The '
Song Dynasty' (
Chinese: 宋朝;
960–
1279 AD) provided some of the most prolific
technological advancements in
Chinese history, much of which came from talented statesmen drafted by the government through
imperial examinations.
The ingenuity of advanced
mechanical engineering had a long tradition in China. The Song Dynasty engineer
Su Song admitted that he and his contemporaries were building upon the achievements of the ancients such as
Zhang Heng (張衡;
78–
139), an astronomer, inventor, and early master of mechanical gears.
[1] The application of
movable type printing advanced the already widespread use of
woodblock printing to educate and amuse
Confucian students and the masses. The application of new weapons employing the use of
gunpowder enabled the Song Dynasty to ward off its militant enemies until its collapse to the
Mongol forces of
Kublai Khan, late in the 13th century.
Notable advancements in
civil engineering,
nautics, and
metallurgy were made in Song China, as well as the introduction of the
windmill to China during the 13th century. These advancements, along with the introduction of
paper-printed money, helped revolutionize and sustain the
economy of the Song Dynasty.
Polymaths and mechanical engineering
Polymaths
A scale model of
Su Song's astronomical clocktower of Kaifeng.
personalities such as
Shen Kuo (沈括;
1031–
1095) and
Su Song (苏颂;
1020–
1101) embodied the spirit of early
empirical science and technology in the age of the Song Dynasty. Shen Kuo was most famous for discovering the concept of
true north,
magnetic declination towards the
North Pole, by calculating a more accurate measurement of the
astronomical meridian, and fixed the calculated position of the
pole star that had shifted over the centuries.
[2] This allowed sailors to more accurately
navigate the seas with the
magnetic needle
compass, also first described by Shen Kuo.
Shen was made famous for his written description of
Bi Sheng, the inventor of
movable type printing. Shen Kuo was also interested in
geology, as he formulated a theory of
geomorphology and
climate change over time after making observations of strange natural phenomena.
[3][4] Using contemporary knowledge of
solar eclipses and
lunar eclipses, he theorized that the sun and moon were spherical in shape, not flat.
[5] Along with his colleague
Wei Pu in the Bureau of Astronomy, Shen Kuo used
cosmological hypotheses when describing the variations of
planetary motion, including
retrogradation.
[6][7] One of Shen's greatest achievements, aided by Wei Pu, was correcting the
lunar error by diligently recording and plotting down the moon's
orbital path three times a night over a period of five years.
[8] Unfortunately Shen had many political rivals at court who were determined to
sabotage his work. The court fully accepted their corrections to lunar and solar error, but only partially adopted Shen and Wei's corrected plotting of the
planetary orbital paths and various speeds.
Su Song, one of Shen Kuo's political rivals at court, wrote a famous
pharmaceutical treatise in 1070 known as the ''Ben Cao Tu Jing'', which included related subjects on
botany,
zoology,
metallurgy, and
minerology.
[9][10] This treatise included many medicinal applications, including the use of
ephedrin as a pharmaceutical drug.
[11] He also was the author of a large
celestial atlas of five different
star maps,
[12] and his extensive written and illustrative work in
cartography helped solve a heated border dispute between the Song Dynasty and its
Khitan neighbor of the
Liao Dynasty.
[13] However, Su Song was most famous for his
hydraulic-powered
astronomical clock tower, crowned with a mechanically-driven
armillary sphere, which was erected in the capital city of
Kaifeng in the year 1088.
[14] Su Song's clock tower employed the
escapement mechanism two centuries before it was applied in
clocks of
Europe.
[15][16] Su Song's clock tower also featured the earliest known endless power-transmitting
chain drive in the world, as outlined in his
horological treatise of 1092.
[17] The cases of the latter two men display the eagerness of the Song in drafting highly skilled officials whom were knowledgeable in the various sciences which could ultimately benefit the administration, the military, the economy, and the people.
One of five
star maps published in
Su Song's horological and astronomical book of 1092 AD, featuring Shen Kuo's corrected position of the
pole star.
Intellectual men of letters like the versatile Shen Kuo dabbled in subjects as diverse as
mathematics,
geography,
economics,
engineering,
medicine,
art criticism,
archeology,
military strategy, and
diplomacy, among others.
On a court mission to inspect a frontier region, Shen Kuo once made a
raised-relief map of wood and glue-soaked sawdust to show the mountains, roads, rivers, and passes to other officials.
