12 replies to this topic

[Liang Jieming]

There were some technological advances made during the Yuan dynasty. I went back and did a quick search and this is what I found;

"The Mongol conquest of Sung China is completed in 1279, by Kublai
Khan, the grandson of Chingghis. Kublai, called the "Great Khan" did
not destroy Chinese culture. To the Chinese, he was Emperor Shih-tsu
of the Yuan dynasty. It was also a time of technical innovation, with
the beginning development of a flying machine, the submarine, torpedo
and telescope. In part an anti-Mongolian reaction, the Chinese
abandoned development of these projects, considering them crude and
foreign."

This thing about the Submarine invention during the Yuan dynasty is something I have been trying to dig more info on for awhile now but no success.

Does anyone here know anything about this?

Jieming

[General_Zhaoyun]

Submarine invention during Yuan dynasty? I've never heard of it...as far as I know, Submarine was only invented in 20th century..I think by the Germans in the form of U-Boats.

[Liang Jieming]

Submarine invention during Yuan dynasty? I've never heard of it...as far as I know, Submarine was only invented in 20th century..I think by the Germans in the form of U-Boats.

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I've only seen a few references to it though I haven't actually found any hard info on Yuan dynasty experimentation with submarines. Actually I believe the first western submarine was a small wooden barrel shaped thing that was tested in a river. I forget where and when and by who though. I'll have to go look it up but it wasn't as late as the german u-boat.

But this Yuan dynasty submarine I believe existed though info on it is really scarce.

Jieming

[Yun]

The submarine was invented in the mid-18th century, and first used in the American War of Independence. As Liang Jieming mentioned, it was a small barrell-shaped one-man thing called the Turtle, with foot-powered propellers and hand-powered ballast pump, and tubes to bring fresh air in from the surface. It failed to fix an explosive charge to the British flagship HMS Eagle. The first submarine to sink a ship was the Confederate CSS Hunley in 1864 (during the American Civil War). It rammed an explosive charge into the USS Housatonic, but was itself sunk with all hands by the blast.

I, too, have never seen any evidence of submarine development in the Yuan dynasty. One possibility is that the writer is referring to the Chinese use of watertight compartments (bulkheads) in their ships, which began from at least the 2nd century AD (according to Joseph Needham's estimate) but was only known about in the West through Marco Polo's account in 1295 (during the Yuan). The Europeans were only able to adopt this technology for ocean-going ships in the early 19th century!

The relation to the submarine concept can be seen from this passage in Robert Temple's "The Genius of China" (based on Needham's work):

In about 1712, some English fishermen adopted the Chinese principle of a sealed hull compartment which could be free-flooded under controlled conditions (recorded in a Chinese text of the fifth century AD and doubtless much earlier than that). The purpose of this 'wet-well' in a ship called a 'well-smack' was to enable fishermen to bring their fish to port fresh, still swimming in water. This is a traditional Chinese practice. In China, such free-flooding compartments were also used to raise and lower the level of a boat when shooting rapids in rivers, giving the captain control over the amount of water-resistance of his ship by acquiring and discharging water ballast. The flooded compartments would be emptied by bilge pumps using the square-pallet chain-pump design, which the British Navy also adopted directly from the Chinese.

[Note: clearly, it's far too simplistic to say that the Chinese did not develop submarines because they hated the Mongols. There must have been more practical reasons why submarines would not really be useful. I do feel, however, that if the silver smugglers of the late Ming (mentioned in my essay on Ming maritime history) had been able to use submarines, they could have avoided all those pitched battles with government troops! Perhaps no one was willing to invest money in innovations like that? Usually only the state would have enough capital to develop ocean-going submarines, and certainly there would be the fear that if the technology spread to the public, smuggling and migration overseas would become impossible to police.]

[Liang Jieming]

The submarine was invented in the mid-18th century, and first used in the American War of Independence. As Liang Jieming mentioned, it was a small barrell-shaped one-man thing called the Turtle, with foot-powered propellers and hand-powered ballast pump, and tubes to bring fresh air in from the surface. It failed to fix an explosive charge to the British flagship HMS Eagle. The first submarine to sink a ship was the Confederate CSS Hunley in 1864 (during the American Civil War). It rammed an explosive charge into the USS Housatonic, but was itself sunk with all hands by the blast.

Ah thanks Yun. Now I remember.

