The Use and Understanding of Domestic Animals in Early Medieval Northern China

Given the predominance of grain agriculture, scholars have paid scant attention to stockbreeding in pre-modern China. Early Medieval China (220–589) furnishes two useful sources that shed light on this subject: one is the painted bricks excavated from 3rd- to 5th-c. tombs in the Hexi Corridor, which depict many domestic animals; the other is the sixth fascicle of Jia Sixie’s Qimin yaoshu, which is devoted to advice on stockbreeding. The Hexi pictorial bricks indicate that stockbreeding was an important component of the economy of northwest China. The animals raised there included horses, donkeys, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, and camels. The most important animals were horses, cattle, and sheep. The Qimin yaoshu chapter’s sections on raising sheep, chickens, pigs, ducks, and geese are filled with practical advice on how to shelter, feed, and protect them. In contrast, the longest section, which is on horses, primarily focuses on their physiognomy and treatments for illnesses, and has little practical information about how to breed them. This is because Chinese magnates probably bought rather than raised their horses. The next longest section is on sheep and goats. Unlike horses, goats and sheep generated income.