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Four Great Inventions
The following is a list of the Four Great Inventions of ancient China—as designated by the late Joseph Needham (1900–1995)—in the chronological order that they were established in China.
Paper
Although it is recorded that the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) court eunuch Cai Lun (c. 50–121 AD) invented the papermaking process and established the use of new raw materials used in making paper, ancient padding and wrapping paper artifacts dating to the 2nd century BC have been found in China, the oldest example of paper being a map from Fangmatan, Tianshui;[8] by the 3rd century, paper as a writing medium was in widespread use, replacing traditional but more expensive writing mediums such as strips of bamboo rolled into threaded scrolls, scrolls and strips of silk, wet clay tablets hardened later in a furnace, and wooden tablets (use of oracle bones as a writing medium died out after the Shang Dynasty).[9][10][11][12][13] The earliest known piece of paper with writing on it was discovered in the ruins of a Chinese watchtower at Tsakhortei, Alxa League, where Han Dynasty troops had deserted their position in 110 AD following a Xiongnu attack.[14] In the papermaking process established by Cai in 105, a boiled mixture of mulberry tree bark, hemp, old linens, and fish nets created a pulp that was pounded into paste and stirred with water; a wooden frame sieve with a mat of sewn reeds was then dunked into the mixture, which was then shaken and then dried into sheets of paper that were bleached under the exposure of sunlight; K.S. Tom says this process was gradually improved through leaching, polishing and glazing to produce a smooth, strong paper.[11][12]
Printing
Woodblock printing: The earliest confirmed specimen of woodblock printing is a miniature dharani Buddhist sutra bearing extinct Chinese writing characters used only during the reign of China's only self-ruling empress, Wu Zetian (r. 690–705), dated no earlier than 704 and preserved in a Silla Korean temple stupa built in 751.[15] However, the earliest known book printed at regular size is the Diamond Sutra made during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), a 5.18 m (17 ft) long scroll which bears the date 868 AD, or the "fifteenth day of the fourth moon of the ninth year" of Emperor Yizong's rule (859–873).[16] Joseph Needham and Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin write that the cutting and printing techniques used for the delicate calligraphy of the Diamond Sutra book are much more advanced and refined than the miniature dharani sutra printed earlier.[16] The two oldest Chinese calendars printed have been found in the Buddhist pilgrimage site at Dunhuang, dated 877 and 882; Patricia Ebrey writes that it is no surprise that some of the earliest printed items were calendars, since the Chinese found it necessary to calculate and mark which days were auspicious and which were not.[16][17]
Movable type: The polymath scientist and official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) was the first to describe the process of movable type printing in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, attributing this innovation to a little-known artisan named Bi Sheng (990–1051).[18][19][20][21] With the use of fired clay characters, Shen described Bi's technical process of making the type, type-setting, printing, and breaking up the type for further use.[22][21] Bi had experimented with wooden type characters, but their use was not perfected until 1297 to 1298 with the model of the official Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333) of the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), who also arranged written characters by rhyme scheme on the surface of round table compartments.[23][19] It was not until 1490 with the printed works of Hua Sui (1439–1513) of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) that the Chinese perfected metal movable type characters, namely bronze.[24][25] The Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) scholar Xu Zhiding of Tai'an, Shandong developed vitreous enamel movable type printing in 1718.[26]
Effects on bookbinding: The advent of printing in the 9th century revolutionized bookbinding, as late Tang Dynasty paper books evolved from rolled scrolls of paper into folded leaves like a pamphlet, which developed further in the Song Dynasty (960–1279) into 'butterfly' bindings with leaves of paper folded down the center like a common book, then during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) wrapped back bindings had two edges of the leaves attached to the spine and secured with a stiff paper cover on the back, and during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) books finally had thread-stitched bindings in the back.[27] It was not until the early 20th century that traditional Chinese thread-stitched bookbinding was replaced by Western-style bookbinding, a parallel to the replacement of traditional Chinese print methods with the modern printing press, in the tradition of Johannes Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468).[28]
Gunpowder
