Chapter 197: Wooden Cow and Flowing Horse (Part 2)
This chapter is an expansion pack, so those who are not interested can skip it.
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The wooden ox and flowing horse were a means of transportation invented by Zhuge Liang, Prime Minister of the Shu Han Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period. They are divided into wooden oxen and flowing horses. According to historical records, Zhuge Liang used it during the Northern Expedition from the ninth to the twelfth year of Jianxing. Its load capacity was "one year's grain", which was about four
More than one hundred kilograms, the daily journey is "tens of miles for a special traveler, twenty miles for a group", providing food for the 100,000-strong Shu army. However, the exact method and appearance are still unclear, and there are different explanations for it.
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There are many explanations for the wooden cow and flowing horse. One of them is that the one-wheeled wooden cart is a wooden human-powered walking machine with a swinging cargo box used on mountain roads to transport granular goods.
Imagine that there is a horizontal wooden bar three feet above the ground, four feet long and six inches high. The left end of the wooden bar is cut into the shape of a handlebar and there are three V-shaped holes on the right end. Then imagine that these two wooden bars are arranged in the shape of a rickshaw.
There are two shafts on the left and right. Then imagine that a three-foot-long shaft is inserted between the top holes of the two fret-shaped shapes, and a small shaft is hinged in the two holes below the fret-shaped shape that can swing along the small axis.
A wooden pillar with one end touching the ground, this four-legged rickshaw is a wooden ox.
The Liuma is a wooden box that opens upward and has a hole on the vertical center line of the left and right side walls near the upper edge. The three-foot-long shaft of the wooden cow passes through these two holes of the Liuma.
It can move forward and backward on this axis. In order to prevent the load such as millet and rice in the box from moving left and right, there is a longitudinal partition dividing the box into two, and the grain is first put into cloth bags and then into the box.
When the wooden ox spreads its front and rear legs, it can stop on the slope at any time. The spread is limited by the limit nails on the four-foot-long shaft. Pull the handle of the shaft forward and push down, and the top hole will move.
Towards the left hole of the fret, that is, the center of gravity moves to the front legs. At this time, the right hole of the fret is lifted up, that is, the hind legs are lifted up in the air without any force, and are pushed downwards by gravity or the pins on the horse.
Front legs close together.
When the center of gravity moves out of the left hole of the pin character, the wooden cow has moved half a step forward, and it will overturn if it moves forward any further. At this time, the handle can be quickly pulled up and forward to move the top hole of the pin character backward.
The center of gravity falls on the hind legs above the right hole of the pin character. The result of pulling forward is that the hind legs are spread apart, and at the same time, the front legs are pushed forward by the pins on the horse. The wooden ox walks the remaining half step in this way.
The flowing horse will swing back and forth like a kick under the up and down movements of the wooden ox. When to pull up, press and pull the handle, of course, it must match the swing frequency of the flowing horse, so the operation requires certain skills and experience.
.As long as the flow horse maintains a stable swing, it is definitely the least labor-intensive for the operator. When the wooden cow flow horse goes downhill on a straight road, it can be fully automated. At this time, the pins mounted on the flow horse can be used to lift and press down the horizontal wooden strips.
And front and hind legs.
Wooden cows and stray horses can be traced back as far as the late Spring and Autumn Period. According to Wang Chong's record in "Lunheng": Lu Ban, a famous carpenter in the Lu State, skillfully made a wooden chariot and horse for his old mother, and "the mechanism is complete, and it will never be returned once it is driven away."
Perhaps inspired by Luban's wooden chariots and horses, Zhuge Liang in the Three Kingdoms era invented wooden oxen and stray horses and used them to transport military supplies on rugged plank roads, and "people don't work hard, and oxen don't eat." Wang Chong records only a few of Luban's wooden chariots and horses.
Compared with the language, the descriptions of Zhuge Liang's wooden cow and flowing horses in books such as "Three Kingdoms" and "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" can be regarded as lifelike, vivid and extremely detailed. But for some reason, Chen Shou and Luo Guanzhong did not mention the production principles and techniques of the wooden cow and flowing horses.
One word.
The 120th chapter of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" "Sima Yi occupied the Wei Bridge in Beiyuan and Zhuge Liang built a wooden ox and a flowing horse." It describes that Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan six times and captured Meng Huo seven times. He shocked the Central Plains and invented a new means of transportation called the "wooden ox and flowing horse".
It solved the problem of transporting grain and grass for hundreds of thousands of troops. This tool is more advanced than the current one, does not use energy, and will not cause an energy crisis.