He once computed the total number of possible situations on a game board, another time the longest possible military campaign given the limits of human carriers who would bring their own food and food for other soldiers.
[18] Shen Kuo is also noted for improving the designs of the inflow
clepsydra clock for a more efficient higher-order
interpolation, the
armillary sphere, the
gnomon, and the astronomical sighting tube; increasing its width for better observation of the pole star and other celestial bodies.
[19] Shen Kuo also experimented with
camera obscura, just several decades after the first to do so,
Ibn al-Haytham (
965–
1039).
[20]
Odometer and South Pointing Chariot
There were many other important figures in the Song era besides Shen Kuo and Su Song, many of whom contributed greatly to the technological innovations of the time period. Although the mechanically-driven mile-marking device of the carriage-drawn
odometer had been known in China since the ancient
Han Dynasty, the ''Song Shi'' (compiled in 1345) provides a much greater description and more in-depth view of the device than earlier Chinese sources. The ''Song Shi'' states:
What follows is a long dissertation made by the Chief Chamberlain Lu Daolong on the ranging measurements and sizes of wheels and gears.
However, the concluding paragraph provides description at the end of how the device ultimately functions:
Furthermore, the odometer device in the Song period (and once during the earlier Tang period) was combined with the
South Pointing Chariot device, which was first invented by the ancient Chinese mechanical engineer
Ma Jun (馬鈞; c.
200–
265). The South Pointing Chariot was a wheeled vehicle that incorporated complex
differential gears, used now in all modern automobiles to apply equal amounts of
torque to wheels rotating at different speeds while turning. The differential gear was incorporated in order to keep a mechanical-operated figure pointing in a fixed position to the south. Hence, the device used advanced mechanics, rather than the
magnetism of a
compass, in order to navigate and find one's directional bearings. Yan Su, the Divisional Director in the Ministry of Works, recreated a South Pointing Chariot device in 1027, and his specifications for creating the device were provided in the ''Song Shi''.
[21] This is of little surprise, as Yan was somewhat of a polymath like Shen Kuo and Su Song, improving the design of the clepsydra clock, writing on mathematical
harmonics, theory about tides, etc.
The ''Song Shi'' text records that it was the engineer Wu Deren who combined the South Pointing Chariot and odometer in the year 1107:
The text then went on to describe in full detail the intricate mechanical design for the two devices combined into one (refer to the article on the
South Pointing Chariot).
Revolving repositories
The
Longxing Monastery, home to the oldest existent Chinese mechanical revolving-repository book case.
Besides clockwork, hydraulic-powered armillary spheres, odometers, and mechanical compass vehicles, there were other impressive devices of mechanical engineering found during the Song Dynasty. Although literary references for mechanical revolving
repositories and book cases of
Buddhist temples trace back to at least 823 during the
Tang Dynasty,
[22] they came to prominence during the Song Dynasty.
Furthermore, the oldest surviving rotating book case dates to the Song period (12th century), found at the
Longxing Monastery of
Zhengding,
Hebei province.
However, there were nine prominently known revolving repositories during the Song period, and one of them was even featured in an illustration of Li Jie's book ''
Yingzao Fashi'' ('Treatise on Architectural Methods') of 1103.
The rotating repository of 1119 in Kaifu Temple near
Changsha had five wheels which all turned together,
and the revolving repository at Nanchan Temple of Suzhou featured a
brake system of some sort (
Sinologist scholars are still uncertain of how this operated, since the earliest known curve brake bands appear in the time of
Leonardo da Vinci in Europe).
[25] A later Muslim traveler Shah Rukh (son of the
Turco-Mongol warlord
Timur) came to
Ming Dynasty China in 1420 during the reign of the
Yongle Emperor, and described a revolving repository in Ganzhou of
Gansu province that he called a 'kiosque':
Textile machinery
In the field of manufacturing
textiles, the Chinese invented the
quilling-wheel by the 12th century,
[26] while the mechanical
belt drive was known since the 11th century.
[27] Qin Guan's book ''Can Shu'' (Book of
Sericulture) of 1090 described a
silk-reeling machine with an oscillating 'proto-flyer', as the apparatus of the main reel of which the silk is bound is wound and powered by
treadle motion.
In this device the ramping arm of the flyer was activated simultaneously by a subsidiary belt drive.
This machine was portrayed in an illustration of the ''Geng Zhi Tu'' book of 1237,
[28] and again a more elaborate illustration was provided in a 17th century book.
