Chapter 12 · Agriculture and Human Affairs: The Wheat Approaching Ripeness, the Rush to Harvest, and the Anxiety of Fullness

I. "If Xiaoman Is Not Full, the Wheat Faces a Risk": Anxiety on the Eve of Harvest

Farm work during the Xiaoman season centers on a single character—"wheat" (麦). At this time, the wheat is filling with grain and growing plump (small fullness), about to ripen (wheat's autumn arrives), and all agricultural activity revolves around this wheat, "approaching ripeness but not yet ripe."

The farming proverb "if Xiaoman is not full, the wheat faces a risk" (小满不满，麦有一险) captures fully the distinctive anxiety in the hearts of farmers during this season. "If Xiaoman is not full"—if, by Xiaoman, the wheat kernels have not yet attained their due plumpness (fullness), this portends a poor year and an anxious wheat harvest. And "the wheat faces a risk"—even if the wheat is plump, at this threshold of "approaching ripeness but not yet ripe," danger still lurks everywhere: a hailstorm, a violent gust of wind, a stretch of continuous rain (the wheat harvest's "three fears: wind, rain, and hail") could, in an instant, reduce a harvest so nearly within reach to nothing.

This state of mind—a harvest in sight, yet fraught with anxiety—is precisely the most profound human corroboration of the philosophy of "Xiaoman." It tells us once again: fullness was never a secure, worry-free state. The closer one draws to "fullness" (harvest), the more variables and risks abound. The eve of "fullness" is precisely the moment demanding the greatest vigilance, the moment one can least afford to relax. This finds its plainest, and truest, verification in the fields, corroborating the wisdom of the Dao of Heaven found in "fullness invites loss," "fullness brings overturning," and "the arrogant dragon has cause for regret."

II. The Rush to Harvest: Racing Against Heaven's Timing

Xiaoman is followed by Mangzhong, and "Mangzhong" means that the summer harvest (reaping the wheat) is now in full swing. Therefore, during the Xiaoman season, farmers have already entered a tense state of "rushing to prepare for the harvest."

Why the rush$1 Because the wheat's ripening has an extremely narrow window. "By Xiaoman, the wheat turns golden day and night"—once the wheat turns golden and ripe, it must be harvested within an extremely short span of time. Harvested too early, the kernels are not yet full, reducing the yield; harvested too late, the kernels shed from the ear, or rot after rain, likewise reducing the yield or even causing total crop failure. Farmers must precisely grasp that moment when the wheat is "just ripe, just ready to harvest," racing against Heaven's timing down to the very minute.

This precise grasp of "just the right moment" is precisely the agricultural embodiment of the wisdom of "timely centrality" (时中) that Confucius extolled. Too early (wheat not yet ripe) will not do; too late (wheat already shed) will not do either—one must hit "the mean" (中), acting precisely at that critical threshold. What farmers display at wheat harvest time is precisely a practical wisdom of "grasping the two extremes and applying the mean"—precisely calibrating, between "excess" (harvesting too late) and "deficiency" (harvesting too early), that "just right" moment of harvest.

And Xiaoman is precisely the prelude to this "rush to prepare for the harvest." During the Xiaoman season, farmers tend the ripening wheat with one hand, while, with the other, repairing farm tools (sickles, stone rollers, winnowing shovels), leveling the threshing ground, and arranging labor—all in preparation for the imminent, minute-by-minute race of the summer harvest. This kind of preparation, "mending the roof before the rain," embodies our ancestors' sober-minded attitude toward "fullness" (the harvest)—however good fullness may be, to gather it in securely, one must make thorough preparations already at the moment of "approaching fullness."

III. The Lean Season: Scarcity Before Fullness

The Xiaoman season also holds another agricultural reality, often overlooked yet deeply philosophical—the "lean season" (青黄不接, literally "the green not yet connecting with the yellow").

The so-called "lean season" refers to the period when the new wheat in the fields (green) has not yet ripened for harvest, while the old grain in the granary (yellow) has already been consumed—this is the most difficult, most scarce period of the year for a farming household. And Xiaoman falls precisely at this juncture of the "lean season"—even as the fields, brimming with wheat (green), are about to yield a harvest, the household's hands are already empty of surplus grain (yellow).

What a profound paradox this is! At the very season when all things attain "a small fullness" and a harvest is in sight, the farming household itself finds itself in the most scarce, most famished of circumstances. The "fullness" of "Xiaoman" (the fullness of the fields) and the "emptiness" of the farming household (the emptiness of the granary) coexist, sharply juxtaposed, within one and the same season.

It is precisely against this backdrop of the "lean season" that "the bitter herbs flourish," discussed earlier, reveals the compassion of Heaven and Earth—at Xiaoman, when the farming household has no grain left to eat, Heaven and Earth produce, of all things, an abundance of the bitter herb, which can fill an empty stomach. The bitter herb, gathered by our ancestors and used as firewood substitute to feed the farmers, is precisely the "bridging grain" that relieves famine during the lean season.

This reality of the "lean season" once again deepens the mood of "Xiaoman"—"approaching fullness but not yet full." It tells us: the eve of fullness (harvest) is often not ease, but scarcity and hardship; the moment closest to harvest is often also the most difficult moment. Our ancestors had the most visceral understanding of this—they knew that "fullness" had to be purchased with "emptiness" (the hardship of the lean season), and that harvest had to be awaited through hardship. This profound recognition that fullness is hard-won is precisely the root of the Chinese agricultural spirit of "laboring anxiously, ever vigilant, never daring to be complacent."

IV. The Portrait of Summer Farm Work in "Qi Yue" from the "Airs of Bin" in the Book of Songs

To understand the farm work and state of mind of our ancestors around the time of Xiaoman, "Qi Yue" ("The Seventh Month") from the "Airs of Bin" in the Book of Songs is the most precious of texts. This long poem, arranged month by month, lays out the farm work and daily life of all four seasons of the year.

The poem's description of early summer (roughly corresponding to the time around Xiaoman) includes the lines: "In the fourth month the yao plant flowers; in the fifth month the cicada sings" (四月秀葽，五月鸣蜩)—in the fourth month the milkwort flowers (xiu), and in the fifth month the cicadas begin to sing. There are also the lines "In the fifth month the grasshopper stirs its legs; in the sixth month the katydid flutters its wings" (五月斯螽动股，六月莎鸡振羽)—in the fifth month the grasshopper rubs its legs (chirping), and in the sixth month the katydid flutters its wings. These meticulous phenological records embody the very same spirit of "revering Heaven, observing things closely" as the phenological observations of Xiaoman's "the bitter herbs flourish," "the mi grass dies," and "wheat's autumn arrives."

What is most moving throughout the whole of "Qi Yue" is the sentiment of laboring anxiety that runs through it from beginning to end—"without robes, without coarse cloth, how shall we get through the year$2"; "Alas for us farmers—once our harvest is gathered in, we must still go into the city to labor in service." The farmer toils ceaselessly the whole year round, and even after the crops are harvested must still travel into the city for corvée labor, anxious over how to survive the winter without adequate clothing. This "laboring anxiety" is precisely the underlying tone of our ancestors' agricultural life, and the spiritual root of their refusal to be complacent. Amid such an arduous struggle for survival, our ancestors understood well that even the smallest measure of "fullness" was hard-won, and had to be striven for and protected with redoubled diligence and caution—how, then, could they dare covet that illusory "great fullness"$3 The image, in "Qi Yue," of the farmer laboring the whole year through, never daring the slightest relaxation, is the most vivid personification of the spirit of "Xiaoman"—full yet not overflowing, laboring anxiously and ever vigilant.