Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century: T'ien-kung K'ai-wu

388 Pages·1997·19.842 MB·English

by  Sung Ying-Hsing

CHINESE gas iVee lkeve;
Thiv THE S a ¢
SEVENTEENT Hc en
T/IEN-KUNG
oy, ‘a WU.

7/98
EBOOKS
| $1.43
GEN sr TECHNOLOGY
FINS EET E
SEEN EEN PEECEN TURY
T'IEN-KUNG KAI-WU
SUNG YING-HSING
TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE AND ANNOTATED
BY E-TU ZEN SUN AND SHIOU-CHUAN SUN
B= m
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
MINEOLA, NEW YORK
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 by E-tu Zen Sun
All rights reserved under Pan American and International
Copyright Conventions.
Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30
Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.
Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company,
Ltd., 3 The Lanchesters, 162-164 Fulham Palace Road, London
W6 9ER.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 1997, is an unabridged
republication of the work first published by The Pennsylvania State
University Press, University Park and London, in 1966.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sung, Ying-hsing, b. 1587.
[Tien kung k’ai wu. English]
Chinese technology in the seventeenth century ; Chinese tech-
nology in the seventeenth century. Sung Ying-hsing ; translated
from the Chinese and annotated by E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-
chuan Sun.
p. cm.
Originally published: University Park : Pennsylvania State
University, 1966.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-486-29593-1 (pbk.)
1. Technology—China—History—17th century. 2. Science—
China—History—17th century. I. Sun, E-tu Zen, 1921— II. Sun,
Shiou-chuan, 1913- III. Title.
T27.C5S9313 1996
600—dc21 96-53237
CIP
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
CONTENTS
Translators’ Preface
Author’s Preface to the 1637 edition
PART I
Chapter 1, The growing of grains
Chapter 2, Clothing materials 35
Chapter 3, Dyes 1&5)
Chapter 4, The preparation of grains 81
Chapter 5, Salt 109
Chapter 6, Sugars 124
PART I
135
Chapter 7, Ceramics
Chapter 8, Casting 159
Chapter 9, Boats and carts 171
Chapter 10, Hammer forging 189
Chapter 11, Calcination of stones 201
Chapter 12, Vegetable oils and fats 215
223
Chapter 13, Paper
ili
CONTENTS
PART III
Chapter 14, The metals 235
Chapter 15, Weapons 261
Chapter 16, Vermilion and ink 299
Chapter 17, Yeasts 289
Chapter 18, Pearls and gems 295
Bibliography A (Chinese sources) 311
Bibliography B (non-Chinese sources) 321
Glossary 339
Appendix A (Summary of Chinese dynasties) 357
Appendix B = (The twenty-four Chinese solar terms) 360
Appendix C = (Equivalence of Chinese weights and measures in metric units) 362
Appendix D (Transmission of certain techniques from China to the West) 364
Index 369
TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE
Nearly ten years ago, in the course of research on a point of Chinese economic
history, the translators had occasion to consult T’ien-kung k’ai-wu. Its special
quality made us realize how limited was our own knowledge of traditional
Chinese technology. It occurred to us, as we enthusiastically pored over this
work, that others might share our interest.
T’ien-kung k’ai-wu, which may be rendered as “The Creations of Nature
and Man,” is by no means the only or the oldest Chinese work on technological
subjects, but while other works dealt with individual subjects, the present book
covers practically all the major industrial techniques of its time, from agricul-
ture, textiles, mining, metallurgy, and chemical engineering, to the building of
boats and the manufacture of weapons. Professor Joseph Needham, author of
the monumental treatise on Science and Civilization in China, calls it “an
important book on industrial technology” of the early seventeenth century by
“the Diderot of China, Sung Ying-hsing.”
The original preface was dated 1637, but only a bare outline of the
author’s life can be reconstructed from presently available sources.’ Sung’s
early years were typical of those of a young man of a scholar-official family. He
was born, probably shortly before the end of the century, in Feng-hsin, Kiangsi
Province. In his youth he received the usual classical education and passed the
public examinations to the level of a provincial graduate in 1615. Thereafter he
served in a number of official capacities in several provinces, including his
native Kiangsi. It was there, while serving as the Education Officer of Fen-i
district, that he wrote the present book. In addition to T’ien-kung k’ai-
wu, Sung wrote a work on phonology, and a collection of critical essays, but
these have been lost. After the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644 Sung, together
with his elder brother Ying-sheng, retired to his native home and led a secluded
life. The probable date of his death is placed at around 1660 by V. K. Ting.