Qin Guan's 1090 book stated that:
Although this clearly states the use of the belt drive, an endless rope or cord may have been used in
Du Shi's device of waterwheels that powered
bellows of the
blast furnace in the 1st century (see
Wind Power below).
Movable type printing
Main articles: Movable type
Printing technology in the form of
movable type was invented by
Bi Sheng (毕升;
990–
1051) in the 11th century. The work of Bi Sheng was written of by
Shen Kuo in his ''
Dream Pool Essays'' (夢溪筆談 Mengxi Bitan).
[29] Movable type, alongside
woodblock printing, increased literacy with the mass production of printed materials. This meant that parents could encourage sons to learn to read and write and therefore be able to take the
imperial examination and become part of the growing learned bureaucracy. Movable type printing was further advanced in
Joseon era Korea, where Bi Sheng's baked clay characters were scrapped for metal type characters in 1234.
[30] The movable type of Bi Sheng was later improved upon by
Wang Zhen (王禎; fl.
1290–
1333), who invented wooden movable type c. 1298, and
Hua Sui (华燧;
1439–
1513), who invented
bronze movable type in China in 1490; yet the
Koreans had metal movable type before Hua Sui, and even Wang Zhen had experimented with
tin-metal movable type.
[31] Although movable type and woodblock printing would remain as the dominant types of printing methods for centuries, the European
printing press (employing the
Hellenistic screw-press) was eventually adopted by East Asian countries.
For printing, the mass production of
paper for writing was already well established in China. The
papermaking process had been perfected and standardized by the
Han Dynasty court eunuch
Cai Lun (蔡伦;
50–
121) in 105, and was in widespread use for writing even by the 3rd century.
[32] The Song Dynasty was the world's first government in history to issue paper-printed money — the
banknote (''see
Jiaozi and
Huizi'').
[33] Toilet paper had been in general use in China since the 6th century,
paper bags for preserving the flavor of tea leaves by the 7th century,
and by the Song Dynasty government officials who had done a great service were rewarded by the court with gifts of paper-printed money wrapped in paper
envelopes.
[34] During the Song Dynasty, independent and government sponsored industries were developed to meet the needs of a growing population that had reached over 100 million. For example, for the printing of paper money alone, the Song court established several government-run
mints and
factories in the cities of
Huizhou,
Chengdu,
Hangzhou, and Anqi.
[35] The size of the workforce employed in these paper money factories were quite large, as it was recorded in 1175 that the factory at Hangzhou alone employed more than a thousand workers a day.
Gunpowder warfare
Advances in military technology aided the
Song Dynasty in its defense against hostile neighbors to the north. The
flamethrower found its origins in
Byzantine-era
Greece, employing
Greek fire (a chemically-complex, highly
flammable petrol fluid) in a device with a
siphon hose by the
7th century.
[36] The earliest reference to Greek Fire in China was made in 917, written by the author Wu Renchen in his ''Shi Guo Chun Qiu''.
[37] In 919, the siphon projector-pump was used to spread the 'fierce fire oil' that could not be doused with water, as recorded by Lin Yu in his ''Wu Yue Bei Shi'', hence the first credible Chinese reference to the flamethrower employing the chemical solution of Greek fire (see also
Pen Huo Qi).
[38] Lin Yu mentioned also that the 'fierce fire oil' derived ultimately from one of China's maritime contacts in the 'southern seas',
Arabia (''Da-Shi Guo'').
[39] In a battle in 932, the Battle of Langshan Jiang (Wolf Mountain River), the naval fleet of the Wen-Mu King was defeated by Qian Yuanguan because he had used 'fire oil' ('huo you') to burn his fleet, signifying the first Chinese use of
gunpowder in a battle.
The Chinese applied the use of double-
piston bellows to pump petrol out of a single cylinder (with an upstroke and downstroke), lit at the end by a slow-burning gunpowder match to fire a continuous stream of flame.
This device was featured in description and illustration of the ''
Wujing Zongyao'' military manusrcipt of 1044.
In the suppression of the
Southern Tang state by 976, early Song naval forces confronted them on the Yangtze River in 975. Southern Tang forces attempted to use flamethrowers against the Song navy, but were accidentally consumed by their own fire when violent winds swept in their direction.
