China’s Four Great Inventions

Chinese admiral Zheng He, who made eight sea voyages between 1405 and 1433, was the first person to be officially recorded to use the compass. After the compass was introduced into Europe, it opens the ocean of the world and led to discovery of the New World.

China’s Four Great Inventions

China has been a great source of many significant inventions. There are four most prominent ones that are paper, the technology of printing, gunpowder and compass.

Papers

Paper was invented in the Han Dynasty by a government officer named Tsai Lun from the eastern Han Dynasty.

Paper was made by mixing finely chopped mulberry bark and hemp rags with water, pounded it with a wooden tool, mashing it flat after pouring the mixture onto a flat piece of coarsely woven cloth, followed by the activity of pressing out the water and letting it drain through the cloth, then at last, letting it dry in the sun by leaving only the fibres on the cloth.

The invention of paper was a great step forward to the civilization of China and also the civilization of the world, by enabling thoughts and ideas to be written down more easily and also more affordable to more people.

Printing

Block printing – The frontispiece of the world's oldest surviving book, the Diamond Sutra printed in the year 868, was discovered at Dunhuang Cave, along the Silk Road. The book, in the form of a roll, is the earliest woodcut illustration in a printed book.

It was invented during the Tang dynasty. The text was first written on a piece of thin paper, then glued face down onto a wooden plate. The characters were then carved out to make a wood-block printing plate, which was used to print the text. Wood-block printing took a long time as a new block had to be carved for every page in a book. But when a stamp was completed, an expert could print a thousand or more sheets in a day.

Movable printing – it was created around 1040 by Bi Sheng out of porcelain. Innovation and improvement was made through the Song Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty.

Is the system of printing and typography using movable pieces of metal type, made by casting from matrices struck by letterpunches. The movable printings allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing.

Gunpowder

Was invented around 1000AD in China and primarily used as firecrackers. Explosive mixture was discovered accidentally by combining sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre (potassium nitrate).

In the 8th century during the late Tang dynasty, a formula for gunpowder was established. Later simple hand-grenades were invented. During the Song dynasty, gunpowder was used in rifles and rockets. Besides that, gunpowder was also packed into bamboo tubes and used as a primitive form of flame-thrower. 

Compass

The first compass was made with lodestone that is an iron oxide-based mineral that aligns itself n a north-south direction due to the earth’s magnetic field.