As one of the earliest countries to apply machinery, China boasts a lot of unique inventions like the compass vehicle, the seismograph, and the incense burner with their respective characteristics on using power and mechanical structural design.
Ⅰ. Metallurgy and the development of machinery
Ancient metallurgy in China attained very high achievements very early. The bronze ware during the Shang and Zhou dynasties (about 1600BC to 221BC) are characterized by their unique vigorous and firm style. A bronze sword unearthed in Northwest China's Gansu Province, one of the earliest bronze ware ever found in China, was produced at least 4,800 years ago.
Roughly processed primitive tools for scratching, hacking, smashing, and drilling first appeared in China 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. The use of grinding in making tools appeared 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, contributing to sharper blades of the stoneware. Besides, the blades of the stoneware from that time vary in shape from single and double blades to convex, concave, and round blades.
The earliest invention in machinery came about 28,000 years ago when the bow and arrow were invented. The potter's wheel was invented somewhere in the period between eight millennium BC and 2,800 BC. Farm tools appeared approximately from 6,000 BC to 5,000 BC. Besides the more familiar tools like the stone axe and stone sword, there were also the stone hoe, stone scoop, stone sickle, mussel shell sickle, bone sickle, and bone thresher. On the stone axe and stone sword, there were already intentionally grinded holes.
In the time prior to the Xia Dynasty (about 21st to 16th century BC) and during the Xia Dynasty, the wooden wheel without spoke and the one with spokes successively appeared. Delicately double-wheeled carts appeared during the Shang (about 16th century BC to 11th century BC) and West Zhou (about 1100-771BC) dynasties, while water vehicles like dugout canoe and rafts appeared even earlier.
At the end of the Neolithic period, people in China could already use stone and clay molds to create some simple tools and weapons. With some significant improvements in handicraft and skills in the Shang Dynasty, the bronze ware culture at the time was brilliant. The bronze casting technology, represented by the mighty 875-kilo Sima Wu Ding (an ancient cooking and ceremonial vessel) as well as the delicate Zenghou Yi Bronze Plate, was very highly sophisticated.
The time from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Wei Dynasty (770BC-265AD) witnessed rapid development in ancient machinery. Ironware and pig iron casting technology began to appear during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC). The emergence of steel accelerated the transition of Chinese society from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the middle of the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-24AD), cast wares that were as thin as three to five millimeters appeared.
