The Tiangong Kaiwu (天工開物), or The Exploitation of the Works of Nature was a Chinese encyclopedia compiled by Song Yingxing. It was published in May 1637 with funding provided by Song’s patron Tu Shaokui.
The technical encyclopedia of the Tiangong Kaiwu was divided into separate chapters with broad overall themes.
In the first chapter, The Growing of Grains, Song Yingxing wrote about the great necessity of rural farmers in society, and although they were emulated by tradition, were scoffed at by aristocrats throughout time. Song Yingxing began the chapter with the context of this paragraph in mind:
In aiding the text, he also provided many different drawn illustrations, including a man loosening the soil by ploughing with an ox, soil broken into fine particles by an ox-drawn harrow, men engaging in foot weeding and hand weeding of rice, a vertical waterwheel with hollow wooden cylinders dipping water into an open woodwork tub feeding an irrigation canal, a cylinder-type chain pump powered by a vertical waterwheel placed in a narrow, low-lying stream with a mounted rotating wheel placed at the top of an elevated plane, whereupon the cylinders fed water into an irrigation canal, a wooden river dam correcting the flow of water around a field of crops, a sluice gate controlling the flow of a water channel, a square-pallet chain pump powered by a horizontal waterwheel, connected by an axle to a gear-tooth wheel above, which in turn engaged a vertical gear-tooth wheel, another square-pallet chain pump employing an ox-drawn set of geared wheels, two different types of foot-treadle operated chain pumps, a counterweighted lever for raising or lowering a bucket, a pulley-wheel for raising or lowering a bucket, an ox-drawn plough-seeder with a cone-shaped filter, an ox-drawn pair of stone rollers, used for pressing seeds into the soil, the simpler process of sewing seeds by hand and pressing them into the dirt by foot, and finally, an illustration of men cultivating wheat with broad-headed hoes.
In another chapter, The Preparation of Grains, he also provided illustrations for rolling rice grains with a wooden ox-drawn roller, a crank-operated rotary-fan winnowing machine that separated husks, a hand-operated wooden hulling mill, a hand-operated earthen hulling machine, a process of sieving to separate husk-free grains, two types of foot-operated trip hammers, a hydraulic-powered trip hammer powered by a waterwheel that rotated an axle of overhead cams, a horse-drawn hulling mill, an oxen-drawn grinding mill, a grinding mill operated by a vertical waterwheel, and a rolling mill operated by a horizontal waterwheel, the waterwheel placed in a rushing current found under a wooden deck that rotated the axle of the stone roller above within the interior of a building.
In his admiration for the stern-mounted steering rudder (which had been known to the Chinese since at least the 1st century AD), he wrote:
|“||The nature of a ship is to follow water as the grass bends under the wind. Therefore a rudder is constructed to divide and make a barrier to the water, so that it will not itself determine the direction of the vessel’s motion. As the rudder is turned, the water turbulently presses on it, and the boat reacts to it. The dimensions of the rudder should be such that its base is level with the bottom of the (inland transport) ship. If it is deeper, even by an inch, a shallow may allow the hull to pass but the stern with its rudder may stick firmly in the mud (thus grounding the vessel); then if the wind is at gale strength that inch of wood will give rise to indescribable difficulties. If the rudder is shorter, even by an inch, it will not have enough turning forces to bring the bows round. The water divided and obstructed by the rudder’s strength, is echoed as far as the bows; it is as if there were underneath the hull a swift current carrying the vessel in the very direction desired. So nothing needs to be done at the bows…The rudder is worked by a tiller attached to the top of its post, a ‘door-bar’ (as the sailors call it). To turn the boat to the north the tiller is thrust to the south, and vice versa…The rudder is made of a straight post of wood [more than 10 ft. long and 3 ft. in circumference for the grain-ships] with the tiller at the top, and an axe-shaped blade of boards fitted into a groove cut at its lower end. This blade is firmly fastened to the post with iron nails, and the whole is fixed (with tackle) to the ship to perform its function. At the end of the stern there is a raised part (for the helmsman) which is also called the ‘rudder-house’.||”|
Sericulture and cotton
Song Yingxing wrote that although silk was reserved for those with economic means, both rich and poor used cotton clothing during the winter. In ancient times, he said, cotton was called xima (‘nettle-hemp’). He outlined two different types of cotton and their characteristics: tree cotton (Ceiba pentandra) and the cotton plant (Gossypium indicum). He noted their planting in spring and their picking by autumn, as well as use of a cotton gin to separate cotton seeds that are naturally tightly fastened to fiber bolls of cotton. He noted the process of straightening the cotton fibers with wooden boards, which prepared them for the spinning wheel, the “slivers drawn out to desired size and twisted into yarns.” After describing the weaving process of cotton and the different patterns used, he also described cotton padding during winter, in ancient times it was hemp padding, and that the rich could afford silk padding in their winter attire. In addition to these he also described different fur, woolen, and felt clothing.
Metallurgy, casting, and forging
In China, the ‘five metals’ were gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin, although the term could be extended in general terms to any sort of metal. He wrote of how gold was held to be the most precious metal of them all, and that it could be obtained in the mountains, panned from river sand, and from underground mining. He also outlined the different grades of gold and its malleable qualities. To eliminate trace elements of other metals found in gold alloys, Song Yingxing outlined the use of a crucible technique.
Song Yingxing wrote that ancient rulers of early China cast inscriptions of writing onto bronze tripods since this was a much more durable method of preserving the written record than using the perishable materials found in books and scrolls. He noted that musical and announcing bells of higher quality were made of different copper alloys, while those of lesser quality were made of iron. He also provided weighted formulas of different metal compositions for certain bells, for example, the casting a large bell in an audience hall or pavilion that required 47,000 catties of copper, 4,000 catties of tin, 50 oz. of gold, and 120 oz. of silver in its composition. In the smelting process, long pits for the liquid metal flow had to be dug, having a drymold construction of lime and mortar that was dried and covered in ox fat and beeswax. Then he noted the following process of pounded earth and charcoal powder that was screened and mixed into a mud paste that would be gradually spread on the surface of the wax several inches thick. When dried and heated so that the melted fat and wax could flow out entirely by means of apertures at the base, the bell or tripod could be cast in the vacated cavity between the core and the mold. With the individual casting process for bells and tripods, Song Yingxing also described the intricate individual casting processes for making cooking pots and pans, metal statues, metal barrels of cannons, metallic mirrors, and different metallic coins of copper or iron. He described the processes of hammer forging with the initial casting of an anvil, and noted that in the heating process of forging, coal accounted for 70% of the fuel, charcoal taking the rest at 30%. He also outlined the quench-hardening process of rapid cooling in clear water immediately after iron and steel products were forged. He outlined the different types of knives, axes, hoes, file tools, awls, saws, wood chisels, anchors, and metal needles that could be forged and produced. For the making of the finest swords, he said, they are coated with steel after “a hundred smeltings,” but the core of the sword was still made of wrought iron; this was because a sword made entirely of steel would easily break when making hard strikes.
Edited from Wikipedia