Although evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907–960),[29] the earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder were written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song Dynasty (960–1279); the gunpowder formulas described were used in incendiary bombs lobbed from catapults, thrown down from defensive walls, or lowered down the wall by use of iron chains operated by a swape lever;[30][31][32] bombs launched from trebuchet catapults mounted on forecastles of naval ships ensured the victory of Song over Jin forces at the Battle of Caishi in 1161, while the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) used gunpowder bombs during their failed invasion of Japan in 1274 and 1281;[31] during the 13th and 14th centuries, gunpowder formulas became more potent (with nitrate levels of up to 91%) and gunpowder weaponry more advanced and deadly, as evidenced in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) military manuscript Huolongjing compiled by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375), completed sometime before the latter's death with a preface added by the former in a 1412 Nanyang publication of the work.[33]
Compass
In San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Veracruz, Mexico, an ancient hematite artifact from the Olmec era dating roughly 1000 BC indicates the possible use of the lodestone compass in Central America long before it was described in China, yet the Olmecs did not have iron which the Chinese would discover could be magnetized by contact with lodestone.[34] The Chinese by the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) began using north-south oriented lodestone ladle-and-bowl shaped compasses for divination and geomancy and not yet for navigation;[35][36][37] the polymath official and inventor Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) was the first to accurately describe both magnetic declination and the magnetic needle compass in his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, while the author Zhu Yu (fl. 12th century) was the first to mention use of the compass specifically for navigation at sea in his book published in 1119.[38][39][40][41][36][20][42] Even before this, however, the Wujing Zongyao military manuscript compiled by 1044 described a thermoremanence compass of heated iron or steel shaped as a fish and placed in a bowl of water which produced a weak magnetic force; the Wujing Zongyao recorded that it was used as a pathfinder alongside the South Pointing Chariot.[43][44]
Other inventions
Inventions which made their first appearance in China are listed in alphabetical order below.
- Animal zodiac: The earliest and most complete version of the animal zodiac mentions tweleve animals which differ slightly (for instance, the dragon is absent, represented by a worm).[45] Each animal matches the earthly branches and were written on bamboo slips from Shuihudi, dated to the late 4th century BC,[46] as well as from Fangmatan, dating to the late 3rd century BC.[46] Before these archaeological finds, the Lun Heng written by Wang Chong (27 – c. 100 AD) during the 1st century provided the earliest transmitted example of a complete duodenary animal cycle.[47]
- Artemether: The antimalarial drug of compound artemether, derived from artemisinin found in the plant Artemisia annua long used in traditional Chinese medicine, was developed in 1972 by Chinese scientists in the People's Republic and has been used to treat multi-drug resistant strains of Plasmodium falciparum malaria.[48][49]
- Banknote: Paper currency was first developed in China. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as merchants and wholesalers desired to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions; during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the central government adopted this system for their monopolized salt industry, but a gradual reduction in copper production—due to closed mines and an enormous outflow of Song-minted copper currency into the Japanese, Southeast Asian, Western Xia, and Liao Dynasty economies—encouraged the Song government in the early 12th century to issue government-printed paper currency alongside copper to ease the demand on their state mints and debase the value of copper; the earliest paper currency was limited to certain regions and could not be used outside specified bounds, but once paper was securely backed by gold and silver stores, the Song government initiated a nationwide paper currency, sometime between 1265 and 1274.[50][51][52][53] The concurrent Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) also printed paper banknotes by at least 1214.[54]
- Belt drive: In 1090, Qin Guan's book on textiles and sericulture written during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) described the first mechanical belt drive for a silk-reeling device.[55] An illustration of a woman operating a multiple-spindle spinning wheel with a continuous driving belt is featured in the Book of Agriculture published in 1313 by Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333).[56] This silk-handling machinery was a type of flyer which laid thread evenly on reels.[57] By the 14th century, hydraulic power was applied to spinning mills in China for this purpose.[57]