[40]
Although the destructive effects of gunpowder were described in the earlier
Tang Dynasty by a
Daoist alchemist, the earliest-known existent written formulas for gunpowder come from the ''Wujing Zongyao'' text of 1044, which described explosive bombs hurled from catapults.
[41] The earliest developments of the
gun barrel and the
projectile-fire
cannon were found in late Song China. The first art depiction of the Chinese '
fire lance' (a combination of a temporary-fire flamethrower and gun) was from a Buddhist mural painting of
Dunhuang, dated circa 950.
[42] These 'fire-lances' were widespread in use by the early 12th century, featuring hollowed bamboo poles as tubes to fire sand particles (to blind and choke), lead pellets, bits of sharp metal and pottery shards, and finally large gunpowder-propelled arrows.
[43] Eventually, perishable bamboo was replaced with hollow tubes of cast-iron, and so too did the terminology of this new weapon change, from 'fire-spear' ('huo qiang') to 'fire-tube' ('huo tong').
[44] This ancestor to the gun was dually complimented by the ancestor to the cannon, what the Chinese referred to since the 13th century as the 'multiple bullets magazine erupter' ('bai zu lian zhu pao'), a tube of bronze or cast-iron that was filled with about 100 lead balls.
[45] However, the oldest existent
archaeological discovery of a metal barrel
handgun is from the Chinese
Heilongjiang excavation, dated to 1288.
[46] The Chinese also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed cannonball shells with gunpowder. Written later by
Jiao Yu (焦玉) in his ''
Huolongjing'' (mid 14th century), this manuscript recorded an earlier Song-era cast-iron cannon known as the 'flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor' (fei yun pi-li pao). The manuscript stated that:
As noted before, the change in terminology for these new weapons during the Song period were gradual. The early Song Dynasty cannons were at first termed the same way as the Chinese
trebuchet catapult. A later
Ming Dynasty scholar known as Mao Yuanyi would explain this use of terminology and true origins of the cannon in his text of the ''Wu Bei Zhi'', written in 1628:
The 14th century ''
Huolongjing'' was also one of the first Chinese texts to carefully describe to the use of explosive
land mines, which had been used by the late Song Chinese against the Mongols in 1277, and employed by the
Yuan Dynasty afterwards.
[47] The innovation of the detonated land mine was accredited to one Luo Qianxia in the campaign of defense against the Mongol invasion by
Kublai Khan,
[47] Later Chinese texts revealed that the Chinese land mine employed either a rip cord or a motion
booby trap of a pin releasing falling weights that rotated a steel
flint wheel, which in turn created
sparks that ignited the train of
fuses for the land mines.
[49] Furthermore, the Song Dynasty employed the use of the earliest known gunpowder-propelled
rockets in warfare during the late 13th century,
[50] its earliest form being the archaic
Fire Arrow. When the Northern Song Dynasty capital of Kaifeng fell to the Jurchens in 1126, it was written by Xia Shaozeng that 20000 fire arrows were handed over to the Jurchens in their conquest.
[51] An even earlier Chinese text of the ''
Wujing Zongyao'' (武经总要, "Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques"), written in 1044 by the Song scholars Zeng Kongliang and Yang Weide, described the use of three spring or triple bow
arcuballista that fired arrow bolts holding gunpowder packets near the head of the arrow.
Going back yet even farther, the ''Wu Li Xiao Shi'' (1630, second edition 1664) of Fang Yizhi stated that fire arrows were presented to
Emperor Taizu of Song (太祖; r.
960–
976) in 960.
[52]
Civil engineering
A canal lock system in modern-day
France.
In ancient China, the
sluice gate, the
canal lock, and
flash lock had been known since at least the 1st century BC (as sources then alluded that they were not new innovations), during the ancient
Han Dynasty (
202 BC–
220).
[53] However, it was during the Song Dynasty that the
pound lock was first invented in 984 by the Assistant Commissioner of Transport for
Huainan, the engineer Qiao Weiyo.
[54] During his day, the Chinese became concerned with a
barge traffic problem at the Shanyang Yundao section of the
Grand Canal, as ships often became wrecked while passing the double slipways and were robbed of the tax grain by local
bandits. The historical text of the ''Song Shi'' (compiled in 1345) stated that in 984:
This practice became widespread, and was even written of by the Chinese polymath scientist
Shen Kuo in his ''
Dream Pool Essays'' (1088).
