page_title: List of Chinese inventions
section_title: L
hierarchical_section_title: List of Chinese inventions / Shang and later / L
caption_attribution_description: An illustration of a multistage rocket from the Huolongjing, a Chinese military treatise written in the 14th century by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji, the preface added in the year 1412. This missile was called the "fire-dragon issuing from the water" (huo long chu shui), a two-stage rocket. When the carrier or booster rockets were about to burn out they automatically ignited a swarm of smaller rocket-arrows which issued through the dragon mouth and fell upon the intended enemy target. The design seems to have been for use mainly in naval warfare. Since the trajectory was very flat the weapon may be regarded as an ancestor of the modern exocet. This illustration also appears on page 510 of Joseph Needham's book Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 7.
context_page_description: China has been the source of many innovations, scientific discoveries and inventions. This includes the Four Great Inventions: papermaking, the compass, gunpowder, and printing. The list below contains these and other inventions in China attested by archaeological or historical evidence.
  The historical region now known as China experienced a history involving mechanics, hydraulics and mathematics applied to horology, metallurgy, astronomy, agriculture, engineering, music theory, craftsmanship, naval architecture and warfare. By the Warring States period, inhabitants of the Warring States had advanced metallurgic technology, including the blast furnace and cupola furnace, while the finery forge and puddling process were known by the Han Dynasty. A sophisticated economic system in imperial China gave birth to inventions such as paper money during the Song Dynasty. The invention of gunpowder during the mid 9th century led to an array of inventions such as the fire lance, land mine, naval mine, hand cannon, exploding cannonballs, multistage rocket and rocket bombs with aerodynamic wings and explosive payloads.
context_section_description: Land mine: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land mine in history was by a Song Dynasty brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who used an 'enormous bomb' (huo pao) to kill Mongol soldiers invading Guangxi in 1277. However, the first detailed description of the land mine was given in the Huolongjing text written by Ming Dynasty writer, military strategist and philosopher Jiao Yu (fl. 14th to early 15th century) and Liu Bowen (1311–1375) during the late Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) and early Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Jiao and Liu wrote that land mines were spherical, made of cast iron, and their fuses ignited by a mechanism tripped by enemy movement; although Jiao and Liu did not describe this trip mechanism in full detail, a later text of 1606 revealed that enemy movement released a pin that allowed hidden underground weights to fall and spin a chord around an axle that rotated a spinning wheel acting as a flint to spark a train of fuses.
  Land sailing: The usage of the land sail in China dates back to at least the Northern and Southern dynasties period. The earliest text describing the Chinese use of mounting masts and sails on large vehicles is the Book of the Golden Hall Master written by the Daoist scholar and crown prince Xiao Yi, who later became Emperor Yuan of Liang (r. 552–554 AD).
  Leeboard: To avoid leeward drift caused by the force of wind while sailing, the leeboard was invented; it was a board lowered onto the side of the ship opposite to the direction of the wind, helping the ship to stay upright and afloat even if the hull was breached. British writers Paul Johnstone and Sean McGrail state that an odd-looking second paddle on a bronze drum of the Dong Son culture (centered in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam) may depict a leeboard in use as early as 300 BC. Leeboards may have been invented in China as early as the 8th century during the Tang Dynasty and are featured shortly after in 9th century engraved artwork found at the Borobudur monument built during the Sailendra dynasty of Central Java (Indonesia). Leeboards were first used in the West by the Dutch, during the 15th to 16th centuries (possibly used on early Dutch cogs, or perhaps influenced by a Chinese origin).
  Liubo: The now defunct board game liubo for the most part remains an enigma for modern scholars still deciphering exactly how it was played; its association with both gambling and divination make it a unique game. The earliest two liubo game boards are found in the Zhongshan Tomb 3 at Shijiazhuang, Hebei. Similar finds, dating from the mid 4th century BC, are also found in the Chu Tomb 197 and 314 at Jiangling, Hubei. Liubo game boards have been found in several Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) tombs; 1 wooden board at Jiangdu in Jiangsu; 1 wooden board in Tomb 8 at Fenghuangshan in Hubei; 1 lacquered set of liubo in Tomb 3 at Mawangdui Han tombs site in Hunan; 1 lacquered board in Tomb 1 at Dafentou in Yunnan; 1 bronze board at Xilin in Guangxi. During the Han Dynasty, an argument over the divination portents of the game as a result of a playing session led to a fight between a Western Han crown prince and Liu Xian (劉賢), where the latter was killed in the scuffle which (in part) prompted his father Liu Pi (劉濞), the King of Wu, to rebel against central Han authority in the Rebellion of the Seven States (154 BC). The British sinologist and historian Michael Loewe asserts that the set pieces of liubo were symbolic of the forces of the Chinese Five Elements, wu xing.
  Louche: The louche (耬車) was a mobile animal-drawn agricultural seed drill invented by the Chinese agronomist Zhao Guo, a Han official in charge of agricultural production during the reign of Han Wudi in the Han dynasty. According to the records of Political Commentator by the Eastern Han dynasty writer Cui Shi, the Louche consisted of three feet and thus was called three-legged Lou. The three legs had three ditch diggers under it used for sowing. The Louche was animal powered and was pulled by an ox and the leg of the Louche directly dug a ditch in the flattened soil, 
caption: A multistage rocket from the 14th-century military manuscript Huolongjing, Ming Dynasty
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