Judging from the structure of the wooden ox, it uses a power-assisted mechanism and may have a flywheel mechanism inside. In terms of its operation, it uses a gear mechanism and a crank-link mechanism. When a person pushes the wooden ox, the crank-link mechanism inside drives the flywheel through the gear. After the flywheel runs, the inertia of the flywheel assists the wooden ox. In this way, the purpose of saving labor is achieved.
The structure of Liuma is actually a pallet truck, but its center of gravity and bearing parts have been changed, making it less labor-intensive to use than previous pallet trucks.
As for what the book says about this being an ox and that being an ox, this is just a Chinese habit to increase the mystery of the wooden ox. Just like what the Book of Changes said, what is the image of a horse? Something like that.
The wooden ox has four legs, which are actually wheels. In ancient times, there was no professional mechanical terminology, so the expressions for some parts were different from those today.
There is speculation that the wooden cow walked on its feet, but this required a hydraulic mechanism, which was impossible under the conditions at the time. It is impossible to shake it by hand. Because there are so many mechanisms used in this way, some of which had not yet been invented at the time.
Regarding the fact that the cow tongue cannot walk when it is twisted, the reason is very simple. There is a ratchet mechanism to prevent reversal.
Of course, I am only speculating based on the records in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But it shouldn't be too far off. I don't have detailed information about wooden cows and stray horses at hand, I just speculate based on my experience.
There may be complicated imaginations, but I think this is more reasonable. The structure adopted in this way is relatively simple and in line with the productivity situation at the time.
Our sages seem to have joined forces to preserve an eternal mystery to test the wisdom of our descendants.
Edit this paragraph for research and development
Ancient mysteries have attracted mystery explorers for generations since then. Not to mention, since 1956 alone, seven wooden cow and stray horse research societies have been spontaneously established across the country. However, the result of exploring the mystery is that the authenticity of the ancient mystery itself is first doubted and denied, and a "wheelbarrow theory" seems to be a thousand-year conclusion. As early as the Song Dynasty, Gao Cheng wrote in his "Chronicles of Things": "The wooden ox is the one with the front shaft of the cart, and the flowing horse is the one with the front shaft." Contemporary historian Mr. Fan Wenlan believes: "The wooden ox is the one with the front shaft." A human-powered wheelbarrow with one leg and four legs." In short, most researchers and archaeologists believe that the so-called wooden cow and flowing horse are not a wonder of creation, but the deification of the legend and the exaggeration and misunderstanding of the recorder.
But there are still people who "love to admit death", firmly believe that the records in ancient books are not false, firmly believe that wooden cows and flowing horses are indeed real things, and try to create them. In 1986, senior engineer Wang Meng of Xinjiang Institute of Technology, with the support of the institute and the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and sponsorship from Japanese businessmen, made three wooden cows and flowing horses. Each piece is a four-legged walking machine, and you can make it walk by holding the double shafts at the back. The only drawback is that it does not have a load-bearing function. Once the luggage is pressed, it will not be able to walk. The problem of weight-bearing walking remains unresolved.
The opportunity for breakthrough seems to have been left to Guo Tongxiao, a farmer from Yangxian County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province.
Speaking of which, it was purely accidental that he made a wooden cow and a runaway horse. During the Spring Festival in 1997, the TV series "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" was broadcast, and Guo Tongxiao and his friends gathered together to watch it every day. When watching the episode of Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse, someone noticed that Guo Tongxiao was very excited and joked with him, "You love tinkering. If you can make a Wooden Ox and Flooding Horse, I will obey you." He said yes without even thinking about it. And immediately put into intense research and development work.
From the beginning, he firmly believed that wooden oxen and flowing horses should use their legs instead of wheels to move around. Only legs can climb the steps on the plank road. But how can we make the legs move? He cleverly used the principles of leverage and inertia in physics to design internal mechanisms such as lever linkage structure, balance structure, and pace structure. It only took 3 months to trial-produce The first stray horses came out.
This horse is 1.4 meters long, 1.1 meters high, weighs 17.5 kilograms, and can carry 35 to 40 kilograms. As long as you add some traction or thrust, the horse can walk with both hooves side by side, and just press its tongue to block the moving mechanism. This is consistent with the description in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
Although the stride length of this first stray horse was only 20 centimeters and the load was only 35 to 40 kilograms, it gave a definite answer to an eternal mystery: the wooden cow and the stray horse were not the writer's exaggeration. , not a misunderstanding by historians, but a real historical reality!
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang built wooden cows and flowing horses to transport grain and grass. Since ancient times, there has been no consensus on what a wooden ox or a flowing horse looks like. There are a lot of things to say, but none of them is more consistent with the original situation. I think the reason is that those who engage in history are not familiar with mechanics, and those who engage in mechanics are not in the habit of researching these things.