[55] Shen Kuo wrote that the establishment of pound lock gates at Zhenzhou (presumably Kuozhou along the
Yangtze) during the Tian Sheng reign period (
1023-
1031) freed up the use of five hundred working laborers at the canal each year, amounting to the saving of up to 1,250,000 strings of cash annually.
[56] He wrote that the old method of hauling boats over limited the size of the cargo to 300 ''tan'' of rice per vessel (roughly 21
tons/21337
kg), but after the pound locks were introduced, boats carrying 400 ''tan'' (roughly 28
tons/28449
kg) could then be used.
Shen wrote that by his time (c. 1080) government boats could carry cargo weights of up to 700 ''tan'' (49½
tons/50294
kg), while private boats could hold as much as 800 bags, each weighing 2 ''tan'' (i.e. 113
tons/114813
kg).
Shen Kuo also noted that proper use of sluice gates at
irrigation canals was the best means of achieving success in the
silt fertilization method.
[57] However, agricultural and transportation needs had the potential to conflict with one another. This is best represented in the ''Dongpo Zhilin'' of the governmental official and famous poet
Su Shi (苏轼;
1037–
1101), who wrote about two decades before Shen Kuo in 1060:
Although the
drydock had been known in
Ptolemaic Egypt since the late 3rd century BC (by a
Phoenician; not used again until
Henry VII of England in 1495), the scientist and statesman
Shen Kuo wrote of its use in China to repair boats during the 11th century. In his ''
Dream Pool Essays'' (1088), Shen Kuo wrote:
Nautics
Background
The Chinese of the Song Dynasty were adept
maritime sailors who traveled to ports of call as far away as
Fatimid Egypt. They were well equipped for their journeys abroad, in large seagoing vessels steered by stern-post
rudders and guided by the directional
compass. Even before Shen Kuo and Zhu Yu had described the mariner's magnetic needle compass, the earlier military treatise of the ''
Wujing Zongyao'' in 1044 had also described a thermoremanence compass.
This was a simple iron or steel needle that was heated, cooled, and placed in a bowl of water, producing the effect of weak magnetization, although its use was described only for navigation on land and not at sea.
[58]
Literature
There were plenty of descriptions in Chinese literature of the time on the operations and aspects of seaports, maritime merchant shipping, overseas trade, and the sailing ships themselves. The author
Zhu Yu (朱彧) wrote not only of the magnetic compass for navigation, but also a hundred foot line with a hook that was cast over the deck of the ship, used to collect mud samples at the bottom of the sea in order for the crew to determine their whereabouts by the smell and appearance of the mud.
[59] In addition, Zhu Yu wrote of
watertight bulkhead compartments in the
hulls of ships to prevent sinking if damaged, the
for-and-aft lug, taut mat sails, and the practice of beating-to-windward.
[60] Confirming Zhu Yu's writing on Song Dynasty ships with bulkhead hull compartments, in 1973 a 78 ft long, 29 ft wide Song Dynasty trade ship from c. 1277 AD was dredged from the water near the southern coast of China that contained 12 bulkhead compartment rooms in its hull.
[61] Maritime culture during the Song period was enhanced by these new technologies, along with the allowance of greater river and canal traffic. All around there was a bustling display of government run grain-tax transport ships, tribute vessels and barges, private shipping vessels, a multitude of busy fishers in small fishing boats, along with the rich enjoying the comforts of their luxurious private
yachts.
Besides Zhu Yu there were other prominent Chinese authors of maritime interests as well. In 1178, the
Guangzhou customs officer Zhou Qufei, who wrote about the
Arab slave trade of
Africans as far as
Madagascar,
[62] stated this about Chinese seagoing ships, their sizes, durability at sea, and the lives of those on board:
The later Muslim
Moroccan Berber traveler
Ibn Batutta (
1304–
1377) wrote in greater detail about Chinese sailing vessels than Zhou Qufei. He noted that in and around the seas of China, only the distinct Chinese
junk ships were used to sail the waters.
[63] He noted that the largest type of Chinese ships boasted a total of twelve sailing
masts, while the smaller ones had three.
On Chinese ships and their crews, Ibn Batutta stated:
Ibn Batutta then went on describing the means of their construction, and accurate depictions of separate bulkhead compartments in the hulls of the ships:
Although Ibn Batutta had mentioned the size of the sailing crew, he described the sizes of the vessels further, as well as the lavish merchant cabins on board:
Paddle-wheel ships
Paddle-wheel ship, 1726
During the Song Dynasty there was also great amount of attention given to the building of efficient automotive vessels known as
paddle wheel craft. The latter had been known in China perhaps since the 5th century,
[64] and certainly by the
Tang Dynasty in 784 with the successful paddle wheel warship design of Li Gao.
