Who invented the wooden ox and flowing horse?

In Chapter 102 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang described how to make wooden cows and flowing horses. Suddenly, Yang Yi, a long history, reported: "Today's grain and rice are in Jiange, which is inconvenient to carry. What can we do? " Kong Mingxiao said, "I have planned it for a long time. It is very convenient for people to make wooden cattle and horses with building blocks and big wood bought by surprise, and carry grain and rice. Cattle and horses don't eat water and can be transported day and night. " Everyone was surprised and said, "I have never heard of such a thing since ancient times." I wonder if the Prime Minister has any clever ways to make this wonder? " Zhuge Liang said: "I have made it according to law, but I haven't finished it yet." I'm going to be a wooden cow first. The size is Fiona Fang, and the length is wide and narrow. I'll make it clear. You can see that. " Everyone is very happy. Then it introduces the manufacturing method of wooden cow: square belly and curved head, one foot and four feet; The head is in the collar and the tongue is in the abdomen. ..... Each cow carries food for ten people in January. If people don't work hard, cows won't eat. How to make a floating horse: the ribs are three feet five inches long, three inches wide and two inches two minutes thick ... After reading them, the generals all bowed down and said, "The Prime Minister is really a god!" When Sima Yi heard about it, he sent someone to grab a few wooden cows and horses, took them apart, drew sketches and imitated them. In less than half a month, we actually made more than 1000 horses. Once used, it is as good as that made by the Shu army. So, Wei Jun also used them to transport grain and grass in Shaanxi, thinking that he had a plan and "kept going back and forth". Don't you know that this is exactly Zhuge Liang's plan? It turns out that the wooden cattle and horses made in Wei Jun are almost the same as those made by the Shu army on the surface, but there is something fishy in their mouths. Zhuge Liang couldn't help exulting when he found that Wei Jun had started to carry grain and grass with their fake wooden cows and horses. He sent General Wang Ping to lead 1000 soldiers to sneak into the motorcade disguised as Wei Jun, and secretly twisted the tongue of Muniu Liuma, making them unable to move. Just when Wei Bing was suspected to be a monster, Zhuge Liang sent 500 soldiers dressed as magic soldiers and ghosts and beasts, painted colorful faces, set off fireworks and drove away cattle and horses. Wei Bing was dumbfounded, thinking that Zhuge Liang had ghosts and gods to help him, and did not dare to catch up, so Zhuge Liang got a lot of hay easily. Such a magical means of transportation can "people don't work hard, cows don't eat", which was also ingenious at that time. Therefore, there is a poem praising: "The sword pass drives the horse steeply, and the slanting valley drives the wooden cow rugged. If this method can be used for future generations, will it make people worry about losing? " However, according to the current law of conservation of mass, Liu Ma is similar to a perpetual motion machine, which is not in line with the historical law. Therefore, many people think that the so-called cattle herding and Liu Ma Spring were invented by novelists. However, according to historical records, Zhuge Liang did make wooden cows and horses. Reflection? "Biography of Zhuge Liang" records: "In the ninth year (23 1), Liang returned to Qishan, and all the grain was withdrawn ... 12 spring, Liang learned that many people left the oblique valley to transport horses, and Sima was Weinan according to martial arts." Although the above records are not as magical as those described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, we can also see the historical fact that Zhuge Liang used wooden oxen to transport grain. So, what kind of machinery is a wooden cow flowing horse? A passage in Zhuge Liang's collected works should be reliable information: "The wooden cow has a square belly, a bent head, four feet, a head in the middle and a tongue in the abdomen." Mention more and do less, so be useful, not small; Special travel is dozens of miles, and group travel is twenty miles. The machete is a cow's head, two are cow's feet, the horizontal one is a cow's collar, and the turn is full. The cover is a cow's back, the square one is a cow's belly, the tongue is hung, the machete is a cow's gang, the carving knife is a cow's tooth, the vertical one is a cow's horn, and the thin one is a cow's martingale. The photographer is a cow's whip shaft. Cattle head up, six steps, cattle four steps. Carrying a year's grain, walking 20 miles a day, people don't work hard. "In this record, although the image of Mu Niu is described, some dimensions of Liu Ma are also recorded below, but because there are no objects and characters left for future generations, people have made many speculations around Mu Niu and Liu Ma for many years. One view is that herding cattle and Liu Ma are both ordinary unicycles improved by Zhuge Liang. This theory comes from historical books such as History of Song Dynasty, Talks on the Back Mountain and Historical Records. It is believed that the wooden wheelbarrow was called a deer cart in the Han Dynasty, and it was called a wooden ox and a flowing horse after Zhuge Liang's improvement. It was not until the Northern Song Dynasty that the name of the wheelbarrow appeared. These two kinds of unicycles are unique, and their cars have unique transportation functions just like horses and cattle. The wooden cow has a front axle. When introducing, people or livestock pull in front and people push behind. The Liuma is roughly similar to the Muniu Liuma, except that there is no front axle, and there is no need to pull when traveling, only people push it. It is worth mentioning that during the Three Kingdoms period, Shu Han was located in the southwest corner, with limited military forces, which were mostly used for cavalry operations. Transporting grain and grass mainly depends on manpower, so wooden cattle and horses came into being and played a great role. This statement is also supported by historical data such as the relief of the unicycle on the back of the unknown que in the Eastern Han Dynasty in Pujiawan, Quxian County, Sichuan Province. I believe that these unicycles in the Eastern Han Dynasty all reproduce the appearance of wooden cows and flowing horses. However, some people have complained about this, thinking that the mechanical principles of the four-wheeled