Meal rice and soup fish: the southern China factors in the Qi Min Yao Shu

Abstract: Based on the content of "Qi Min Yao Shu" from chapter one to nine, starting from products and technology, this article tries to reveal the southern China agricultural factors it contained, to explore ways that those factors enter into the north, in order to show the cultural exchanges and agricultural technology dissemination between Southern and Northern China that has been ignored by previous studies. Although the first nine chapter of "QiMinYaoShu" is considered to be the north book reflects agriculture of the Yellow River, the so-called "zhongguo中国" under the rule of the North Wei. But it contains many atypical factors, such as rice, fish, bamboo, orange, water shield, lotus, gravy, water chestnut, wild rice, cabbage, ginger, Yuan（杬）,Yue（越） melon, buffalo and soon. Through the ancient natural environment in north China provides some possible existence for these factors, the place name, rice techniques and fish distributions how the involvement of some factors come from the south. So the possible routes, the exchanges both personals and text,that the South factors be carried into the north, are discussed in this article.