A Study on the Ancient Lu State and the Origin of Chinese Agrarian Civilization: A Textual Research Centered on the Pre-Qin Fang State of Lushui, Chaling, Hunan

Abstract

China’s agrarian civilization features an integrated pluralistic framework formed by two parallel farming traditions: dryland cultivation along the Yellow River and rice farming along the Yangtze River. The ancient Lu State of Lushui in Chaling, Hunan, served as a core region where the clans of Emperor Yan Shennong established a mature farming system and accomplished cultural innovation after migrating southward. Historical records including Hunan Provincial Records, Records of Unusual Events, and Yuanhe Genealogy of Surnames explicitly document that the Yellow Emperor enfeoffed Yuwang (Cenlu), the last descendant of Emperor Yan, in the mountainous Lushui area of Chaling to establish the ancient regional state of Lu. Carbonized rice relics unearthed at the Duling’ao Site prove that the artificial domestication of wild rice had been realized here as early as 7,000 years ago. A Brief Study on Chaling, Hometown of Shennong by Ding, F. D., & Zhou, Z. Y., as well as On Emperor Yan Shennong by Duan, L. X., systematically sort out the migration routes of the seventeen generations of Shennong and conduct comprehensive textual research on historical facts regarding Yuwang’s fiefdom. Another work by Duan, L. X., Emperor Yan the Tea Ancestor: A Detailed Account of Tea in Chaling, fully demonstrates the origin of tea ancestor culture that “China’s thousand-year tea culture originated in Chaling”. Drawing on existing research findings by Ding, F. D., Duan, L. X. and other scholars, this paper comprehensively investigates the establishment, geographical environment, agrarian civilization system, historical relics and contemporary cultural value of the ancient Lu State through four categories of evidence: local chronicles, archaeological remains, and living folk heritage. It supplements the origin narrative of rice-farming civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and provides archaeological evidence of an ancient regional state in eastern Hunan for research on the pluralistic integrated origin of Chinese civilization.