- Blast furnace: Although cast iron tools and weapons have been found in China dating to the 5th century BC, the earliest discovered Chinese blast furnaces, which produced pig iron that could be remelted and refined as cast iron in the cupola furnace, date to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, while the vast majority of early blast furnace sites discovered date to the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) period immediately following 117 BC with the establishment of state monopolies over the salt and iron industries during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC); most ironwork sites discovered dating before 117 BC acted merely as foundries which made castings for iron that had been smelted in blast furnaces elsewhere in remote areas far from population centers.[58][59]
- Borehole drilling: By at least the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), the Chinese used deep borehole drilling for mining and other projects, such as using a derrick to lift liquid brine to the surface through a bamboo pipeline that led to a distilling furnace (which Michael Loewe says was possibly heated by natural gas) where salt could be processed; scenes of this entire process are featured in artwork on Han tomb brick reliefs of Sichuan province, while Loewe states that borehole sites could reach as deep as 600 m (2000 ft).[60] A Western Han Dynasty bronze foundry discovered in Xinglong, Hebei had nearby mining shafts (built to extract copper which could be smelt with tin to make bronze) which reached depths of 100 m (328 ft) into the earth with spacious mining areas; the shafts and rooms were complete with a timber frame, ladders, and iron tools.[61][62]
- Bristle toothbrush: According to a Library of Congress website, the Chinese have used the bristle toothbrush since 1498, during the reign of the Hongzhi Emperor (r. 1487–1505) of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644); it also adds that the toothbrush was not mass-produced until 1780, when they were sold by a William Addis of Clerkenwald, England.[63] In accordance with the Library of Congress website, scholar John Bowman also writes that the bristle toothbrush using pig bristles was invented in China during the 1490s.[25]
- Bulkhead partition: The 5th century book Garden of Strange Things by Liu Jingshu mentioned that a ship could allow water to enter the bottom without sinking, while the Song Dynasty (960–1279) author Zhu Yu (fl. 12th century) wrote in his book of 1119 that the hulls of Chinese ships had a bulkhead build; these pieces of literary evidence for bulkhead partitions are confirmed by archaeological evidence of a 24 m (78 ft) long Song Dynasty ship dredged from the waters off the southern coast of China in 1973, the hull of the ship divided into twelve walled compartmental sections built watertight, dated to about 1277.[64][65] Western writers from Marco Polo (1254–1324), to Niccolò Da Conti (1395–1469), to Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) commented on bulkhead partitions, which they viewed as an original aspect of Chinese shipbuilding, as Western shipbuilding did not incorporate this hull arrangement until the early 19th century.[66][67]
- Caliper: A Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) bronze sliding caliper used by craftsmen for minute measuring has been discovered with manufacturing information inscribed on it, including the exact date it was made (corresponding to January 15, 9 AD); it could be adjusted by means of a slot with a pin (keeping in place the component lug of the instrument) to measure with the precision of tenths of 1 in (0.23 cm), with a maximum of 6 in (15 cm).[68]
- Cast iron: Confirmed by archaeological evidence, cast iron, made from melting pig iron, was developed in China by the early 5th century BC during the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC), the oldest specimens found in a tomb of Luhe County in Jiangsu province; despite this, most of the early blast furnaces and cupola furnaces discovered in China date after the state iron monopoly under Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BC) was established in 117 BC, during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD); Donald Wagner states that a possible reason why no ancient Chinese bloomery process has been discovered thus far is because the iron monopoly, which lasted until the 1st century AD when it was abolished for private entrepreneurship and local administrative use, wiped out any need for continuing the less-efficient bloomery process that continued in use in other parts of the world.[69][58][70][71][72] Wagner states that most iron tools in ancient China were made of cast iron in consideration of the low economic burden of producing cast iron, whereas most iron military weapons were made of more costly wrought iron and steel, signifying that "high performance was essential" and preferred for the latter.[73]
- Chain drive: Perhaps inspired by chain pumps which had been known in China since at least the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) when they were mentioned by the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong (27–c.100 AD),[74] the endless power-transmitting chain drive was first used in the gearing of the clock tower built at Kaifeng in 1090 by the official, mathematician, and astronomer Su Song (1020–1101) during the Song Dynasty (960–1279); in addition to the escapement mechanism invented earlier in the 8th century, the chain drive was used to mechanically rotate the tower's armillary sphere crowning the top (which imitated the movements of the stars in the celestial sphere) and move one of 600 mechanical gear teeth forward every 2 minutes and 24 seconds, thus each gear tooth represented
