Chinese Assignment

Great Inventions of Ancient China

Inayat Sartaj

BBA-M&S

2nd year

A3914711001

Chinese Compass

Knowing what direction you are facing is a very valuable piece of information. This is especially true if you are traveling: because you can use the information to help find your way or guide your safe return. There’s nothing much worse than getting hopelessly lost in the woods or successfully exploring a new frontier, only to find that you have no idea how to make it back home. Such problems were much more common before the invention of the compass, an instrument that indicates direction. Before the compass, people had to rely on landmarks, constellations, or other visual means to help steer them in the right direction. This, of course, caused difficulties under less than ideal circumstances, such as a cloudy night or a dense fog.

The first compasses, however, like the one appearing here, were not designed for navigation. Appearing in China around the 4th century BC, primitive compasses showed people the way not literally, but figuratively, helping them order and harmonize their environments and lives. served as designators of direction that the Chinese primarily used to order and harmonize their environments and lives. Today many westerners are familiar with this kind of use of direction as part of feng shui, an

ancient Chinese practice that has evolved into a decorating trend. The earliest mention of a compass and its use appears in The Book of the Devil Valley Master. Its author notes that in addition to its main purpose, the compass, or “south pointer” as the Chinese called it, could be carried with jade hunters to prevent them from getting lost during their journeys.People usually built early compasses using lodestone, a special form of the mineral magnetite that, as a natural permanent magnet, aligns itself with the Earth’s magnetic field. exhibits north-south polarity. Fashioned into the shape of a spoon or ladle, the lodestone sat upon a flat, square-shaped plate made of bronze, which served as a representation of Earth. In the center of the plate, was a large circle representing the Heavens appeared in which the lodestone was placed. This circle represented the Heavens. The lodestone spoon itself symbolized the constellation the Great Bear (also called Ursa Major), which contains the collection of stars known as the Big Dipper. Because of the properties of lodestone, the handle of the spoon always pointed towards the south.In addition to its basic components, early compasses of this type featured a number of markings. Chinese characters appeared on the brass plate to mark the eight main directions (north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest). Additional signs marked finer directional gradations and linked directions to symbols found in the classic Chinese philosophical text I Ching.Another type of early compass exhibited an entirely different design. The Chinese also determined direction with a device consisting of a wooden fish containing a magnetized needle placed in a bowl filled with water. Both the fish- and spoon-type compasses paved the way for more precise instruments that allowed explorers to accurately navigate the seas, effectively changing the course of history.

Chinese Gunpowder

Few substances in history have had as profound an effect on human history as gunpowder... and its discovery was an accident!

Ancient alchemists in China spent centuries trying to discover an elixir of life that would render the user immortal. One important ingredient in many of the failed elixirs was saltpeter, also known as potassium nitrate.

During the Tang Dynasty, around 850 A.D., an enterprising alchemist (whose name has been lost to history) mixed 75 parts saltpeter with 15 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur. This mixture had no discernable life-lengthening properties, but it did explode with a flash and a bang when exposed to an open flame. According to a text from that era, "smoke and flames result, so that [the alchemists'] hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."Many western history books over the years have stated that the Chinese used this discovery only for fireworks, but that is not true. Song Dynasty military forces as early as 904 A.D. used gunpowder devices against their primary enemy, the Mongols. These weapons included "flying fire" (fei huo), an arrow with a burning tube of gunpowder attached to the shaft. Flying fire arrows were miniature rockets, which propelled themselves into enemy ranks and inspired terror among both men and horses. It must have seemed like fearsome magic to the first warriors who were confronted with the power of gunpowder.

Other Song military applications of gunpowder included primitive hand grenades, poisonous gas shells, flame throwers and land mines.

The first artillery pieces were rocket tubes made from hollow bamboo shoots, but these were soon upgraded to cast metal. McGill University professor Robin Yates notes that the world's first illustration of a cannon comes from Song China, in a painting from about 1127 A.D. This depiction was made a century and a half before Europeans began to manufacture artillery pieces.By the mid- to late-eleventh century, the Song government had become concerned about gunpowder technology spreading to other countries. The sale of saltpeter to foreigners was banned in 1076. Nonetheless, knowledge of the miraculous substance was carried along theSilk Road to India, the Middle East, and Europe. In 1267, a European writer made reference to gunpowder, and by 1280 the first recipes for the explosive mixture were published in the west. China's secret was out.

Down through the centuries, Chinese inventions have had a profound effect on human culture. Items like paper, the magnetic compass, and silk have diffused around the world. None of those inventions, however, have had quite the impact that gunpowder has, for good and for bad.

