In response to the low qualified rate of root-cutting in Chinese cabbage operations in Hebei Province, which was caused by complex terrain and mismatched cutting parameters, a cabbage rootcutting device mounted on a crawler gantry chassis was designed. By adjusting the extension of the electric push rod in the cutting mechanism and the rotational speed of the cutting motor, the device realized adjustable cutting height, angle, and speed, thereby improving cutting efficiency. The system mainly consisted of a profiling mechanism, a cutting mechanism, a crawler walking mechanism, and a control system. To optimize operational performance, static and dynamic analyses of the cutting mechanism were conducted, and the adjustable range of cutting height was determined as 90 mm, the angle range as 0°~42°, and the rotational speed range as 0~600r/min. Furthermore, a finite element simulation model of the cabbage stem cutting process was established by using ANSYS/LS-DYNA. Taking the stem reaction force as the evaluation index, cutter angle, cutter speed, and forward speed were selected as influencing factors for simulation-based optimization tests. The simulation results showed that when the cutter angle was 10.487°, the cutter speed was 271.603r/min, and the forward speed was 0.204m/s, the minimum stem reaction force was 152.068 N. After rounding the optimized simulation parameters to align with practical conditions, field validation tests were carried out. The results showed that when the cutter angle was 10°, the cutter speed was 275r/min, and the forward speed was 0.2m/s, the average qualified root-cutting rate reached 93.23% , with an average damage rate of 4.05% . Under these conditions, the key components operated stably, root-cutting consistency was high, and the damage rate remained low. These findings provided a valuable reference for the design of low-damage harvesting equipment for Chinese cabbage and for the configuration of its operating parameters.