of a 24 hour day, each hour announced by one of 133 clock jack figurines rotated on a mechanical wheel behind opening windows where they could be seen banging gongs, drums, bells, and holding plaques for special times of day.[75][76][77]
- Cardinal direction, use of colors for: In ancient China, the use of five different soil colors corresponding to the four cardinal directions were used in construction of altars and mounds.[78][79][80] The earliest archaeologial evidence of such example comes from a Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 BC) burial site located at Shuangdun, Anhui.[81] The mentions of the "five colors" are recorded in the Shujing and Zuozhuan, while the earliest information on correlative colors associated with each four cardinal directions and center; east (blue), south (red), west (white), north (black) and center (yellow), comes from the Kaogongji,[82] an independent work complied in the Warring States Period (403–221 BC) before being attached to the Rites of Zhou in place of the original missing section "Winter Office" (lost in its entirety) by the mid 2nd century BC.[83][84][85]
- Chopsticks: The historian Sima Qian (145–86 BC) wrote in the Records of the Grand Historian that King Zhou of Shang was the first to make chopsticks out of ivory in the 11th century BC; the most ancient archaeological find of a pair of chopsticks, made of bronze, comes from Shang Tomb 1005 at Houjiazhuang, Anyang, dated roughly 1200 BC. By 600 BC, the use of chopsticks had spread to Yunnan (Dapona in Dali),[86][87] and Töv Province by 1st century.[88] The earliest known textual reference to the use of chopsticks comes from the Han Feizi, a philosophical text written by Han Fei (c. 280–233 BC) in the 3rd century BC.[89]
- Chromium, use of: The use of chromium was invented in China no later than 210 BC, the date when the Terracotta Army was interred at a site not far from modern Xi'an; modern archaeologists discovered that bronze-tipped crossbow bolts at the site showed no sign of corrosion after more than 2,000 years of being interred, the reason being that the Chinese had coated the bronze tips of their crossbow bolts in chromium; chromium was not used anywhere else until the experiments of Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829) in 1797–1798.[90]
- Coke as fuel: By the 11th century, during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), the demands for charcoal used in the blast and cupola furnaces of the iron industry led to large amounts of deforestation of prime timberland; to avoid excessive deforestation, the Song Chinese began using coke made from bituminous coal as fuel for their metallurgic furnaces instead of charcoal derived from wood.[91][92]
- Contour canal: After numerous conquests and consolidation of his empire, China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BC) commissioned the engineer Shi Lu (fl. late 3rd century BC) to build a new waterway canal which would pass through a mountain range and link together the Xiang River and Lijiang River; the result of this project was the Lingqu Canal, complete with thirty-six lock gates, and since it closely follows a contour line, it is the oldest known contour canal in the world.[93]
- Crank handle: The earliest known depicted crank handle in art comes from a Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) green-glazed pottery tomb model of a farmyard, complete with a rotary grain mill, a man operating a foot tilt hammer for pounding grain, and to his left a winnowing machine with a crank handle used to operate the fan.[94] The crank handle in later Imperial China (Tang and Song dynasties) was also used in grain mills, silk-reeling and hemp-spinning machines, the hydraulic-powered flour-sifter, the hydraulic powered bellows, the water well windlass, and other devices.[95]
- Crossbow, handheld: In China, bronze and iron crossbow bolts dating from the 5th to 4th century BC were found at a State of Chu grave site in Hubei;[96] the earliest textual evidence of the handheld crossbow used in battle dates to the 4th century BC;[97] handheld crossbows with complex bronze trigger mechanisms have been found with the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang (r. 221–210 BC) that are similar to specimens from the subsequent Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), while crossbowmen described in the Han Dynasty learned drill formations, some were even mounted as cavalry units, and Han Dynasty writers attributed the success of numerous battles against the Xiongnu to massed crossbow fire;[98][99] in a cross comparison with a contemporary civilization which created an early crossbow, the ancient Greeks had a large artillery crossbow known as the gastraphetes ("belly-bow") in Belopoeica (written in late 1st century AD),[100] yet the handheld crossbow in Europe was not seen until the 10th century AD.[101][102][103]