Chinese Printing

Printing is one of the four great inventions of ancient China. It has a long history and far-reaching impact. With a development process of over 5,000 years, printing is a key component of Chinese civilization.In ancient China, there was a long history of character carving techniques. Along with the development of hand carving techniques and the invention of paper making, people invented printing in practice. Block printing, appeared in early Tang Dynasty, was the first technique put into use. To conduct block printing, one need to write the text on paper first, then stick the paper to a polished wood board, on which reverse text is carved. Then ink should be applied to the block and paper should be arranged before the press printing begins. After that, the printing is done when the paper is taken off. The carving needs great manpower and material, but once the printing begins when the carved block is finished, the advantages of high efficiency and large printing amount are evident. The Diamond Sutracurrently stored in the British Library is the most exquisite work produced with block printing in the 9th year of Xiantong (868 AD) of the Tang Dynasty.   In the Song Dynasty, the inventor of a humble origin Bi Sheng renovated the printing technique and invented movable type printing, which boosted the printing efficiency. Movable type printing has greater advantages than block printing. It greatly cuts the block making time. Moreover, the movable type can be repeatedly used. Therefore, materials are saved. And the movable type is smaller than the carved block, easy to store and keep. Wooden movable types were used in the printing of  Siku Quanshu (Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature) in 1774 AD, during Emperor Qianlong’s reign of the Qing Dynasty. It’s called “a collected gem edition”.After the invention of printing, it was gradually brought to other countries, giving a great boost to human civilization and social progress. In 1450, influenced by Chinese movable type printing, Gutenberg of Germany made movable letters with compound metal for book printing, causing a far-reaching impact on the development of European society.

Chinese Silk

Silk is a kind of fabric elaborately made of the natural protein fibrin of pods. Products made of silk have bright luster and soft touch; silk clothes are very comfortable and soft, and has the function of adjusting body heat and moisture, and preventing ultraviolet radiation; silk can also be used to produce home commodities like curtains and carpets, and it is favored by the consumers for the functions of absorbing sound and dirt, heat preservation, and fire-proof. Foreign customers also call silk "the headspring of beauty", for products made of it are rather flowery.China is the earliest country raising silkworms and weaving silk. It is said the silkworm was first raised by Lei Zu, wife of the Yellow Emperor. According to archaeological speculation, the Chinese have begun to raise silkworms, and pull and weave silk since the middle Neolithic Period 5000-6000 years ago. In the Shan Dynasty, the silk production had reached a certain level, relatively complicated weave machines and skills were developed, and the silk products reached a high technical level. Expanding with the foreign trade scale of the Han Dynasty, the trade and export of silk was unprecedentedly prosperous. Silk, due to its delicate, comfortable and rare characteristics, is very popular among the aristocrats in European palaces. The silk trade promoted the further development of economic and cultural exchanges between China and her neighbor countries, forming the famous prosperous "Silk Road". The invention of silk made the silkworm weaving a relatively important handicraft industry in ancient China, and exerted a great influence on China in terms of ancient poetry culture and folk-customs. Many articles in The Book of Songs, for example, describe the situation about raising silkworms by women, and folk craftworks like embroidery also take silk as materials. Silk is not only a noble costuming, but a precious artwork. It contains abundant cultural meanings and historical values, representing China's age-old splendid culture. The silk trade promoted the large-scale economic and cultural exchange between the West and East, and made a great contribution to the development of human culture.

Chinese Paper

Paper making is one of the inventions by Chinese. 105 A.D. is often cited as the year in which papermaking was invented. In that year, historical records show that the invention of paper was reported to the Eastern Han Emperor Ho-di by Ts'ai Lun, an official of the Imperial Court. Recent archaeological investigations, however, place the actual invention of papermaking some 200 years earlier. Ts'ai Lun broke the bark of a mulberry tree into fibres and pounded them into a sheet. Later it was discovered that the quality of paper could be much improved with the addition of rags hemp and old fish nets to the pulp. The paper was soon widely used in China and spread to the rest of world through the Silk Road. An official history written some centuries later explained: In ancient times writing was generally on bamboo or on pieces of silk, which were then called ji. But silk being expensive and bamboo heavy, these twoich materials were not conveninet. Then Tsai Lun thought of using tree bark,n hemp, rags, and fish nets. In 105 he made a report to the emperor on the process of paper making, and received high praise for his ability. From this time paper has been in use everywhere and is called the "paper of Marquis Tsai."

In few years, the Chinese began to use paper for writing. Around 600 A.D. woodblock printing was invented and by 740 A.D., The first printed newspaper was seen in China.

To the east, papermaking moved to Korea, where production of paper began as early as the 6th century AD. Pulp was prepared from the fibers of hemp, rattan, mulberry, bamboo, rice straw, and seaweed. According to tradition, a Korean monk named Don-cho brought papermaking to Japan by sharing his knowledge at the Imperial Palace in approximately AD 610, sixty years after Buddhism was introduced in Japan.

Along the Silk Road, we learned that paper was introduced to Xinjiang area very early according to the archaeological records. The paper found at Kaochang, Loulan, Kusha, Kotan, and Dunhuang sites dated as early as the 2nd. century. The technique eventaully reached Tibet around 650 A.D. and then to India after 645 A.D. By the time Hsuan Tsang from China arrived to India in 671 A.D., paper was already widely used there.

For a long time the Chinese closely guarded the secret of paper manufacture and tried to eliminate other Oriental centers of production to ensure a monopoly. However in 751 A.D. the T'ang army was defeated by the Ottoman Turks at a mighty battle at the Talas

River. Some Chinese soldiers and paper makers were captured and brought to Samarkand. The Arabs learned the paper making from the Chinese prisoners and built the first paper industry in Baghdad in 793 A.D. They, too, kept it a secret, and Europeans did not learn how to make paper until several centuries later. The Egyptians learned the paper making from the Arabs during the early 10th century. Around 1100 A.D. paper arrived in Northern Africa and by 1150 A.D. it arrived to Spain as a result of the crusades and established the first paper industry in Europe. In 1453 A.D. Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press. The first paper industry in the North America was built in Philadelphia in 1690.