In 1134 the Deputy Transport Commissioner of
Zhejiang, Wu Ge, had paddle wheel warships constructed with a total of nine wheels and others with thirteen wheels.
[65] However, there were paddle wheel ships in the Song that were so large that 12 wheels were featured on each side of the vessel.
[66] In 1135 the famous geneal
Yue Fei (岳飞;
1103–
1142) ambushed a force of rebels under Yang Yao, entangling their paddle wheel craft by filling a lake with floating weeds and rotting logs, thus allowing them to board their ships and gain a strategic victory.
In 1161,
gunpowder bombs and paddle wheel crafts were used effectively by the Song Chinese in the
Battle of Tangdao and the
Battle of Caishi against the
Jurchen Jin Dynasty, who made an unsuccessful invasion of the Southern Song along the
Yangtze River.
In 1183 the
Nanjing naval commander Chen Tang was given a reward for constructing ninety paddle wheel crafts and other ships for war.
In 1176,
Emperor Xiaozong of Song (孝宗; r.
1162–
1189) issued an imperial order to the Nanjing official Guo Gang (who desired to convert damaged paddle wheel craft into
junk ships and
galleys) not to limit the amount of paddle wheel craft in the navy's dockyards, since he had high esteem for the fast assault craft that won the Chinese victory at Caishi.
[67] However, paddle wheel craft found other uses besides effective assaults in warfare. The Commissioner of Merchant Shipping for
Quanzhou, the Muslim Kuwabara (who served from 1250–1275) noted that paddle wheel ships were also used by the Chinese as
tugboats for
towing.
[68]
Metallurgy
The art of
metallurgy during the Song Dynasty built upon the efforts of earlier Chinese dynasties, while new methods were incorporated. The Chinese of the ancient
Han Dynasty (
202 BC–
220) figured out how to create
steel by smelting together the
carbon intermediary of
wrought iron and
cast iron by the 1st century BC.
[69][70][71] However, there were two new Chinese innovations of the Song Dynasty to create steel during the 11th century. This was the "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel, while the other was a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast.
[72]
The per capita
iron output rose sixfold between 806 and 1078, and by 1078 Song China was producing 127000000
kg (125,000 English
t/114,000
metric tonnes) in weight of iron per year.
[73] The historian Donald B. Wagner points out that this estimate was based upon the total number of government tax
receipts on iron from the various iron-producing prefectures in the empire.
[74] In the smelting process of using huge
bellows driven by
hydraulics (i.e. large
waterwheels), massive amounts of
charcoal were used in the production process, leading to a wide range of
deforestation in northern China.
However, by the end of the 11th century the Chinese discovered that using
bituminous coke could replace the role of charcoal, hence many acres of forested land and prime timber in northern China were spared by the steel and iron industry with this switch of resources to
coal.
This massive increase in output of the iron and steel industry in China was the result of the Song Dynasty's needs for military expansion, private commercial demands for metal products such as
cooking utensils found in the market and a wide variety of
agricultural tools, and by new canals linking major centers of iron and steel production to the capital city's bustling market.
[75] The many uses for manufactured iron products in the Song period included iron for weapons,
[76] implements,
coins,
architectural elements,
musical bells,
artistic statues,
and components for machinery such as the
hydraulic-powered
trip hammer, which had been known since the 1st century BC during the ancient Han Dynasty,
[77] and used extensively during the Song Dynasty.
[78] Due to the enormous amount of production, the economic historian Robert Hartwell noted that Chinese iron and coal production in the following 12th century was equal to if not greater than
England's iron and coal production in the early phase of the
Industrial Revolution during the late 18th century.
[79] However, the Chinese of the Song period did not harness the energy potential of coal in ways that would generate power mechanically, as in the later Industrial Revolution that would originate in the
West.
[80] There were certain administrative prefectures during the Song era where the Chinese
iron industry was mostly concentrated. For example, the poet and statesman
Su Shi wrote a memorial to the throne in the year 1078 that specified 36 ironwork smelters, each employing a work force of several hundred people, in the Liguo Industrial Prefecture (under his governance while he administered
Xuzhou).
