page_title: List of Chinese inventions
section_title: F
hierarchical_section_title: List of Chinese inventions / Shang and later / F
caption_attribution_description: The field mill featured in the Yuanxi Qiqi Tushuo Luzui ("Collected Diagrams and Explanations of the Wonderful Machines of the Far West") of 1627, compiled and translated by the German Jesuit Johann Schreck (1576&#8211;1630) and Ming Dynasty Chinese author Wang Zheng (1571&#8211;1644), drawn after the 1607 treatise of Vittorio Zonca showing Pompeo Targone's field mill of 1580. However, long before it was used in the Huguenot Wars in Europe, it was actually invented in China at least by the Later Zhao (319&#8211;351) era when it was mentioned in around 340 AD. In an ironic twist, it reentered China as a 16th century European innovation; by that time it was completely forgotten in China.
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: Field mill: In the Yezhongji ('Record of Affairs at the Capital Ye of the Later Zhao Dynasty') written by Lu Hui (fl. 350 AD), various mechanical devices are described which were invented by two Later Zhao (319–351) engineers known as Xie Fei, a Palace Officer, and Wei Mengbian, the Director of the Imperial Workshops. One of these is the field mill, which was essentially a cart with millstones placed onto the frame; these were mechanically rotated by the movement of the cart's terrain wheels in order to grind wheat and other cereal crops. A similar vehicle these two invented was the "pounding cart", which had wooden statues mounted on the top which were actually mechanical figures who operated real tilt hammers in order to hull rice; again, the device only functioned when the cart was moved forward and the wheels turned. The field mill lost its use in China sometime after the Later Zhao, but it was invented separately in Europe in 1580 by the Italian military engineer Pompeo Targone. It was featured in a treatise by the Italian engineer and writer Vittorio Zonca in 1607, and then in a Chinese book of 1627 (concerning European technology) that was compiled and translated by the German Jesuit polymath Johann Schreck (1576–1630) and the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) Chinese author Wang Zheng (王徵 1571–1644), although by then it was considered by the Chinese to be an original Western contraption.
  Finery forge: In addition to accidental lumps of low-carbon wrought iron produced by excessive injected air in Chinese cupola furnaces, the ancient Chinese also created wrought iron by using the finery forge at least by the 2nd century BC, the earliest specimens of cast and pig iron fined into wrought iron and steel found at the early Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) site at Tieshengguo. Pigott speculates that the finery forge existed in the previous Warring States period (403–221 BC), due to the fact that there are wrought iron items from China dating to that period and there is no documented evidence of the bloomery ever being used in China. The fining process involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation. Wagner writes that in addition to the Han Dynasty hearths believed to be fining hearths, there is also pictoral evidence of the fining hearth from a Shandong tomb mural dated 1st to 2nd century AD, as well as a hint of written evidence in the 4th century AD Daoist text Taiping Jing.
  Fire arrow: One of the earliest weaponized forms of gunpowder was the fire arrow which received its name from the translated Chinese term huǒjiàn (火箭), which literally means fire arrow. In China a 'fire arrow' referred to a gunpowder projectile consisting of a bag of incendiary gunpowder attached to the shaft of an arrow from the 9th century onward. Later on solid fuel rockets utilizing gunpowder were used to provide arrows with propulsive force and the term fire arrow became synonymous with rockets in the Chinese language. In other languages such as Sanskrit 'fire arrow' (agni astra) underwent a different semantic shift and became synonymous with 'cannon.' Fire arrows are the predecessors of fire lances, the first firearm.
  Firecracker: The predecessor of the firecracker was a type of heated bamboo, used as early as 200 BC, that exploded when heated continuously. The Chinese name for firecrackers, baozhu, literally means "exploding bamboo." After the invention of gunpowder, gunpowder firecrackers had a shape that resembled bamboo and produced a similar sound, so the name "exploding bamboo" was retained. In traditional Chinese culture, firecrackers were used to scare off evil spirits.
  Fire lance: The fire lance was a proto-gun developed in the 10th century with a tube of first bamboo and later on metal that shot a weak gunpowder blast of flame and shrapnel; its earliest representation comes from a painting found at Dunhuang. The earliest confirmed employment of the fire lance in warfare was by Song dynasty forces against the Jin in 1132 during the siege of De'an (modern Anlu, Hubei Province), w
caption: The field mill in the Chinese book Yuanxi Qiqi Tushuk Luzui (Collected Diagrams and Explanations of the Wonderful Machines of the Far West), by German Jesuit Johann Schreck and Wang Zheng, 1627
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