- Cupola furnace: Vincent C. Pigott states that the cupola furnace existed in China at least by the Warring States Period (403–221 BC),[104] while Donald B. Wagner writes that some iron ore melted in the blast furnace may have been cast directly into molds, but most, if not all, iron smelted in the blast furnace during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) was remelted in a cupola furnace; it was designed so that a cold blast injected at the bottom traveled through tuyere pipes across the top where the charge (i.e. of charcoal and scrap or pig iron) was dumped, the air becoming a hot blast before reaching the bottom of the furnace where the iron was melted and then drained into appropriate molds for casting.[105] Pigott states that even in modern cupola furnaces, sometimes an excess of injected oxygen will cause enough decarburization that a resulting lump of low-carbon iron will appear in the furnace, similar to the wrought iron of the bloomery; although the ancient Chinese had produced wrought iron (no doubt, Pigott says, from the cupola furnace) from about the same time (c. 500 BC) cast iron appeared during the very late Spring and Autumn Period (722–481 BC), there is no direct evidence that the bloomery ever existed in China.[106]
- Drum, alligator hide: Drums (made from clay) have been found over a board area at the Neolithic sites from modern Shandong in the east to Qinghai in the west, dating to a period of 5500–2350 BC. In literary records, drums manifested shamanistic characteristics and were often used in ritual ceremonies.[107] Drums covered with alligator skin for ceremonial use are mentioned in the Shijing.[108][109] During the archaic period, alligators probably lived along the east coast of China, including southern Shandong. The earliest alligator drums, comprising a wooden frame covered with alligator skin are found in the archaeological sites at Dawenkou (4100 BC – 2600 BC), as well as serveral sites of Longshan (3000 BC – 2000 BC) in Shandong and Taosi (2300 BC – 1900 BC) in southern Shanxi.[110]
- Escapement: The escapement mechanism is an essential device in clocks which marked the birth of the mechanical clock; it was first developed by the Buddhist monk, court astronomer, mathematician and engineer Yi Xing (683–727) of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) for his water-powered celestial globe in the tradition of Zhang Heng (78–139), and could be found in later Chinese clockworks such as the clock towers of both Zhang Sixun (fl. late 10th century) and Su Song (1020–1101).[111][112][113][114][77][115] However, unlike the modern escapement which employs a suspended oscillating pendulum resting and releasing its hooks on a small rotating gear wheel, the early Chinese escapement employed the use of gravity and hydraulics.[116] In Su Song's clock tower, scoop containers fixed to the spokes of a vertical waterwheel (which acted like a gear wheel) would be filled one by one with siphoned water from a clepsydra tank.[117] When the weight of the water in the scoop filled to an excess, it overcame a counterweight that in turn tripped a lever allowing the scoop to rotate on a pivot and drain its water.[117] However, as the scoop fell, it tripped a coupling tongue that temporarily pulled down on a long vertical chain, the latter yanking down on a balancing lever which would pull upward on a small chain connected to a locking arm, the latter lifting momentarily to release the top arrested spoke before coming back down to repeat the entire process over again.[117]
- Exploding cannonballs: The Huolongjing military manual compiled by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375) in the mid 14th century described the earliest known exploding cannonballs, which were made of cast iron with a hollow core packed with gunpowder; Jiao and Liu wrote that when fired, they could set enemy camps ablaze; the earliest evidence for exploding cannonballs in Europe date to the 16th century.[118][119]
- Fork: The fork had been used in China long before the chopstick; a bone fork has been discovered by archaeologists at a burial site of the early Bronze Age Qijia culture (2400–1900 BC), and forks have been found in tombs of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1050 BC) and subsequent Chinese dynasties.[120]
- Finery forge: In addition to accidental lumps of low-carbon wrought iron produced by excessive injected air in Chinese cupola furnaces, the ancient Chinese also created wrought iron by using the finery forge at least by the 2nd century BC, the earliest specimens of cast and pig iron fined into wrought iron and steel found at the early Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) site at Tieshengguo.[121] Pigott speculates that the finery forge existed in the previous Warring States Period (403–221 BC), due to the fact that there are wrought iron items from China dating to that period and there is no documented evidence of the bloomery ever being used in China.[122] The fining process involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation.[121] Wagner writes that in addition to the Han Dynasty hearths believed to be fining hearths, there is also pictoral evidence of the fining hearth from a Shandong tomb mural dated 1st to 2nd century AD, as well as a hint of written evidence in the 4th century AD Daoist text Taiping Jing.[123] Both Wagner and Pigott write that the fining hearth was a key feature of traditional Chinese iron smelting in recent centuries.[121][124]
- Fire lance: The fire lance was a proto-gun developed in the 10th century with a tube of first bamboo and later on metal that shot a weak gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel; its earliest representation comes from a painting found at Dunhuang.[125][126][127]