[81]
Wind power
Vertical
windmills at La Mancha,
Spain, which differ in design to horizontal Chinese windmills.
The effect of wind power was appreciated in China long before the introduction of the
windmill during the Song period. It is uncertain when the ancient Chinese used their very first inflatable
bellows as wind-blowing machines for
kilns and
furnaces. They existed perhaps as far back as the
Shang Dynasty (
1600 BC–
1050 BC), due to the intricate
bronze casting technology of the period. They were certainly used since the advent of the
blast furnace in China from the 6th century BC onwards, since
cast iron farm tools and weapons were widespread by the 5th century BC.
[82] In 31 the
Han Dynasty governmental
prefect and engineer
Du Shi (杜詩; d. 38) employed the use of horizontal
waterwheels and a complex mechanical gear system to operate the large bellows that heated the
blast furnace in smelting
cast iron.
[83] Bellows continued in use for purposes of metallurgy, but other sources of wind power were discovered and harnessed. The Han Dynasty artisan Ding Huan (fl. 180) not only pioneered the invention of the
Cardan suspension, but also the
rotary fan,
[84] which could be used as a simple
air conditioner.
[85] There was also an intricate Chinese rotary fan
winnowing machine depicted in
Wang Zhen's agricultural treatise of the ''Nong Shu'' of 1313 (although the earliest depiction of a winnowing machine was from a Han Dynasty tomb model dated from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century).
[86][87] After these innovations, the windmill was finally introduced to China in the early 13th century via the
Jin Dynasty in
northern China, during the late Song Dynasty.
The
Persian scholar
Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari wrote c. 850 that the earlier
Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab was murdered in 644 by the technician Abu Lu'lu'a, who claimed to construct
mills driven by the power of wind.
[88] More reliable than this account were the
windmills of the Banu Musa brothers (850 to 870), while there are also several authors confirming the windmills of
Sistan (
Iran), written of by Abu Ishaq al-Istakhri and Abu al-Qasim ibn Hauqal.
[89] The northern Chinese under the rule of the
Jurchen Jin Dynasty became acquainted with the windmills of the
Islamic world in the early 13th century. This is seen in an account of the ''Shu Zhai Lao Xue Cong Tan'' (Collected Talks of the Learned Old Man of the Shu Studio), written by Sheng Ruozi.
[90] It read:
Here Sheng Ruozi quotes a written selection about windmills from the 'Placid Retired Scholar', who is actually Yelü Chucai (
1190–
1244), a prominent Jin and
Yuan statesman (after the Jin fell in 1234 to the
Mongols).
The passage refers to Yelü's journey to
Turkestan (in modern
Xinjiang) in 1219, and Hechong Fu is actually
Samarkand (in modern
Uzbekistan).
Afterwards, the Chinese applied the 'fore-and-aft' sail riggings of typical Chinese junk ships to horizontal windmills.
[91] These windmills were used to operate the square-pallet
chain pumps used in Chinese
irrigation since the ancient
Han Dynasty.
[92] Windmills of this nature were still in use during modern times in
Tianjin and along the
Yangtze River.
The first European to view Chinese windmills was Jan Nieuhoff, who spotted them in
Jiangsu while traveling along the
Grand Canal in 1656, as part of the
Dutch embassy to
Beijing.
The first European windmills written of were those of Dean Herbert of
East Anglia in 1191, who competed with the mills of the
Abbey of
Bury St Edmunds.
[93]
After the windmill, wind power applications in other devices and even vehicles were found in China. There was the '
sailing carriage' that appeared by at least the
Ming Dynasty in the 16th century (although it could have been known beforehand). European travelers to China in the late 16th century were surprised to find large single-wheel passenger and cargo wheelbarrows not only pulled by mule or horse, but also mounted with ship-like masts and sails to help push them along by the wind.
[94]
See also
★
History of science and technology in China
★
Architecture of the Song Dynasty
★
Culture of the Song Dynasty
★
Economy of the Song Dynasty
★
History of the Song Dynasty
★
Society of the Song Dynasty
★
List of Chinese inventions
Notes
1. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 466.
2. Sivin, III, 22.
3. Sivin, III, 23.
4. Needham, Volume 3, 618.
5. Needham, Volume 3, 415-416.
6. Sivin, III, 16.
7. Sivin, III, 19.
8. Sivin, III, 18-19.
9. Unschuld, 60.
10. Wu, 5.
11. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 446.
12. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 569.