The method of building a wooden ox goes like this: "It has a square belly with a bent head, one leg and four legs; the head is in the collar and the tongue is stuck in the belly. It carries a lot but travels a little: a person who walks alone is tens of miles, and a person who walks in a group is twenty miles. The one with a curved head is the head of the cow.
, the double one is the cow's feet, the horizontal one is the cow's collar, the turned one is the cow's feet, the covered one is the cow's back, the square one is the cow's belly, the hanging one is the cow's tongue, the curved one is the cow's ribs, the carved one is the cow's teeth, the upright one is the cow's teeth.
The horns are the horns of the ox, the thin ones are the ox martingale, and the photo is the ox's autumn axis. The ox raises its two shafts, a man can walk six feet, and the ox can walk four paces. Each ox carries ten people's food for one month. If the people don't work hard, the ox won't eat.
"
The method of building a flowing horse goes like this: "The ribs are three feet and five inches long, three inches wide, and two inches thick: the same for the left and right sides. The front axle hole is divided into four inches for the head and two inches for the diameter. The front foot hole is divided into two inches for the diameter.
The front axle hole is four inches and five inches wide, and one inch wide. The front axle hole is divided into two inches and seven points when the front foot hole is removed. The hole is two inches long and one inch wide. The rear axle hole is one inch and five minutes apart when the front bar is removed. The size is the same as the front.
The rear leg hole is divided into three inches and five minutes, and the size is the same as the front. The rear lever hole is divided into two inches and seven points, and the rear lever hole is divided into four inches and five minutes. The front bar is one foot long.
Eight cun, two cun wide, one cun thick and five cents. The back bar is equal to the same. Two square capsules, eight cun thick, two chi seven cun long, one chi six cun high and five cents, and one chi six cun wide: each one receives
Two cups of rice and three buckets of dendrobium. From the upper bar hole, remove the lower seven inches of the ribs: the same for the front and rear. Remove the upper bar hole and the lower bar hole and divide it into one foot and three inches. The hole is one inch long and five minutes, wide and seven inches: the eight holes are the same. The front and rear four feet
It is two inches wide, one inch and five minutes thick. It is shaped like an elephant, four inches long and four inches in diameter. The center of the hole is a tripod pole, two feet and one inch long, one inch and five minutes wide, and one inch and four minutes thick, with the same pole ears."
Zhuge Liang built wooden oxen and flowing horses to transport grain and grass. Since ancient times, there has been no consensus on what a wooden oxen and flowing horses look like. There are many theories, but none of them is more consistent with the original situation.
More than 200 years later, Zu Chongzhi, a scientific and technological genius in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, is said to have recreated the wooden cow and the flowing horse. What is incomprehensible is that he also left no information about it.
The description of the Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse in the book is: a square belly with a curved head, one leg and four legs, the head is in the collar, and the tongue is stuck in the belly. It carries a lot but travels little. Those who walk alone are dozens of miles, and those who travel in a group are twenty miles. Those who hang down are cattle.
The tongue is the ribs of the cow, the teeth are the teeth, the horns are the horns, and the cows are raising their shafts. A man can walk six feet, and an ox can take four steps.
Liuma: The ribs are three feet and five inches long, the same length for the left and right sides. The front axle hole is four inches apart from the head, the front foot hole is four inches apart from the front axis hole, and there are two square capsules.
Judging from the records in the book, the wooden ox is a device equivalent to an engine, while the flowing horse is just a device for loading things, equivalent to the carriage of a car.
Judging from the structure of the wooden bull, it uses a power-assisted mechanism, and a flywheel mechanism may be added inside. From its operation, it uses a gear mechanism and a crank-link mechanism. When a person pushes the wooden bull, the crank link inside
The rod mechanism drives the flywheel through the gear. After the flywheel runs, the inertia of the flywheel gives power to the wooden ox. In this way, the purpose of saving labor is achieved.
The structure of the Liuma is actually a pallet truck, but its center of gravity and bearings have been changed, making it less labor-intensive to use than the previous pallet trucks.
The wooden ox has four legs, which are actually wheels. In ancient times, there was no professional mechanical terminology, so the expressions for some parts were different from those today.
There is speculation that the wooden cow walks on its feet, but this requires a hydraulic mechanism. Under the conditions at the time, this was impossible. It was also impossible to shake it by hand. Because there are too many mechanisms used in this way, some mechanisms
It hadn't been invented yet.
As for the cow tongue being unable to walk after twisting it, the reason is very simple. There is a ratchet mechanism inside to prevent reversal.
More than 1,700 years ago, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of the Shu Han Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period, invented the wooden ox and flowing horse. However, what kind of transportation tool is the wooden ox and flowing horse? People have put forward various opinions and argued endlessly for thousands of years.
