Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The ancient Chinese were also mathematically sophisticated. They
used the decimal system as early as the fourteenth century B.C., during
the Shang dynasty, an astonishing 2,300 years before the first known use
of the decimal system in European mathematics. The Chinese were also
the very first people in the world to use a place for zero in mathematical
calculation. On Chinese counting boards, a blank space indicated the
place for zero. The Chinese may not have invented the actual symbol
for zero, but this is largely insignificant, given their knowledge of its
importance and their use of a literally empty place holder to indicate it.
One invention Westerners have tended to credit to the Chinese is the
compass. Both the Europeans and the Chinese seem to have made the
first use of the compass in navigation during the twelfth century A.D.,
but the Europeans obtained the compass itself from China, where it
had been known since the fourth century B.C. The compasses used in
twelfth-century navigation involved the use of magnetized needles,
but the earliest Chinese versions of the compass seem to have been
spoons or other objects fashioned from naturally magnetic lodestone.
The earliest mention of a simple lodestone compass occurs in a
fourth-century B.C. Chinese source, but a more detailed description
dates to the Han Fei-tzu, the third-century B.C. work on Legalism.
The Chinese term for compass is “south-pointer” or “south-pointing
needle” because the ancient Chinese thought of south, not north, as
the cardinal direction.
The fourth century B.C. was the height of the Warring States period
in Chinese history, so it should not be too surprising to find that the
Chinese were busily creating new and more effective ways of killing
each other. During this period, the Chinese were the first in the world
to invent and use the crossbow on the battlefield. The crossbow incor-
porates a small, powerful bow onto a stock that is steadied against the
body or shoulder and releases the bowstring with a mechanical trigger
device. The trigger device was important because it enabled the
shooter to hold the crossbow steady and devote his efforts to aiming
the weapon, not struggling to keep the string drawn back with one of
his hands. This generally gave the crossbow more accuracy than the
conventional longbow. The earliest textual reference to the crossbow
dates to the middle of the fourth century in the famous Art of War by
Sun-tzu (also spelled Sunzi). One of Sun-tzu's descendants recorded
the first known use of crossbows on the battlefield in 336 B.C. For more
than two thousand years thereafter, the Chinese perfected the cross-
bow and it strategic use. It was finally eclipsed in the late nineteenth
century by modern gunpowder weaponry. Despite the ancient
Chinese efforts to prevent the export of the crossbow, it quickly spread