13. Wright, 213.
14. Sivin, III, 31-32.
15. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 445.
16. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 448.
17. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 111.
18. Ebrey, 162.
19. Sivin, III, 17.
20. Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 98.
21. Sivin, III, 31.
22. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 549.
23. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, Plate CCLXIX, Fig. 683.
24. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 551.
25. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 552.
26. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 107.
27. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 108.
28. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 107-108.
29. Bowman, 105.
30. Ebrey, 238.
31. Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 217.
32. Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 1.
33. Ebrey, 156.
34. Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 122.
35. Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 48.
36. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 77.
37. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 80.
38. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 81.
39. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 82.
40. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 89.
41. Ebrey, Cambridge Illustrated History of China, 138.
42. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 224-225.
43. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 220-221.
44. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 221.
45. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 263-364.
46. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 293.
47. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 192.
48. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 192.
49. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 199.
50. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 477.
51. Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 154.
52. Partington, 240.
53. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 344-350.
54. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 350.
55. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 351-352.
56. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 352.
57. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 230-231.
58. Sivin, III, 21.
59. Needham, Volume 4, Part 1, 279.
60. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 463.
61. Ebrey, 159.
62. Levathes, 37.
63. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 469
64. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 31.
65. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 421.
66. Morton, 104.
67. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 422.
68. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 423.
69. Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 563 g
70. Gernet, 69.
71. Morton, 287.
72. Hartwell, 53-54.
73. Ebrey et al., 158.
74. Wagner, 177.
75. Embree, 339.
76. Wagner, 175.
77. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 390-392.
78. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 393.
79. Embree, 712.
80. China. (2007). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. From Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved on 2007-06-28
81. Wagner, 178-179.
82. Ebrey, 30.
83. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 370.
84. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 33.
85. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 233.
86. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 118.
87. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, Plate CLVI.
88. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 556.
89. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 557.
90. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 560.
91. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 561.
92. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 558.
93. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 555.
94. Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 274-276.
References
★ Bowman, John S. (2000). ''Columbia Chronologies of Asian History and Culture''. New York: Columbia University Press.
★ Ebrey, Walthall, Palais, (2006). ''East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
★ Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). ''The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press''. ISBN 0-521-43519-6 (hardback); ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback).
★ Embree, Ainslie Thomas (1997). ''Asia in Western and World History: A Guide for Teaching''. Armonk: ME Sharpe, Inc.
★ Gernet, Jacques (1982). ''A History of Chinese Civilization''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
★ Hartwell, Robert (1966). ''Markets, Technology and the Structure of Enterprise in the Development of the Eleventh Century Chinese Iron and Steel Industry''. Journal of Economic History 26.
★ Levathes (1994). ''When China Ruled the Seas''. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-70158-4.
★ Morton, Scott and Charlton Lewis (2005). ''China: Its History and Culture: Fourth Edition''. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 1, Physics''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 2, Mechanical Engineering''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing''. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
★ Needham, Joseph (1986). ''Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 7, Military Technology, the Gunpowder Epic''. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
★ Partington, James Riddick (1960). ''A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder''. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd.
★ Sivin, Nathan (1995). ''Science in Ancient China''. Brookfield, Vermont: VARIORUM, Ashgate Publishing.
★ Unschuld, Paul U. (2003). ''Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text''. Berkeley: University of California Press.
★ Wagner, Donald B. "The Administration of the Iron Industry in Eleventh-Century China," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (Volume 44 2001): 175-197.
★ Wright, David Curtis (2001) ''The History of China''. Westport: Greenwood Press.
★ Wu, Jing-nuan (2005). ''An Illustrated Chinese Materia Medica''. New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
Gunpowder and 'fire-weapons'
★
The Di Lei on Land Mines
★
Chinese Fire Arrows
★
The History of Early Fireworks and Fire Arrows
★
Gunpowder and Firearms in China
★
The Pen Huo Qi Flamethrower
Other
★
The complete chapter on Shen Kuo in Nathan Sivin's book
★
Chinese Inventions and Technology
★
Technology in the Song
★
Su Song's Clock 1088
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
![Last Minute Travel Deals: Make Sure You\](images/articles/thumbs/klastminutethumb.jpg "Last Minute Travel Deals: Make Sure You\")
![Walking in Waikiki: The Sauce-erer\](images/articles/thumbs/waikikidrinkumbrellathumb.jpg "Walking in Waikiki: The Sauce-erer\")
