Among the philosophical schools of ancient China, the Nung-chia ‘School of the Tillers’ is the one of which we know least. The surviving information has been assembled by Feng Yu-lan , who identifies it as the one school which reflects the aspirations of the peasants. He finds only one recognizable spokesman, Hsü Hsing, the teacher of ‘the words of Shen-nung’ who came with his followers to settle in the small state of T‘eng , probably about 315 B.C. A disciple named Ch‘en Hsiang visited Mencius, and we have a report of the conversation from the Confucian point of view. Ch‘en Hsiang says of the Duke of T‘eng:
‘A worthy ruler feeds himself by ploughing side by side with the people, and rules while cooking his own meals. Now T‘eng on the contrary possesses granaries and treasuries, so the ruler is supporting himself by oppressing the people’.