In the early years of Manchu rule, as he wrote a short biography of his
brother Ying-sheng, who had taken his own life because of acute depression
over the fall of Ming, Sung Ying-hsing could hardly have dreamed that it was
he himself who was to achieve greater renown three centuries later. Neither
could he have foreseen that, decades after the “alien” Manchu rulers had been
overthrown, there would be a keen and widespread interest, both in China and
abroad, in the technological history of the country, and that T’ien-kung k’ai-
wu would benefit many scholars other than his book-bound contemporaries
whom he so impatiently chided in the Preface.
Although outstanding in scope and factual details, Sung’s was not the only
Vv
TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE
book on science and technology produced in his period. At the end of the Ming
dynasty (late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries) many inquiring minds
among the literati were rebelling against the futility of the idealist school of
thought of Wang Yang-ming, and the result was the upsurge of interest in the
materialistic aspects of life and the publication of several works of a factual and
technological character that have since become classics in their fields. The
seventeenth century as a whole saw the strengthening of this trend, which
culminated in the thought and teachings of Wang Fu-chih and Yen Yuan and
later in Tai Chen. Yen Yuan, the master of pragmatic philosophy, and Sung
Ying-hsing would have found each other congenial; Yen planned for the
curriculum of the Chang-nan Academy, of which he was the director for a short
period in 1696, courses on military and industrial techniques in addition to
those on classical studies.* When we compare Yen’s plan with the 1637 Preface
of T’ien-kung k’ai-wu, the similarity of intent is obvious.
Apart from the atmosphere of general reaction against idealist thought,
the actual condition of Ming society must have helped inspire Sung’s book.
Since the latter part of the sixteenth century the decline of Ming power has been
accelerated by such familiar manifestations as corruption in government, popu-
lar unrest, ineptness in dealing with external foes, and over-all economic
maladjustment indicated by measures to change the tax system. In short, it
was an era when the more thoughful educated people were casting about for an
explanation of the ills of the times and above all for some far-reaching remedy
that might help to avert a dimly sensed impending crisis. The first edition of
T’ien-kung k’ai-wu was published only seven years before the Manchu forces
toppled the moribund Ming dynasty, and the disturbed times were probably an
added impetus goading Sung to undertake the writing of a factual book on the
arts and techniques that went into the making of the necessities of daily life, in
an attempt to persuade the vast majority of the scholar-officials that these too
were matters that merited attention. The author was apparently a close associ-
ate of his elder brother Ying-sheng, though their temperaments were obviously
different. While Ying-sheng remained the more conventional Confucian
scholar-official, who was later to end his own life as a final gesture of loyalty
and patriotism, Ying-hsing expressed his concern over the state of the nation
through positive use of the knowledge at his command. The note of conviction
rings clear in his preface, in which he makes it plain that he was having
T’ien-kung k’ai-wu published even though (he adds wryly) this work was not
likely to advance any person’s official career.
It has often been said that the coming of the Jesuit missionaries to China
in the latter part of the Ming dynasty had greatly influenced the intellectual
atmosphere of the times, and various works on technology, many of which were
translations, are cited as proof of this thesis. While the Jesuits undoubtedly did
contribute to the fund of scientific knowledge available in China in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, there is little indication in the present
work—with the exception of certain items in the chapter on weapons—that
they had greatly influenced the writing of Sung Ying-hsing. Seen from the
perspective of more than three centuries, it appears that the Jesuits were so
Vi
TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE
readily accepted by the Chinese because the conditions in China were then ripe
for the introduction of materialist science, and the late-Ming literati such as
Hsii Kuang-ch’i, who collaborated closely with the missionaries in scientific
work, reflected the same sort of concern with technological knowledge as did
Sung Ying-hsing when he labored over the draft of the present book.
Finally, Sung’s home province might have provided much stimulus to his
interest in matters industrial and technological. The mid-Yangste province of
Kiangsi has been known for centuries for its rich products: rice and other
agricultural goods, and above all for its fine porcelain and certain minerals, coal
and copper among others. V. K. Ting points out that in Sung’s time natives of
Kiangsi often worked as miners in neighboring provinces, and recent research as
presented in the Yabuuchi volume shows that Sung Ying-hsing did in fact draw
extensively upon the data available in his own province in describing many of
the techniques of industry and agriculture. Thus, T’ien-kung k’ai-wu resulted
from both the intellectural climate and an immediate local background in
late-Ming China.
