong Liu climbed to the top of the mountain, then came down and stood on the flat ground. He chose a place with rich water resources, open terrain, hundreds of springs gushing out and rivers passing by, with his back to the mountains. So he let his family settle down here on Monday.

Gong Liu led the people to reclaim and level the land on the south slope of the mountain, and lead springs for irrigation. Build cities and houses on a higher platform, and there is a large flat land near this platform for farming.

This poem reflects that our ancestors have been able to determine the direction. The Book of Songs says, "Wei Nan has a dustpan and Wei Bei has a fight." Nanji and Beidou use the position of the constant star to determine the direction. Use this to determine the direction and the four seasons of the year. At the same time, it also reflects the geographical environment in which Gongliu was able to choose agricultural development and urban architecture.

The concept of the shape of the earth and the idea of crustal changes in the Book of Songs reflect the ancient people's thinking and understanding of geographical phenomena.

"Xiaoya at the Turn of October" recorded the great earthquake that happened in 780 BC: "The leaves shook with electricity, but they were restless. Hundreds of rivers boil, and landslides crack. The high shore is a valley, and the deep valley is a mausoleum. " It means thunder and lightning, and the sky is restless Rivers boil and peaks collapse. The high shore becomes a deep valley, but the deep valley becomes a peak.

This phenomenon is consistent with the record of Zuo Qiuming, a historian of Lu State at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period that "Wang You was two years old, and all the three rivers were shocked in the Western Zhou Dynasty" ... but the three rivers dried up and Qishan collapsed.

"The First Month of Xiaoya" records: "It is said that the sky is very high, and you dare not lose it. They all say that the ground is thick and they dare not lose it. " It means people say how high the sky is, but I'm afraid of hitting my back. People say how thick the earth is, and I'm afraid I'll trip. It reflects the idea of being endowed with rich resources at that time, and also reflects the concept of the shape of the earth.

In The Book of Songs, different types of landforms formed the concept names. Such as mountains, hills, tombs, plains, mountains, Zhou and Zhu. For those covered by plants, it is called "qi"; Those without vegetation are called "caves".

Adjectives are added to type names according to different surface morphology. For example, "Dunqiu" is a single hill; A Qiu is a high mountain, and so on. This shows that people have formed a rough classification concept of surface morphology at that time.

In addition, lakes and swamps have different classifications, such as swamp, swamp, cold spring, fat spring and threshold spring.

The Book of Songs also records the relationship between topography and plants. For example, it is recorded that one plant in a plant community must be accompanied by another plant.

The names of trees and shrubs were created in the Book of Songs. For example, "Nan Zhou Ge Tan" said that "yellow birds fly in the bushes"; "Nan Zhou Hanguang" said that "there are trees in the south, so we can't help thinking"; "Logging in Xiaoya" says "logging Ding Ding, birds singing babies, moving trees from the valley" and so on. In addition, the parasitic phenomenon of plants was recorded for the first time.

The Book of Songs left a large number of place names, which can be roughly divided into four categories: mountain names, water names, city names and country names.

Taking the names of mountains as an example, the names of mountains in The Book of Songs are different from the names of countries and cities and are relatively stable. There is the "Nanshan" that can be tested today, which is now Cao Nanshan in the southeast of Cao County, Shandong Province; "Zhongnan" is now the Zhongnan Mountain in the southwest of Shaanxi Province; "Ao", that is, Aoshan, Xingyang, Henan; "Qi", in Qishan County, Shaanxi Province; "Drought" is a mountain name in Nanzheng, Shaanxi Province.

It is meaningful to study the development of mountainous areas in China.

In a word, The Book of Songs, as the earliest collection of poems in the history of China literature, contains rich geographical information and is an indispensable historical material for understanding the ancient geography of China.