Silk Worm In Ancient China

The inventions of China shaped the world we live in today, no matter what country you live in. From silk, to gunpowder, to paper, and even agricultural advances all stem from China. Even smaller, personal convenience items, such as the bristle toothbrush, umbrellas, and the compass were invented by these brilliant people. The mulberry silk worm has brought much wealth to the country of China and created a material that is like no other. The method of creating silk was a well-kept secret by the Chinese for over two thousand years. The mythical Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih is known to be the Goddess of Silk and is credited to have harvested the silk from the worm and created the loom in 3,000 B.C. Silk is obtained by a very strict process to maximize
This changed over the years as silk became more widely used and more widely produced inside China. Silk became a staple on the Chinese economy and eventually during the Han Dynasty became a type of currency; the weight of gold could be transferred to the length of silk. Soon silk became an export for trading with other countries. The Chinese could not keep this monopoly on silk forever, eventually it spread around the world with Chinese immigrants bringing the knowledge of the silk worm with them. The secret left the eastern part of the world when two Nestorian monks hid silk worm eggs in their bamboo staves. They brought these eggs to the Byzantine Empire and silk production began in the middle-east. The trade from the silk road brought much wealth and resources to China even after their secrets were
They have developed many methods to maximize crop yield even in non-ideal conditions. Agriculture in the country of China dates back to 7500 B.C. with millet farming. Chinese farmers used the method of crop rotation to maximize the amount of goods they could produce while unknowingly did the best thing they could for the soil. When you plant a specific type of crop it requires a specific type of nutrition, that nutrition isn’t the same with every crop; so, in rotating what was planted they were able to get the maximum amount of fertility for their land. There isn’t much farmable land in China relative to the population and size of the country; this required them to learn how to maximize the space they did have. Trench farming involves digging a small trench and planting the seeds inside that trench. The trench protects the seeds from wind and traps moisture for the seed. Another type of farming they invented was terrace farming. This type of farming involves cutting out sections of a hill side or mountain to the sloped angle becomes a staircase with there being flat land to plant crops. This type of farming takes a lot of time and energy to create and requires a lot of maintenance but it is what had to happen for China to become what it was at the