<論説>飢えへの備え --中国農書の記す救済と食-- (特集 : 食)

Abstract

本稿では飢饉から人々を救う食の問題について、主に農書の記載に焦点をあてて検討を行う。古代中国では、飢えた民が山野に入り野生植物を食糧として利用することが度々行われた。このような緊急時の野生植物利用の背景には、民が経験的に積み重ねてきた知識や技術が存在した。一方、『斉民要術』などの農書には食糧を絶やさないための生産・保存・消費の工夫が盛り込まれており、農業生産の中に飢饉への備えを組み込んだ構造が存在していたことを読み取ることができる。元・王禎『穀譜』では、従来の農書の記載を踏襲しながらも飢饉への備えと済饑が強調されており、宋代に出現した救荒書の要素をとりこんだ新たな農書の形式を見出すことができる。王禎『穀譜』のスタイルは徐光啓『農政全書』「備荒」にも継承された。『穀譜』や『農政全書』には、民間の知識を利用して飢えを乗り切るための方法が多く収録された。農書のもつ多面性に注目すべきであろう。

Famines have occurred many times throughout Chinese history, and each resulted in many refugees and deaths. Saving people from hunger and maintaining social stability was one of the main concerns of rulers, and many records concerning this problem have been preserved in documents such as official histories. However, in focusing on the issue of food to save the hungry, it is necessary to distance ourselves from the ideals and policies of the state and try as best we can to put ourselves in the shoes of the hungry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of the food needed to save people from famine by focusing mainly on the descriptions in books on agriculture and on famine relief. In ancient China when a famine occurred due a natural disaster, there would often be descriptions of hungry people going into the hills and dales in search of wild plants, such as water chestnuts, aquatic-foxnuts, taro, rhizomes of water-shield, to satisfy their hunger. This phenomenon was common in southern China, which was blessed with abundant natural resources. Since the people had inherited the knowledge and skills to use these wild plants for food in normal times, they were able to utilize them during famines as well. This kind of popular knowledge of the use of wild plants was handed down among the people throughout the country and was incorporated into the bigu 辟穀 method fasting by avoiding grains. The knowledge was also retained because it was documented in books on famine relief from the Song dynasty onwards. During the Ming dynasty, the Jiuhuang bencao 救荒本草 of prince Zhu Su 朱橚, which contained information on how to identify and eat wild plants in emergencies, was published. Although books on famine relief mainly contained responses to a food emergency after a famine, it is also important to consider responses before famine strikes and how the issue of obtaining food in a famine was included in agricultural books. The Qiming yaoshu 斉民要術 contains information not only about the production of crops but also about their preservation and consumption. However, the Qiming yaoshu does not link this knowledge with famine, and there is no emphasis on the importance of famine preparation or use of words for relief. We can clearly see from this that there was a structure in agricultural production that encompassed famine preparation. However, in the Yuan dynasty, the characteristics of the agricultural books changed. The Gupu 穀譜, one part of three books on agriculture written by Wang Zhen 王禎, emphasizes the importance of saving food to prepare for natural disaster and methods of saving people from famine. The Gupu contains a section titled Beihuanglun 備荒論, which also introduced the method of bigu. The new type of agricultural book dealing with relief such as the Gupu emerged because of the influence of books on famine relief published from the Song dynasty onward. The format of Wang Zhen's Gupu was also inherited by the Nongzheng quanshu 農政全書 of Xu Guangqi 徐光啓. One volume of the Nongzheng quanshu entitled Huangzheng 荒政, included the Jiuhuang bencao with Xu Guangqi's comments written from the perspective of agricultural production. The Nongzheng quanshu also records scenes of people using locusts as food in the markets of Tianjin in the late Ming Dynasty (early 17th century). The works of Wang Zhen and Xu Guangqi introduced many methods to overcome hunger that had originated in folk knowledge. Agricultural books were not limited to agricultural techniques and incorporated many aspects of knowledge from various sources.