The Four Major Inventions
Papermaking, gunpowder, printing and the compass are four ancient inventions by Chinese people that have had a huge impact on the entire world.
Paper
China was the first nation who invented paper. In China, ancient characters were first cut on tortoise shells and animal bones, and cast on bronze wares. Later, in The Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, bamboo and wood slips and silk were used for writing. Before paper was invented, Qin Shihuang, the first emperor in Chinese history, had to go over 120 kilos of official documents written on bamboo or wooden strips. With the invention of paper, the popularization of knowledge has turned into reality. The invention of paper is an epoch-making event in human history.
The earliest form of paper first appeared in the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-23AD), but the paper was generally very thick, coarse and uneven in their texture, made from pounded and disintegrated hemp fibers. The paper unearthed in a Han tomb in Gansu Province is by far the earliest existing ancient paper, tracing back to the early Western Han Dynasty. In the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), a court official named Cai Lun made a new kind of paper from bark, hemp, rags, fishnet, wheat stalks and other materials. It was relatively cheap, light, thin, durable and more suitable for brush writing. The art of paper-making spread east to Korea and Japan at the beginning of the seventh century. In the eighth century, along with the Silk Road, the Arab countries began to learn how to make paper. It took about 400 years for paper to traverse the Arab world to Europe. In the 14th century many paper mills were established in Italy, from where the workmanship of paper-making spread to the European countries such as Germany. The Italians vigorously produced the material and exported large amounts of it, dominating the European market for many years. In the 16th century, the art of paper-making appeared in Russia and Holland, and it spread to Britain in the 17th century.
Printing
Printing has a long history. The technique we are discussing includes both block printing and movable type printing. Block printing was probably invented between the Sui and Tang dynasties. The skill played an important role in the Song Dynasty but its shortcomings were apparent. It was time-consuming to engrave a model, not easy to store, and not easy to revise errors. It would take several years to print a book, and the engraved blocks had to be stored in a big house.
During the reign of Emperor Ren Zong of the Northern Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng invented moveable type printing. In Shen Kuo' Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays), it describes the invention like this: about 1041-1048 commoner Bi Sheng conceived of movable type made of a mixture of clay and glue hardened by taking. He composed texts by placing the types with a smooth plate coated with a mixture of resin, wax, and paper ash. Gently heating this plate and pressing the tupes with a smooth plate to ensure they are on the same level, and then letting the plate cool, and the type was solidified. Once the impression had been made, the type could be detached by reheating the plate. Bi prepared two iron plates to be used in turn to speed up the whole printing process. He also prepared different numbers of types for characters according to their frequency of use in texts, and arranged them in orderly way to facilitate composing. By the year1000, paged books in the modern style had replaced scrolls. Two color printing (black and red) was seen as early as 1340. This technology then spread to Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Europe. Later, German Johann Gutenberg invented movable type made of metal in the 1440s. Movable Type Printing developed very fast. Based on clay type, type made of wood, lead, tin and copper gradually appeared.
Compass
The compass is called Zhi Nan Zhen in Chinese, literally meaning a needle pointing south. The earliest primitive magnetic compass in China, Si Nan, was probably invented during the Warring States Period, and in several Chinese classics of that period the use of Si Nan was recorded. The spoon or ladle-shaped compass is of magnetic lodestone, and the plate is of Bronze on which 24directions were marked. The circular center represents Heaven, and the square plate represents Earth. The handle of the spoon points south. The spoon is a symbolic representation of the Great Bear. Because Si Nan was too heavy to carry around, later inventors artificially magnetized iron needles or iron pieces in other shapes, and developed the magnetic compass that is now usually seen. The compass greatly improved a ship's ability to navigate over long distances. It was not until the beginning of the 14th century that compass was introduced to Europe from China.
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, as a preeminent representative of science and technology in ancient China, was invented by alchemists. Its ingredients include sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. The invention was made in the Tang Dynasty, and improved in the Song Dynasty. Unlike paper and printing, the birth of gunpowder was quite accidental. It was first invented inadvertently by alchemists while attempting to make an elixir of immorality. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, gunpowder was being used in military affairs. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, frequent wars spurred the development of cannons, and fire-arrows shot from bamboo tubes. The military applications of gunpowder became common and some other weapons like "fire cannon", "rocket", "missile" and "fireball" were introduced. In the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), the method of powder-making was introduced to the Arab world and Europe, bringing a series of revolutions to weapon manufacturing, as well as to stratagem and tactics on the battlefield. From Italy the making of gunpowder soon spread to other European countries, and by the 1350s it had become an effective weapon on the battlefield.
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