- Flamethrower, double piston: Although the single piston flamethrower was first developed in the Byzantine Empire during the 7th century,[128] the 10th century Chinese flamethrower, or Pen Huo Qi, boasted a continuous stream of flame by employing double piston syringes (which had been known since the Han Dynasty) spouting Greek fire which had been imported from China's maritime trade contacts in the Middle East; its first description came in 919, its first use in battle in 932 during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907–960), and its first drawn illustration found in the early Song Dynasty (960–1279) military manuscript Wujing Zongyao of 1044, which also described the device in full.[129][130]
- Hand cannon: The earliest metal-barrel hand cannons dating to the 13th century are attested to by archaeological evidence from a Heilongjiang excavation as well as written evidence in the Yuanshi (1370) concerning Li Tang, an ethnic Jurchen commander under the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) who in 1288 suppressed the rebellion of the Christian prince Nayan with his "gun-soldiers" or chongzu, this being the earliest known event where this phrase was used.[131]
- Heavy moldboard iron plow: Although use of the simple wooden ard in China must have preceded it, the earliest discovered Chinese iron plows date to roughly 500 BC, during the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC) and were flat, V-shaped, and mounted on wooden poles and handles.[132][133] By the 3rd century BC, improved iron casting techniques led to the development of the heavy moldboard plow, seen in Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) artwork such as tomb carved bricks.[132] The moldboard allowed the Chinese to turn farm soil without clogging the plowshare with dirt, which was flung off the wheelbarrow via slanted wings on both sides.[134] While the frame of excavated plowshares dating to the Warring States Period (403–221 BC) were made mostly of perishable wood except for the iron blade, the frame of excavated plowshares dating to the Han Dynasty were made entirely of solid iron with the moldboard attached to the top to turn the soil.[135]
- Horse collar: A significant improvement of the ancient breast harness was the horse collar, first depicted in a Northern Wei (386–534) mural at Dunhuang, China, dated 477–499; the latter artwork does not feature the essential collar cushion behind the cross bar, but a later Tang Dynasty (618–907) mural of about 851 AD accurately displays the cushioned collar behind the cross bar.[136][137]
- Hybrid rice: A team of agricultural scientists headed by Yuan Longping (b. 1930) developed a new type of rice called hybrid rice in 1973 which allows for roughly 12,000 kg (26,450 lbs) of rice to be grown per hectare (10,000 m2).[48] Hybrid rice has proven to be greatly beneficial in areas where there is little arable land, and has been adopted by several Asian and African countries.[48]
- Hydraulic-powered armillary sphere:Although Hipparchus[138] (probably in Geographica from 1st century AD)[139] credited it was the Greek Eratosthenes (276–194 BC) who invented the first armillary sphere representing the celestial sphere,[140][141][142][143][144]
- Hydraulic-powered bellows: Although it is unknown if metallurgic bellows (i.e. air-blowing device) in the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) were of the leather bag type or the wooden fan type found in the later Yuan Dynasty (1279–1368), the Eastern Han official Du Shi (d. 38 AD) applied the use of rotating waterwheels to power the bellows of his blast furnace smelting iron, a method which continued in use in China thereafter, as evidenced by subsequent records; it is a significant invention in that iron production yields were increased and it employed all the necessary components for converting rotary motion into reciprocating motion.[145][146][147][144][148]
- India ink: Although named after carbonaceous pigment materials originating from India, Indian ink first appeared in China; some scholars say it was made as far back as the 3rd millennium BC, while others state it was perhaps not invented until the Wei Dynasty (220–265 AD).[149][150][151][152] Although early ink mixtures contained the soot of pine, the scholar-official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) was the first to create an India ink from the soot of petroleum, which Li Shizhen (1518–1593) later wrote was lustrous like lacquer and superior to ink made from pine soot.[153][154][155][156]
- Kite: As written in the Mozi, the philosopher, artisan, and engineer Lu Ban (fl. 5th century BC) from the State of Lu created a wooden bird that remained flying in the air for three days, essentially a kite; there is written evidence that kites were used as rescue signals when the city of Nanjing was besieged by Hou Jing (d. 552) during the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang (r. 502–549), while similar accounts of kites used for military signalling are found in the Tang (618–907) and Jin (1115–1234) dynasties; kite flying as a pastime can be seen in painted murals of Dunhuang dating to the Northern Wei (386–534) period, while descriptions of flying kites as a pastime have been found in Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) texts.[157][158]
