Sheshan people who migrated from northern Fujian to southern Zhejiang were the earliest settlers of Yunhe terraced fields. In the mountainous area with nine mountains, half water and half fields, fields are the most precious. Clever and industrious peasant ancestors, with hoes, sickles and sweat, cut down shrubs and thorns on the mountain, dug up rocks, picked up all kinds of pebbles, and cultivated a small piece of land day after day on the undulating hillside.
Terraces, wide or narrow, stretch irregularly up and down according to the mountain. The smallest terrace is called "Palm Field". Even if you plant a bag of rice seedlings in spring and harvest a handful of rice in autumn, you will not give up easily. After thousands of years of practice, our ancestors have accumulated rich experience in terrace cultivation. No matter what kind of barren and steep mountains, there are artificial terraces wherever people go.
Terraced fields use paddy fields, trees and bamboo forests to regulate climate, maintain the temperature and humidity of the four seasons, and establish a self-circulating ecological environment, which has the functions of solidifying mountain vegetation and preventing soil erosion.
In mountainous areas suitable for cultivating terraced fields, there must be water sources on the mountains: spring streams, forest water storage, fog and rain ... farmers build dikes according to different topography and soil quality, and introduce water into terraced fields through ditches. Since ancient times, many people who cultivate terraces have a folk agreement of "carving wood to fix water", and according to the area of each field, they negotiate to allocate the water needed by each family. In the modern society of 265,438+0 century, the water use of terraced fields has a more reasonable and scientific distribution mechanism.
There are many silver mine sites in the Ming Dynasty in Yunhe Terrace. According to historical records, "the mineral deposits in Lishui County (mainly Yunhe and Xuanping) in Ming Dynasty are vein-shaped, and the gangue is dark gray or broken into horny particles. The number of veins is about 20, and the occurrence is very irregular, with an average length of 1000 m and an average width of 7 square inches. The pit depth varies from 1 m to tens of meters. The mineral is argentite, with fine crystals and coexisting with pyrite.
Yunhe used to mine a large number of silver mines for more than 100 years before and after Jingtai in Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, court officials were sent twice as imperial envoys to supervise the silver tax, and the silver official bureau was set up to take charge of the silver mine affairs. The rise of local silver mining industry brought about the prosperity and development of population and society, which reached its climax in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, making the scale of terraced fields constantly huge. According to Volume 16 of Yunhe County Records, a three-year edition of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, "The land in front of the cloud is vast and sparsely populated, and the sky is barren, and the grain is cheap and hurts farmers, and the grain is caught more ...". Now that the pit is prosperous, people are also growing. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate the public and cultivate the land.
It can be seen that the history of Yunhe terraces is closely related to the development history of local mining industry in Ming Dynasty.