vehicle and the unicycle are very simple, there is no need to write a big book, and Zhuge Liang's technology is not so mediocre. Another view is that wooden cows and flowing horses are new automated machines. " South seven books "? "Biography of Zu Chongzhi" said: "Zhuge Liang's purpose is to make tools, not because of geomantic omen, but because of machines, and no manpower is needed. "It means that Zu Chongzhi has built a better automatic machine on the basis of a wooden cow and a flowing horse. From this, it can be inferred that gear manufacturing machinery was widely used in the Three Kingdoms period, and the Muniu Liuma, which was admired by later generations, could not be the existing unicycle in the Han Dynasty, but was probably an automatic machine that Zu Chongzhi was interested in and made by using the gear principle. Unfortunately, however, there is nothing in the future. The third point of view is that Muniu and Liu Ma are four-wheeled vehicles and unicycle, but what is four-wheeled and what is unicycle is the opposite point of view. In the Song Dynasty, Gao Cheng thought in Volume VIII of Jiyuan Things: "Those who are wooden cows now have a front axle; "The horse is the only pusher today, and the people call it Jiangzhou Car." On the other hand, Fan Wenlan thinks that cow is a human unicycle with four legs. The so-called one foot is a wheel, and the so-called four feet are four wooden pillars installed in front of and behind the car; Liu Ma is an improved four-legged wooden cow, that is, a human-driven four-wheeled vehicle. Although their size is different from that of ancient wooden cows, their working principles are similar: wooden cows are loaded heavily and travel slowly, which is more suitable for running on slow roads; Floating horse is a tool specially used for mountain transportation. It is speculated that Zhuge Liang's northern expedition to Cao Wei needed to transport grain and grass from the remote western Sichuan plain to Qinlong area, with both plains and mountains along the way. In particular, the "Shu Dao" out of Sichuan is difficult and rugged. Many plank roads along the river are cut on cliffs, which are narrow and dangerous. Some of them are only over one meter wide and can only accommodate unicycles like "Liu Ma". We can't judge which of these two completely different conclusions is correct. Shu Dao Ruins Shu Dao, also known as Doug and Zhan Ge, is a famous relic of Shu Dao between Sichuan and Shaanxi in ancient times. There have been many descriptions by literati in history, among which Li Bai's Shu Dao Nan in the Tang Dynasty is the most popular. The excavation of the plank road began in the pre-Qin period, and the Historical Records recorded that "the plank road runs thousands of miles through Shu and Han". Successive generations have continued to repair. During the Three Kingdoms period, it was used as a way to attack Cao Yun's grain. Today, the pavilion road has been abandoned, and the holes in the rock wall still exist. The holes are arranged in three layers: upper, middle and lower layers. The hole in the middle layer is used to insert stakes, and the upper layer is used to shelter from the rain. Each hole is about 30 cm square and about 50 cm deep. Seen from a distance, the plank road looks like a gallery pavilion, so it is also called Yun Pavilion. There is a more interesting saying, that is, whether it is the same thing or the same thing. Tan, a famous expert in the study of the history of the Three Kingdoms, believes that it is one thing to have a wooden cow and a horse, and it is a new type of manpower wooden four-wheeled vehicle; Wang Kui, a senior engineer in the School of Mechanical Engineering of Xinjiang University, also thinks that the two are the same thing, and made a model of the appearance of a cow and the gait of a horse. Wang Kai believes that wooden cattle and mobile horses are two different things, the former is a human unicycle, and the latter is an improved four-wheeled vehicle. Chen Congzhou, an expert in landscape architecture at Tongji University, investigated the remains of the existing ancient plank road in Guangyuan, northern Sichuan, and got the data of width, slope and bearing capacity. They think that the two are two different things: the wooden cow has a front axle, and when it is introduced, it is pulled in front and pushed behind; The flowing horse is roughly the same as the wooden cow, but it has no front axle, does not need to be pulled by people, and only moves by thrust, and is shaped like a horse. During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang invented the wooden ox and flowing horse, and used it to transport rations on the rugged plank road, and "if people don't work hard, cows don't eat." Compared with Wang Chong's few words about Luban's wooden chariots and horses, the descriptions of Zhuge Liang's wooden horses and horses in The History of the Three Kingdoms are vivid, vivid and extremely detailed. But I don't know why, Chen Shou and Luo Guanzhong said nothing about the principle and technology of making Liu Wu. There are different opinions on the above viewpoints, and it is still difficult to comment on which one is most in line with the original appearance of cow Liu Ma. Recently, Li Gang, an expert in cultural relics restoration in Sichuan Museum, restored more than 3,000 pieces of broken pottery into a complete three-wheeled carriage, dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. He thinks this is the legendary Zhu Gekongming's wooden ox and flowing horse in history. This car is a martyr, only one-third the size of the real thing. Height 1. 15m, carriage 1m, total length of 2.56m ... This car has many advantages. First of all, the general carriage has only two wheels, so that the horse not only has to pull the cart hard, but also bears the weight of its body; The appearance of three-wheeled carriage reduces the load-bearing burden of horses, increases the stability of the carriage, and makes it have greater traction, thus transporting more and heavier goods. Secondly, the body of the traditional two-wheeled carriage is connected with the horse through the "shaft", and the length of the "shaft" determines that the carriage has a large turning radius and is not suitable for walking on narrow mountain roads; Tricycle has a "steering gear" between the front wheel and the rear compartment, which is suitable for turning on narrow mountain roads. However, for "people don't work hard, cows don't eat", Li Gang can't explain clearly. If Zhuge Liang has knowledge under the grave, he will definitely regret not leaving a detailed production map.