Edit this paragraph The mystery of the wooden cow and the flowing horse
More than 1,700 years ago, Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of the Shu Han Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period, invented the wooden cow and the flowing horse. However, what kind of transportation is the wooden cow and the flowing horse? For thousands of years, people have put forward various opinions and argued endlessly.
Looking at the history books, "The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms: Zhuge Liang's Biography" records: "Liang Xing is better than ingenuity, and his profits and losses are continuous, and the wooden ox and the horse are all unexpected." "The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms: The Biography of the Later Master" records: "Jianxing Jiu In the 12th year, Liang returned to Qishan and used wooden oxen to transport the troops. After all the food was exhausted, in the spring of the twelfth year, Liang learned that the masses came out of Xiegu and used drifting horses to transport them. According to the Wuzhangyuan of Wugong, he and Sima Xuan went to Weinan. "The above records clearly indicate that the wooden oxen and flowing horses were used. It is indeed Zhuge Liang's invention, and the wooden ox and the flowing horse are two different tools. Judging from the chronological order of the use of the wooden ox and the flowing horse, the wooden ox and the flowing horse came first, and the flowing horse is an improved version of the wooden ox.
Pei Songzhi of the Northern and Southern Dynasties who wrote annotations for "Three Kingdoms" quoted a record about a wooden cow and a flowing horse in the now-lost "Zhuge Liang Collection" and described the image of a wooden cow and the flowing horse. Some of the dimensions were recorded, but because no physical object or graphics survived to later generations, the understanding of the wooden ox and the flowing horse by later generations has always been rare and shrouded in clouds and mountains.
Two hundred years after Zhuge Liang created a wooden cow and a flowing horse, Zu Chongzhi, a technological genius during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, is said to have created a wooden cow and a flowing horse. "Book of Southern Qi: Biography of Zu Chong" says: "Zhuge Liang had a wooden ox and a flowing horse, so he built a tool that would move by itself without any feng shui, without using manpower." What is difficult to understand is that he also did not leave any detailed information. material.
However, the record about Zu Chongzhi’s creation of a wooden cow and a flowing horse provides support for the view of automatic machinery. This is a major point of view about the wooden cow and flowing horse. It is believed that the use of gears to make machinery was common during the Three Kingdoms period. The wooden cow and flowing horse praised by later generations, It should be an automatic machine made using the gear principle.
In Huangsha Town, Mian County, Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, historical records record that this is the place where Zhuge Liang built wooden cows and flowing horses. According to research, Zhuge Liang used the wooden cow and flowing horse three times during the eight-year Northern Expedition. The wooden cow and flowing horse started from here and walked a 250-kilometer plank road to the front line of Qishan Wuzhangyuan.
The local old man described to us the legendary wooden cow and horse: "The horse head is made of wood, and other scattered small pieces form the horse body, and then the horse legs are assembled, and a gear is placed in the middle of the belly. Behind the wooden horse There is a wrench, and when it is pressed, it will move one step, and then it will move one step." From this legend, it can be seen that the wooden cow and the horse have gears, and they also seem to use the principle of leverage.
Not long ago, Liang Guojun, an ordinary rural teacher in Botou, Hebei Province, said that he himself restored a wooden cow and a flowing horse, and it was very successful. Our reporter made a special trip there to have a look with great interest.
The wooden cows and flowing horses made by Liang Guojun are all wooden machines with four legs and a hollow belly that can carry heavy objects. By pressing and lifting the horse's neck, the flowing horse will spread its legs and walk; the wooden ox walks by pressing the double shafts at the back. According to Liang Guojun, the principle of the wooden ox and flowing horse he made is consistent with historical records: "'The wooden ox rears up on its double shafts, and the flowing horse is shaped like an elephant.' There is a long labor-saving arm behind the wooden ox, which is the double shaft; the flowing horse's The labor-saving arm is its long horse's neck, which is shaped like an elephant. "What's even more clever is that Liang Guojun implemented a secret lock function on his flowing horse. By twisting the tongue, the horse's head was locked and it couldn't walk. This is very consistent with the description in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
However, the wooden cow and flowing horse restored by Liang Guojun encountered opposition from another faction. Guo Qinghua, curator of the Mian County Museum in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province and director of the Three Kingdoms Culture Research Center in Shaanxi Province, believes that the wooden cow and flowing horse cannot have four legs: " The plank road is paved with wooden boards, and the gaps in the middle are of different widths. How can four legs walk on a board with gaps? Even if you are walking on a non-plank road, it is also climbing, and you need to pull from the front and push from the back. There is no way to pull or push it, so the wooden ox and flowing horse must have wheels."
