Exploitation of the Works of Nature by Song Yingxing
3 min readSong Yingxing(1587-1666?),a native of Fengxin of Jiangxi province, was ambitious when he was young. He read a large number of Confucians classics, historical literature, philosophers’ works and anthology. He passed the imperial examinations at the provincial level at the age of 28, and turned to academic research after age 44, when he started to write multidisciplinary works including the scientific category: On Heaven, On QiOn Observation, On Modes of Music (only the former two is extant); the political category: Wild ArgumentPoetry of Reflection and Sympathy, Correction of Painting and Music, Introduction to the Western and Northern Peoples in the Spring and Autumn Period Colorful Essays (only the former two is extant); humanities category:10 Kinds of Casual Literary Notes, Inquiry on Consumption, Annotations on Beauty and Benefit (all of them lost). His most representative work was Exploitation of the Works of Nature.
Exploitation of the Works of Nature was written in 1637 with 62,000 Chinese characters and 123 illustrations, in 3 volumes with 18 chapters. Based on his in-depth investigation into the fields and ridges and workshops across the country at an accumulative distance of thousands of kilometers and touching upon 30 different productiondepartments, the book was hailed as “the encyclopedia of productive technologies of late ancient Chinese history.A series of advanced technologies in ancient China were described, for example: In Chapter One, On Grain, it recorded that the rice seedlings from a plot of rice seedling bed of one mu(1/15 hectares) could be transplanted into a plot of paddy field of 25 mu(1.75 hectares),i.e. at a ratio of 1:25; the early rice needed 3 sheng(ong sheng=one litre) offield water for root immersion and the late rice needed 5 sheng, without which the seedlings and growing rice would wither. All of the above showed that rice planting technology had entered the phase of quantification. In Chapter Two, On Clothing, it indicated the variation of silkworm, just the same as the description of the British biologist Charles Darwin in the 19th century, in which, through the hybridization between univoltine silkworm and bivoltine one, and between yellow-cocoon silkworm and white-cocoon,a new genus with advantages from the two relatives could be bred. And by bathing silkworms, the sick silkworms could be eliminated so that the healthy ones could grow vigorously.
The lost-wax process, model foundry process, non-model foundry process introduced in Chapter Eight, On Metallurgy and Foundry, the quenching method, pig iron method mouth cream, cool iron wire drawing model and surface carbonization introduced in Chapter Ten, On Hammer Forging, the coalmine ventilated technology on coal mining and roadway protection introduced in Chapter Eleven, On Mining, all led the industry in the world then. And in Chapter Fourteen, On Five Metals, the iron making with coal, continuous making of pig iron and dug iron, hot-metal carburized steel, zinc making (called Woqian at that time), and the making of bronze alloy with copper and zinc in different proportions were initiated by China. In closing, Exploitation of the Works of Nature remains a milestone work as well as amasterpiece in the history of the ancient science and technology of China and the world.