According to historical records, "Three Kingdoms? Zhuge Liang's Biography" records: "Liang Xing was good at ingenuity, and his profits and losses were repeated with crossbows, wooden oxen and horses, all of which were unexpected." "Three Kingdoms? Zhuge Liang's Biography" records: "In the ninth year of Jianxing, Liang returned to Qishan to
After the wooden oxen were transported, the army ran out of food. In the spring of the twelfth year, Liang learned that the masses came out from the Xiegu, transported by flowing horses, and based on Wugong Wuzhangyuan, they fought with King Sima Xuan against Weinan."
The above records clearly indicate that the wooden ox and the flowing horse were indeed Zhuge Liang's invention, and that the wooden ox and the flowing horse were two different tools. Judging from the chronological order of the use of the wooden ox and the flowing horse, the wooden ox and the flowing horse came first, and the flowing horse was an improved version of the wooden ox.
Pei Songzhi of the Southern and Northern Dynasties who wrote annotations for "Three Kingdoms" quoted a record about a wooden cow and a flowing horse in the now-lost "Zhuge Liang Collection", and described the image of the wooden cow and recorded some of the dimensions of the flowing horse.
However, because no physical objects or graphics have survived to later generations, future generations' understanding of wooden cows and flowing horses has always been very rare and shrouded in mist.
Two hundred years after Zhuge Liang created a wooden cow and a flowing horse, Zu Chongzhi, a technological genius in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, is said to have created a wooden cow and flowing horse. "Book of Southern Qi? The Biography of Zu Chong" says: "Zhuge Liang had a wooden cow and flowing horse, which is a tool that will not be affected by Feng Shui.
Labor force.”
What is incomprehensible is that he also did not leave any detailed information.
However, the record about Zu Chongzhi’s creation of a wooden cow and a flowing horse provides evidence for the view of automatic machinery. This is a major point of view on the wooden cow and flowing horse. It is believed that the use of gears to make machinery was common during the Three Kingdoms period. The wooden cow and flowing horse praised by later generations should be a method that uses the gear principle.
Automatic machinery made.
In Huangsha Town, Mian County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, historical records record that this is the place where Zhuge Liang built the Wooden Cow and the Horse. According to research, Zhuge Liang used the Wooden Cow and the Horse three times in total during the 8-year Northern Expedition. This is where the Wooden Cow and the Horse started from and traveled 250 years.
Kilometers of plank road reaches the front line of Qishan Wuzhangyuan.
A local old man once described the legendary wooden cow and horse: "The horse's head is made of wood, and other scattered small pieces form the horse's body, and then the horse's legs are assembled, and a gear is placed in the middle of the belly. There is a wrench behind the wooden horse. When operating,
One push takes one step, another push takes one step." It can be seen from this legend that the wooden cow and the flowing horse have gears, and it seems to also use the principle of leverage.
Are wooden cows and flowing horses with wheels or four legs? Chen Shidao of the Northern Song Dynasty recorded the following: "There are small carts in Shu, which can be pushed by one person and carry eight stones, with the front like an ox's head; there are also large carts, which are pushed by four people and carry ten stones.
"Built wood, cows and horses."
There is also a record in "Shijiyuan" written by Gao Cheng of the Song Dynasty: "The wooden ox is the one with the front shaft of the current cart; the flowing horse is the one with the independent pusher."
Lin Qing, a Manchu water conservancy expert in the Qing Dynasty, also said that the earthen carts used in water conservancy projects at that time were the wooden ox and flowing horses recorded by Chen Shidao: "The earthen carts have a single wheel to collect soil and also carry barnyard grass. When Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of Shu, went on an expedition, he built wooden oxen and flowing horses to transport wages.
Today's earthen carts are pushed alone, but they are still made from the legacy of Cang Ge."
A wooden ox is a wheelbarrow with a front shaft, and a flowing horse is a single-pushed cart without a front shaft. This is also the main view on the wooden ox and the flowing horse. However, even the records of the Song Dynasty are more than 1,000 years old from the Three Kingdoms period. What is this view?
How credible is it?
The mouth of the Bao River Valley is the starting point of the Baoxie Plank Road, located 20 kilometers north of Hanzhong City. More than 1,700 years ago, Zhuge Liang's wooden ox and flowing horse set out from here to transport grain and grass to the front line.
What is unexpected is that the ancient plank roads were very gentle and not steep. It turned out that the ancient people were very smart in opening the Baoxie Plank Road. They chose the slowest road in the Qinling Mountains and climbed up the mountain without knowing it.
Went down with difficulty.
