The Four Great Inventions

The Four Great Inventions
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|China's long history has seen some extremely important inventions emerge, most noticeably gunpowder, paper | |
|making, printing and the compass, which, in the words of Roger Bacon, changed the whole appearance and status of | |
|things in the world. | |
|China was the first country in the world to make proper paper. Paper made during the Western Han Dynasty (202 | |
|BC-16 AD) has been found in Gansu Province, Xi'an and other places in Shaanxi Province as well as Xinjiang. A | |
|further development of paper is credited to Cai Lun of the Eastern Han (25-220). He used plant fiber such as tree| |
|bark, bits of rope, rags and worn-out fishing nets as raw materials. In 105, Cai presented the first batch of | |
|paper made under his supervision to the Han emperor, who was so delighted that he named the material "Marquis | |
|Cai's paper". Eastern Han Dynasty paper found in Wuwei, Gansu, in 1974 carried words which were still clearly | |
|decipherable. Thin, soft, and with a smooth finish and tight texture, this paper is the most refined and oldest | |
|paper discovered to date. | |
|Before paper was invented, the ancient Chinese carved characters on pottery, animal bones and stones, cast them | |
|on bronzes, or wrote them on bamboo or wooden strips and silk fabric. These materials, however, were either too | |
|heavy or two expensive for widespread use. The invention and use of paper brought about a revolution in writing | |
|materials, paving the way for the invention of printing technology in the years to come. | |
|The invention of gunpowder was no doubt one of the most significant achievements of the Middle Ages in China. The| |
|correct prescription for making gunpowder with nitre, sulphur and carbon was probably discovered in the ninth | |
|century. In fact, in his book, Ge Hong in the third century records the procedures for making a kind of mixture | |
|that could be ignited. After the Tang Dynasty (618-907), things took a much faster course as gunpowder was | |
|already used in simple hand-grenades which were thrown by a catapult. In 1126, Li Gang, a local official, | |
|recorded how he ordered the defenders of the city of Kaifeng to "fire cannons" at the invading Nuzhen tribal | |
|people, inflicting heavy casualties on the invaders. | |
|The first prescription for gunpowder appeared in 1044, much earlier than the earliest (1265) gunpowder-making | |
|instructions recorded in Europe. By the Song Dynasty (960-1126), gunpowder was in extensive use. Weapons made | |
|with it included rifles and rockets. The Song army also used a kind of flame thrower which involved packing | |
|gunpowder into bamboo tubes. The earliest picture of a European cannon shows that it bears a striking similarity | |
|to Chinese cannon of 1128. | |
|About 1230, the Song army had cannon powerful enough to breach city walls. | |
|A bronze Chinese cannon cast in 1332 is the oldest one in the world extant today. Many bronze and iron cannons | |
|have been unearthed in China, most of them bearing inscriptions dating them to between 1280 and 1380. | |
|On the basis of printing using carved blocks in the Tang Dynasty, Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty invented | |
|movable type printing in the 1040s, which ushered in a major revolution in the history of printing. | |
|Bi's printing consisted of four processes: making the types, composing the text, printing and retrieving the | |
|movable types. According to Dream Stream Essays, Bi Sheng carved individual characters on squares of sticky clay,| |
|then baked them make clay type pieces. When composing a text, he put a large iron frame on a piece of iron board | |
|and arranged the words within the frame. While one plate was being printed, another plate could be composed. | |
|After printing, the movable types were taken away and stored for future use. Movable type printing has a very | |
|important position in the history of printing, for all later printing methods such as wooden type, copper type | |
|and lead type printing invariably developed on the basis of movable clay types. Bi Sheng created movable type | |
|printing more than four hundred years earlier than it was invented in Europe. | |
|According to ancient records, natural magnets were employed in China as direction-finding devices. This led to | |
|the first compass, called a sinan (south-pointing ladle) during the Warring States Period. In the Han Dynasty | |
|compasses consisted of a bronze on which 24 directions were carved and a rod made from a natural magnet. Such | |
|devices were in use until the eighth century. | |
|In the Song Dynasty, Shen Kuo described the floating compass, suspended in water, a technique which minimized the| |
|effect of motion on the instrument. This enabled the compass to be used for sea navigation for the first time. | |
|The invention of the compass promoted maritime undertakings, and its use soon spread to the Arab world, and | |
|thence to Europe. | |
|China's four great ancient inventions made tremendous contributions to the world's economy and the culture of | |
|mankind. They were also important symbols of China's role as a great world civilization. | |
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