- Lacquer: The lacquer was used in China since the Neolithic period and came from a substance extracted from the lac tree found in China.[159] A red wooden bowl, which is believed to be the earliest known lacquer container,[160] was unearthed at a Hemudu (c. 5000 BC – c. 4500 BC) site.[161] Michael Loewe says coffins at many early Bronze Age sites seem to have been lacquered, and articles of lacquered wood may also have been common, but the earliest well-preserved examples of lacquer come from Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771–256 BC) sites.[162] However, Wang Zhongshu disagrees, stating that the oldest well-preserved lacquerware items come from a Xiajiadian (c. 2000 – c. 1600 BC) site in Liaoning excavated in 1977, the items being red lacquered vessels in the shape of Shang Dynasty bronze gu vessels.[161] Wang states that many lacquerware items from the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 – c. 1050 BC), such as fragments of boxes and basins, were found, and had black designs such as the Chinese dragon and taotie over a red background.[161] There were three imperial workshops during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) established solely for the purpose of crafting lacquerwares; fortunately for the historian, Han lacquerware items were inscribed with the location of the workshop where they were produced and the date they were made, such as a lacquerware beaker found in the Han colony in northwestern Korea with the inscription stating it was made in a workshop near Chengdu, Sichuan and dated precisely to 55 AD.[163]
- Land mine: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land mine in history was by a Song Dynasty (960–1279) brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who used an 'enormous bomb' (huo pao) to kill intruding Mongol soldiers invading Guangxi in 1277.[164] However, the first detailed description of the land mine was given in the Huolongjing text written by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375) during the late Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) and early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644).[165] Jiao and Liu wrote that land mines were spherical, made of cast iron, and their fuses ignited by a mechanism tripped by enemy movement; although Jiao and Liu did not describe this trip mechanism in full detail, a later text of 1606 revealed that enemy movement released a pin that allowed hidden underground weights to fall and spin a chord around an axle that rotated a spinning wheel acting as a flint to spark a train of fuses.[166]
- Multiple-tube seed drill: The wooden seed drill existed in China by the 3rd century BC, while the multiple-tube iron seed drill was first invented in China by the 2nd century BC, during the Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD).[167][168] The seed drill allowed for greater speed and regulation of distributing seeds in lined rows of crops instead of casting them out onto the farm field.[167]
- Multistage rocket: Although there is still some ambiguity as to whether the earliest rockets of the 13th century were first developed in Europe (i.e. 'ignis volantis in aere' in the work of Marcus Graecus around 1232, although Needham and Davis assert it was most likely a fire lance), the Middle East (i.e. 'sahm al-Khitāi' or 'arrows of China' as referred to by Hasan al-Rhammāh in 1280) or China (i.e. 'di lao shu' or 'ground rat' mentioned in 1264 or the 'chong' mortar used by the armies of the Song Dynasty and invading Mongols during the 1270s), sometime during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) the term 'fire arrow' once implied to mean incendiary arrows during the Tang Dynasty was then used to describe the true rocket, producing a headache, as Needham says, for historians;[169][170][31] the Huolongjing written by Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Ji (1311–1375) during the early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) described several types of rockets,[171] one of them being a multistage rocket known as the 'huo long chu shui' or 'fire dragon issuing from the water' which, despite its name, was not launched from beneath the water from a primitive submarine but rather at near water-level maintaining a flat trajectory; defined as a two-stage rocket, it employed booster rockets that, when about to burn out of use, ignited a swarm of smaller rocket arrows fired from the front end of the missile shaped as a dragon's mouth.[172]
- Millet, cultivation of: The discovery of northern China of domesticated varieties of broomcorn and foxtail millet from 8500 BC, or earlier, suggests that millet cultivation might have predated that of rice in parts of Asia.[173] Clear evidence of millet began to cultivate by 6500 BC at sites of Cishan, Peiligang, and Jiahu.[174] Archaeological remains from Cishan sum up to over 300 storeage pits, 80 with millet remains, with a total millet storage capacity estimated for the site of about 100,000 kg of grain.[175] By 4000 BC, most Yangshao areas were using an intensive form of foxtail millet cultivation, complete with storage pits and finely prepared tools for digging and harvesting the crop. The success of the early Chinese millet farmers is still reflected today in the DNA of many east Asian populations, such studies have shown that the ancestors of those farmers probably arrived in the area between 30,000 and 20,000 BP, and their bacterial haplotypes are still found in today populations throughout eastern Asia.[176]