On such roads, four-legged machinery cannot be as efficient as wheels anyway, so it is unlikely that the wooden ox and flowing horse at that time were four-legged walking machinery, and the four-wheeled vehicle was even less likely, because the four-wheeled vehicle was used as a steering wheel.
It is more difficult to control. Even on flat ground, the turning of a four-wheeled vehicle is not very flexible, so the possibility is even smaller under that special condition.
From the analysis of the condition of the plank road, it seems that only the unicycle is most likely to be the wooden ox and the horse in history. Some people may ask, if the wooden ox and the horse are unicycles, according to records, the wooden ox has four legs. How are these four legs reflected in the unicycle?
Also, how to explain the names of some components including hidden mechanisms?
Recently, Kang Hong, a scholar in Macao, put forward a new explanation for the wooden cow and flowing horse. He believes that the wooden cow and flowing horse is a winch ropeway system driven by a gear set. In the deep mountains of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, similar systems are still in use.
It is recorded in ancient books: "A wooden ox has a square belly and a curved head, and one foot and four legs. ... A person who walks alone can walk dozens of miles, and a person who walks in a group can walk twenty miles. ... A person can walk six feet, and an ox can walk four steps. A day can travel twenty miles.
, and people don’t work hard.”
Based on this description, the traditional view is that the wooden cow and horse should be a wooden cow and horse-shaped transportation tool. It can travel twenty miles a day. Since the technological level two thousand years ago was impossible to create a transportation tool of this level, people generally believe that
This is just a legend.
The reason why this misjudgment occurs is because of the misunderstanding of whether the subject who walks twenty miles a day is a human or a wooden ox. If you put together the words "Walking twenty miles a day, and people don't work hard" in a coherent way, you can clearly understand "Walking a day walks twenty miles."
The people who were twenty miles away were the people pushing the winch, and the wooden ox didn't move at all.
The new research first raises the question: Wooden ox and flowing horse are so easy to use, they should be vigorously promoted and spread. However, wooden ox and flowing horse were not popularized by the public, and even Zhuge Liang did not often use wooden ox and flowing horse in all places at that time. This shows that wooden ox and flowing horse are not popular among the public.
Use has considerable limitations.
By analyzing Zhuge Liang's use of wooden oxen and flowing horses, we can preliminarily conclude that this limitation is mainly reflected in the regional environment.
Shuhan is located in present-day Sichuan. The roads are rugged and mostly winding. It is long and difficult to walk on winding roads between mountains that are not far apart in a straight line. Setting up winches and ropeways is undoubtedly a quick and convenient way. Now Sichuan
, Yunnan’s mountainous ropeway is still the main means of transportation, and mountain people rely on it to go out of the mountains and go to the market. In other areas, the winch ropeway cannot be widely used, so the wooden cow and the flowing horse are not popular.
Before Zhuge Liang left Qishan, he had conquered Menghuo in the south, and he should have heard about the cableway that was widely used in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. According to their functions, the wooden cow and the horse should be a winch and cableway with a variable speed bevel gear set or worm, turbine drive. The winch
It needs to be stable. Therefore, it is made into the shape of an ox to show its strength. The hanging bucket on the ropeway needs to be light and fast, so it is made into the shape of a horse to show its speed. It is also possible that the wooden ox is a heavy-duty transport machine, with a winch plus a ropeway, and a horse.
It is a light transport machinery, a simple ropeway.
This type of structure is only suitable for mountainous areas with inconvenient transportation and is not suitable for transportation in plain areas, so it cannot be widely promoted.
The wooden cow and flowing horse in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has always been a mystery, and it has fascinated countless people. The production conditions at that time were simple and far inferior to modern times, but the structure of the "wooden cow and flowing horse" seemed simple and easy to implement, and it was in line with the situation at that time. If it were used at that time,
"A Wooden Ox and a Flowing Horse" are written in a magical way,
Maybe we would have dismissed it as a myth a long time ago, but because what was written in the book is in line with the situation at that time, we have to doubt that there might really be wooden cows and flowing horses at that time. But the time is long and
The drama of the novel leaves us somewhat helpless.
If the "Wooden Cow and Flowing Horse" can really walk without eating or drinking as described in the book, this is obviously inconsistent with the current scientific law of conservation of energy. Because if the "Wooden Cow and Flowing Horse" wants to walk, it will definitely consume energy.
There are no energy substances such as oil or natural gas, and it does not eat or drink. Where does it get its energy?
This is a question worth considering. If you want to create a wooden cow that flows like a horse like the one described in the novel, you must abandon the current law of "energy conservation". Similarly, if you want to create a "wooden cow that flows like a horse", it will definitely break the "wooden cow that flows like a horse" that has influenced us for several generations.
