When Marco Polo came to China in the 13 th century he discovered a very modern and civilized society. In order for economy to develop the Chinese needed a good transportation system. One of these new innovations in agriculture was the mass production of rice, introduced by a new type of rice that was grown in Vietnam.
Among many honorable positions and titles conferred upon him, Su Song was also one of the 'Deputy Tutors of the Heir Apparent'. China, as we often call it, was produced especially for the royal family and for newly opened restaurants where rich people ate. It was written by his junior colleague and Hanlin scholar Ye Mengde (1077–1148)that in Su's youth, he mastered the provincial exams and rose to the top of the examination list for writing the best essay on general principles and structure of the Chinese calendar.From an early age, his interests in astronomy and calendrical science led him onto a distinguished path as a state bureaucrat. Texts about new farming methods that were successful in one region were printed and brought to other places in China. They designed what a rainbow bridge that could span one bank of the river with the other without a pillar in the middle of the river. Because the Chinese alphabet is so complicated movable type printing was created. Most of them date back to the Song Dynasty, which ruled the Asian empire between 960 and 1280 A.D. Interactive Grammar and Vocabulary Exercises. When Su Song's Xinyi Xiangfayao was written in 1092 and the horological monograph finalized and presented in 1094, his work was published and widely printed in the north. Su Song was the engineer of a hydro-mechanical astronomical clock tower in medieval Kaifeng, which employed the use of an early escapement mechanism.The escapement mechanism of Su's clock tower had been invented by Buddhist monk Yi Xing and government official Liang Lingzan in 725 AD to operate a water-powered armillary sphere, although Su's armillary sphere was the first to be provided with a mechanical clock drive.Su's clock tower also featured the oldest known endless power-transmitting chain drive, called the tian ti (?? Farmers began growing crops not only for themselves but to sell at markets.
European Jesuit visitors to China like Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault briefly wrote about Chinese clocks with wheel drives,but others mistakenly believed that the Chinese had never advanced beyond the stage of the clepsydra, incense clock, and sundial.They thought that advanced mechanical clockworks were new to China and that these mechanisms were something valuable that Europeans could offer to the Chinese.Although not as prominent as in the Song period, contemporary Chinese texts of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) described a relatively unbroken history of mechanical clocks in China, from the 13th century to the 16th. The clock itself, however, was dismantled by the invading Jurchen army in AD 1127, and although attempts were made to reassemble it, the tower was never successfully reinstated. Many of the largest cities of the world could be found in China during this period. Click here for audio of Episode 120. They began to trade with countries in Southeast Asia, like Taiwan and the Philippines. The invention of the compass allowed Chinese navigators to sail on open seas. After su songs death the clock was dismantled and the chinese tried to reassemble it but it was impossible. When presenting his clocktower design to the Emperor Zhezong, Su Song equated the constant flow of water with the continuous movements of the heavens, the latter of which symbolized the unceasing power of the emperor.This appealed to emperor, who featured artwork representing the clocktower on vehicles of major imperial processions, as illustrated in the Illustration of the Imperial Grand Carriage Procession of 1053.