Why does Guo Qinghua think that the wooden ox and flowing horse should have wheels? This can also be based on historical records. Guo Qinghua believes that the wooden cow and flowing horse should be a four-wheeled cart: "Fali, who makes the wooden cow and flowing horse, said when introducing the wooden cow and flowing horse that the wooden cow and flowing horse have a front axle and a rear axle. Everyone knows that the one with wheels is called an axle, and one axle holds two wheels. So I think it should be four-wheeled."
Is the Wooden Cow and the Flowing Horse on wheels or on four legs? Chen Shidao of the Northern Song Dynasty recorded the following text: "There is a small cart in Shu, which can be pushed by one person and carries eight stones, with the front like an ox's head; there is also a large cart, which is pushed by four people, carrying ten stones, and is built with wood, like an ox and a horse." " It is also recorded in "Shijiyuan": "The wooden ox is the one with the front shaft of the current cart; the flowing horse is the one that pushes alone." Lin Qing, a Manchu water conservancy expert in the Qing Dynasty, also said that the earthen carts used in water conservancy projects at that time were the wooden ox and the flowing horse recorded by Chen Shidao. : "An earth cart has a single wheel to collect soil and also carry barnyard grass. When Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of Shu, went on an expedition, he first built wooden oxen and flowing horses to transport wages. Today's earthen carts are pushed alone and are still used to store kudzu." The wooden ox is a wheelbarrow with a front shaft. The Liuma is a single-pushed cart without a front shaft. This is also the main view on the wooden cow and the Liuma. But even records from the Song Dynasty are more than 1,000 years old from the Three Kingdoms period. How credible is this view?
Feng Lisheng, a professor at the Institute of Ancient Literature at Tsinghua University, believes that the wooden cow and the flowing horse can basically be concluded to be a wheelbarrow, because based on the evidence from various historical materials and various documents, a wheelbarrow is the most likely.
In order to understand the situation of the plank road during the Three Kingdoms period, we came to the mouth of the Baoxie River Valley, which is the starting point of the Baoxie Plank Road. It is located 20 kilometers north of Hanzhong City. More than 1,700 years ago, Zhuge Liang’s Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse started from here. Food and grass were transported to the front lines.
What is unexpected is that the ancient plank road was very gentle and not steep. It turns out that the ancient people were very smart in opening the Baoxie Plank Road. They chose the slowest road in the Qinling Mountains, climbed up the mountain unknowingly, and then went down without any effort. On such a road, a four-legged machine cannot be as efficient as wheels anyway, so it is unlikely that the wooden ox and flowing horse at that time were a four-legged walking machine, and the possibility of a four-wheeled vehicle was even smaller, because the four-wheeled vehicle was used as a steering wheel. The control is more difficult. Even on flat ground, the turning of a four-wheeled vehicle is not very flexible, so the possibility is even less in that special condition.
From the analysis of the plank road situation, it seems that only the wheelbarrow is most likely to be the wooden cow and the lost horse in history. Some people may ask, if the wooden ox and the flowing horse are unicycles, according to records, the wooden ox has four legs. How are these four legs reflected in the unicycle? Also, how to explain the names of some components including hidden mechanisms?
"A Wooden Ox and a Flowing Horse" may break the conventional laws:
We all know that the Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has always been a mystery and has fascinated countless people. The production conditions at that time were simple and far inferior to modern times, but the structure of the "wooden cow and flowing horse" seemed simple and easy to implement, and it was in line with the situation at that time. If "The Wooden Ox and the Flowing Horse" were written so magically at that time, we might have dismissed it as a myth very early on, but because what was written in the book was in line with the situation at that time, we have to suspect that it might have been true at that time. There are wooden cows and flowing horses. However, the passage of time and the drama of the novel leave us somewhat helpless.
For now, if the "wooden cow and flowing horse" can really walk without eating or drinking as described in the book, this is obviously not in line with the current scientific law of energy conservation. Because if the "wooden cow and flowing horse" wanted to walk, it would definitely consume energy. There must have been no energy substances such as oil and natural gas at that time, and it did not eat or drink. Where did it get energy? This is something worth considering. If we want to create a wooden cow that flows like a horse as described in the novel, we must abandon the current law of "energy conservation".
Similarly, to create a "wooden cow and flowing horse" will definitely break the law of "energy conservation" that has affected us for several generations, and it will definitely be a deed that attracts the attention of the world. There are countless mysteries in history that we need to solve. This may be just a fictitious item, but until the mystery is revealed, no one can deny its existence.