Silk Worm In Ancient China

The inventions of China shaped the world we live in today, no matter what country you live in. From silk, to gunpowder, to paper, and even agricultural advances all stem from China. Even smaller, personal convenience items, such as the bristle toothbrush, umbrellas, and the compass were invented by these brilliant people. The mulberry silk worm has brought much wealth to the country of China and created a material that is like no other. The method of creating silk was a well-kept secret by the Chinese for over two thousand years. The mythical Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih is known to be the Goddess of Silk and is credited to have harvested the silk from the worm and created the loom in 3,000 B.C. Silk is obtained by a very strict process to maximize
production, the process begins even before the silk worms hatch. The eggs are stored at sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit and raises up to seventy-seven degrees when they hatch. Once hatched they eat almost constantly on nothing but fresh, handpicked mulberry leaves. The worms must be kept away from loud noises and strong odors and once the worms have eaten enough they will begin to make their cocoon. Eight to nine days after the cocoon has been formed it is time to harvest the silk. The cocoons are steamed to kill the worm and then soaked in hot water where they are ready to be unraveled. The silk thread is twisted together with others to make a thicker thread and is then woven into a cloth with properties like nothing else. When silk was invented in China it was reserved for use of the Emperor and those close to him only.
This changed over the years as silk became more widely used and more widely produced inside China. Silk became a staple on the Chinese economy and eventually during the Han Dynasty became a type of currency; the weight of gold could be transferred to the length of silk. Soon silk became an export for trading with other countries. The Chinese could not keep this monopoly on silk forever, eventually it spread around the world with Chinese immigrants bringing the knowledge of the silk worm with them. The secret left the eastern part of the world when two Nestorian monks hid silk worm eggs in their bamboo staves. They brought these eggs to the Byzantine Empire and silk production began in the middle-east. The trade from the silk road brought much wealth and resources to China even after their secrets were
revealed. China went into the bronze age a little while after the invention of silk. The Shang and Zhou dynasties are given credit for ruling during this time. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin and was used to make many things from weapons to ceremonial ornaments. They used piece-mold casting to shape the bronze; this involved making a clay cast of whatever you wanted to make and pouring melted down bronze into the cast. This gave bronze workers a large amount of creativity and precision for creating bronze items. The iron age began around 600 B.C. near the end of the Zhou dynasty but even during the iron age many bronze weapons were still used. Iron was shaped using a similar casting method to bronze and used to make various tools like scissors and weapons like crossbow tips and cannons. Gunpowder is a staple invention of China when alchemists attempted to make potions of immortality. Gunpowder is made by mixing sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate into a powder that was originally called ‘serpentine.’ Working and mixing with these substances is very dangerous and water was often added to reduce the risk. When the water is added to the serpentine is can be shaped and formed into little pellets. It was under the T’ang Dynasty that the use of gunpowder was implemented. T’ang Dynasty emperors would often have amazing firework displays but it soon became primarily used for military purposes. Little cannon balls were put inside of bamboo sticks with gunpowder at the end, once ignited the cannonball would shoot out of the bamboo; this latter lead to the creation of real cannons and guns. Much like silk the Chinese attempted to keep the means of obtaining this destructive powder a secret. The secret was out by the twelfth century and spread west across the country of Asia and into Europe. Paper was another Chinese invention that absolutely changed the world. Cai Lun is credited with creating paper in 105 A.D. during the Han Dynasty. Before paper people would write on silk and pieces of bamboo and carve characters on animal bones; Cai Lun came up with the idea to take bark from a mulberry tree and pound the fibers into paper. Other plant fibers were added to increase the quality of the paper such as hemp, bamboo, and rice straw. A couple hundred years after paper was created came movable type printing came along. Movable type printing involves movable blocks, each with its own character, arranged in a certain way and then stamped onto paper. These blocks could be made from a variety of things such as wood, clay, and even bronze. This replaced the previous type of printing, whole type printing, which involved the entire writing to be on a single block. Whole block printing is cheaper and movable type printing became well used for communication once it reached Europe in the 15th century. The problem with whole block printing is a single block is only good for one page of a single book and a single mistake could ruin the entire page. Movable type printing was invented by Bi Sheng around 1000 A.D. during the Song Dynasty. During the next change of power into the Yuan Dynasty, color printing was implemented, first only using two colors but then three and four and so on. The Chinese people have made great progress for the world in terms of agriculture.
They have developed many methods to maximize crop yield even in non-ideal conditions. Agriculture in the country of China dates back to 7500 B.C. with millet farming. Chinese farmers used the method of crop rotation to maximize the amount of goods they could produce while unknowingly did the best thing they could for the soil. When you plant a specific type of crop it requires a specific type of nutrition, that nutrition isn’t the same with every crop; so, in rotating what was planted they were able to get the maximum amount of fertility for their land. There isn’t much farmable land in China relative to the population and size of the country; this required them to learn how to maximize the space they did have. Trench farming involves digging a small trench and planting the seeds inside that trench. The trench protects the seeds from wind and traps moisture for the seed. Another type of farming they invented was terrace farming. This type of farming involves cutting out sections of a hill side or mountain to the sloped angle becomes a staircase with there being flat land to plant crops. This type of farming takes a lot of time and energy to create and requires a lot of maintenance but it is what had to happen for China to become what it was at the
time. Toothbrushes date back to around 3000 B.C. but the bristle toothbrush is an invention specific to China. Bristle toothbrushes made from bone or bamboo with bristles form pig hairs were found dating back to the 15th century. The Chinese people used salts, mint, and ginseng for toothpaste. The bristle toothbrush made its way to Europe and horse hair replaced the previous pig hair. Umbrellas are another invention you can thank China for. They were invented to keep you dry in the rain and keep you cool and out of the sun on hot sunny days. Some of the earliest umbrellas have been made from silk, paper, and bamboo. These silk umbrellas were created with beautiful designs and were only used by nobility. They had designs of dragons, nature, animals and flowers. Umbrellas became a symbol of power, not just in China, but in other surrounding Asian countries. Chinese royalty would use red and yellow umbrellas while everyone else used blue umbrellas to distinguish the difference in social rank. Umbrellas quickly spread around to the rest of the world and is not the accessory we use today.