"The law of conservation of energy" must be a deed that attracts the world's attention. There are countless mysteries in history that we need to solve. This may be just a fictitious item, but until the mystery is revealed, no one can deny its existence.
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Who is the maker of wooden cows and stray horses?
In the 102nd chapter of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is a description of Zhuge Liang's making of wooden oxen and lost horses: Suddenly one day, Chief Shi Yang Yi came to report and said: "Now all the grain and rice are in the Jiange, and it is inconvenient for men and women to carry them. What can I do?"
Kong Ming said with a smile: "I have been planning for a long time. The former built wood materials and bought large trees in Xichuan, and taught people to make wooden oxen and horseback, and carry grain and rice. It is very good."
Convenience. Cattle and horses do not need water to eat, so they can be transported continuously day and night." Everyone was shocked and said: "Since ancient times and now, we have never heard of wooden cows and horses. I wonder what wonderful method the Prime Minister has to create this wonderful thing?" Kong Ming said: "I
It has been made according to the law, but it is not yet complete. Now I will first tell you the method of making a wooden cow and a flowing horse. The dimensions are square and round, the length and width, and the width and width. I will write them clearly for you to look at." Everyone was very happy.
Then he introduced the method of making a wooden ox: a square belly with a curved head, one leg and four legs; the head is placed in the collar, and the tongue is stuck in the belly... Each ox carries ten people's food for one month, and the people do not work hard.
No food or drink. The method of making a flowing horse: the rib length is three feet and five inches, the width is three inches, and the thickness is two inches and two inches... The generals looked at it once, and they all bowed down and said
"The Prime Minister is a true god!" After Sima Yi heard about it, he sent people to steal several wooden oxen and stray horses. He disassembled these wooden oxen and horses, drew pictures and imitated them. In less than half a month, he actually made them.
More than a thousand horses were produced. Once used, the effect was the same as that of the Shu army. They ran and retreated as if they were alive.
Therefore, the Wei army also used them to carry grain and grass to Shaanxi, thinking that they had a plan and "constant traffic". Little did they know that this was exactly Zhuge Liang's plan.
It turned out that, on the surface, the wooden oxen and flowing horses made by the Wei army were almost the same as those made by the Shu army, but there was a secret mechanism inside the tongues of these oxen and horses. When Zhuge Liang discovered that the Wei army began to use their imitation wooden oxen and flowing horses to carry grain and grass, he couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart.
Secretly pleased, he sent General Wang Ping to lead 1,000 soldiers dressed as Wei troops to sneak into the transport team, and secretly twisted the tongues in the mouths of wooden cows and stray horses, so that the cows and horses could not move.
Just when the Wei soldiers suspected it was a monster, Zhuge Liang sent 500 soldiers dressed as magic soldiers, with ghost heads and animal bodies, painted their faces with five colors, setting off fireworks and driving cattle and horses.
The Wei soldiers were stunned, thinking that Zhuge Liang had the help of gods and ghosts, and did not dare to pursue him. Zhuge Liang obtained a lot of food and grass easily.
Such a miraculous means of transportation, which can "not work hard for people but not feed cattle", was considered a masterpiece of ingenuity at the time. Therefore, there is a poem praising it: "The steep sword pass drives the stray horses, and the rugged sloping valley drives the wooden ox." Later generations
If you can do this, will losing be so safe that it makes people sad?" However, according to the current law of conservation of energy, a wooden cow and a flowing horse are similar to a perpetual motion machine, which is inconsistent with historical laws. Therefore, many people believe that the so-called wooden cow and flowing horse are pure
It’s a novelist’s fabrication.
Production tools that have always been common at home and abroad in ancient and modern times were jointly created by workers. Even China's four great inventions "papermaking, compass, gunpowder, and movable type printing", among which Cai Lun is said to have invented paper, is also to affirm Cai Lun.
Contribution to the development of pulp technology was agreed upon.
During the Qingli period of the Northern Song Dynasty, civilian Bi Sheng invented movable type printing on the basis of the popularization of woodblock printing. It is inevitable that there will be doubts. Is it possible that no one else except Bi Sheng used stone monolithic character printing!
As we all know, there is no specific inventor of the tools of transportation in ancient and modern times, such as the single-wheeled cart, the two-wheeled cart, the four-wheeled cart, and the three-wheeled cart. Zhuge Liang is a famous historical figure. He served as a military prime minister throughout his life. He did not create any production tools or inventions.
The experience of military weapons. Therefore, it is worthy of questioning and reflection to say that "wooden ox and flowing horse" was invented by Zhuge Kongming!