Two editions of T’ien-kung k’ai-wu appeared before 1644, testimony that
the book was well received by Sung’s contemporaries. But apparently no new
editions were printed during the Ch’ing period, and until recently no copy of the
Ming editions had come to light. Various portions of the book, however, were
preserved in the eighteenth-century encyclopedia Ku-ching t’u-shu chi-ch’eng,
in a compendium on agricultural techniques entitled Shou-shih t'ung-k’ao, and
in an early nineteenth-century edition of the Gazetteer of Yunnan Province.*
During the eighteenth century, one of the Ming copies was also reprinted in
Japan. The current “resurrection” of T’ien-kung k’ai-wu dates from 1914 when
V. K. Ting came upon quotations from it in the Gazetteer of Yunnan Province
in sections dealing with the metallurgy of copper and silver. The only copy of
the book he was able to find, however, was one of the Japanese copies the
philologist Lo Chen-yii had brought back to China in the 1880’s. In 1927 after
collating the Japanese copy with the portions of the book available in the
Ku-chin t'u-shu chi-ch’eng, Mr. T’ao Hsiang reissued the work in China. A
1929 reprint of the T’ao edition included a Supplement by V. K. Ting. In the
early 1930’s at least one popular edition appeared, an inexpensive volume
published as one of a series of books on Chinese culture designed for use by
students.® During the 1950’s interest in this book was kept alive by a Japanese
translation (Tenk6é kaibutsu no kenkya—Tokyo, 1953) and critical studies by
the seminar of Prof. Yabuuchi and by a reprint in Taiwan, in popular format,
of the second T’ao edition. It appears that no one had found any copy of the
original book or was aware of the two Ming copies in the Bibliothéque Nation-
ale in Paris—one each of the two Ming editions.°
Finally in 1959, the Chung-hua Publishing Company of Shanghai re-
printed in three attractive volumes the first Ming edition—322 years after its
original publication in 1637. According to the publisher’s postface, the
original copy had been in the private library of a family named Li in Ningpo,
Chekiang, who had recently donated their collection of Chinese books to the
National Library of Peking.
Vil
TRANSLATORS’ PREFACE
The appearance of the 1959 reissue helped to clear up an important
question: what exactly did the illustrations look like in the original book? The
T’ao edition (as explained by V. K. Ting) incorporated many drawings from
the Ku-chin t’u-shu chi-ch’eng that were not in the Japanese copy; the added
drawings are more ornate and perhaps to some eyes more pleasing, but they
add nothing to the technical subjects being illustrated. Moreover, several of the
figures in the second chapter (Clothing Materials) are identical with some in
another eighteenth century compilation, the imperially commissioned Keng
chih t’u or Pictorial Accounts of Agriculture and Sericulture. This variance led
us to the conclusion that the “prettier” drawings in the Ta’o editions are in fact
not the authentic Ming illustrations. The figures in the 1959 reproduction of the
1637 version, on the other hand, are striking for their simplicity and clarity, as
would have been approved, we believe, by an author whose main concern was
didactic rather than esthetic. Although retaining those figures from the Ta’o
edition that are not in the 1959 copy, we have indicated the source in the
captions.
In our present effort we are deeply indebted to the many scholars who
have published works on the very wide spectrum of subjects treated in this
book. We wish to express our special appreciation to Professor Lien-sheng
Yang of Harvard University, who not only has given us encouragement and
helpful suggestions from the beginning, but has also been good enough to read
the present work in manuscript form. We are conscious of the fact that, in spite
of our application, many imperfections still remain: for these the translators
alone are responsible.
E-tu Zen Sun
Shiou-Chuan Sun
October, 1962
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania
NOTES
1. The first biographical sketch of Sung Ying-hsing written in modern times was by
the geologist V. K. Ting (Ting Wen-chiang), who gathered the data from various
historical records and published his sketch, along with a critique of the book, in a
supplement to the 1929 reissue: T’ien-kung k’ai-wu (in Hsi-yun-hsuan ts’ung-shu, 1929).
Viil