[Note: clearly, it's far too simplistic to say that the Chinese did not develop submarines because they hated the Mongols. There must have been more practical reasons why submarines would not really be useful. I do feel, however, that if the silver smugglers of the late Ming (mentioned in my essay on Ming maritime history) had been able to use submarines, they could have avoided all those pitched battles with government troops! Perhaps no one was willing to invest money in innovations like that? Usually only the state would have enough capital to develop ocean-going submarines, and certainly there would be the fear that if the technology spread to the public, smuggling and migration overseas would become impossible to police.]

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Maybe another reason could have been that cramming yourself into a small lightless, watertight container and letting yourself go below the surface of the water would have been too scary or unnatural for people of that era to contemplate?

Jieming

[Yun]

Maybe another reason could have been that cramming yourself into a small lightless, watertight container and letting yourself go below the surface of the water would have been too scary or unnatural for people of that era to contemplate?

That begs the question why it would have been any less scary or unnatural for an American in the late 18th century?

[Liang Jieming]

That begs the question why it would have been any less scary or unnatural for an American in the late 18th century?

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Well, yeah, we're talking about the difference between people who lived in the 18th century vs 14th century, people from a western culture vs. eastern culture, people at war vs. people at relative peace, people who are part of a strong maritime tradition vs. land bound Chinese... well the list goes on. Could be any one or combination of reasons why.

Sometimes it's a matter of timing too. There probably wasn't a strong need to create submarines. The weren't fighting a war, and any threat came not from the sea. *shurg*

Anyway, this is pure speculation that superstition played a part in keeping people out of dark cramp underwater spaces. Maybe they built it, played with it then got bored and forgot they ever built something as fantastic as the submarine. Chinese have this irritating habit of forgetting their own achievements too.

Jieming

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

"In about 1712, some English fishermen adopted the Chinese principle of a sealed hull compartment which could be free-flooded under controlled conditions (recorded in a Chinese text of the fifth century AD and doubtless much earlier than that). The purpose of this 'wet-well' in a ship called a 'well-smack' was to enable fishermen to bring their fish to port fresh, still swimming in water. This is a traditional Chinese practice. In China, such free-flooding compartments were also used to raise and lower the level of a boat when shooting rapids in rivers, giving the captain control over the amount of water-resistance of his ship by acquiring and discharging water ballast. The flooded compartments would be emptied by bilge pumps using the square-pallet chain-pump design, which the British Navy also adopted directly from the Chinese."

I have doubts on a lot of Needham's claims considering he never provided direct evidence and everything is speculation, what is the evidence for this influence?

[Grigori]

The water tight compartment in shipbuilding probably didn't make a ship better or worse in earlier times, just a matter of utility.

Wooden ships really didn't sink very easily and compartmentalization reduced the cargo volume on board. If you look at Chinese vessles, they were designed to sail with a minium of crew with minium maintenance. The lug sail was very easy to handle, it didn't require a team of men climbing the mast. The sail could be made of cheap materials. Even if it got holed, you didn't have to patch it. You often see Chinese "junks" with hundreds of holes in the sails doing just fine. Compared to western sail which must be made of high quality fabric and expertly mended otherwise it'll soon rip.

Same deal with the hull. Western crews had a large number of carpenters and could fix any leak in the hull. Chinese crews tend to be a family living on the ship. If there was a leak, they just sealed a compartment and wait for the next time they were in dock.

[Snafu]

The Yuan was a great time for the arts too. Much of the Chinese scholarly elite found itself unemployed when Khubilai restructured the government (and gave the best official posts to his foreign allies), and many of those men turned to careers in the arts. Chinese theater evolved into its modern forms under the Yuan and the earliest mass-produced novels were printed.

[TMPikachu]

The water tight compartment in shipbuilding probably didn't make a ship better or worse in earlier times, just a matter of utility.

Wouldn't utility count as part of being 'better' ?

[Liang Jieming]

Actually, rereading the original passage from my first post, we shouldn't limit ourselves to just Yuan era submarines. What about the flying machine, torpedo and telescope? Anyone have info?

[Genghis_Khan]

Submarine invention during Yuan dynasty? I've never heard of it...as far as I know, Submarine was only invented in 20th century..I think by the Germans in the form of U-Boats.

William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in 1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, managed to build a submarine. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River - staying submerged for 3 hours.

The first submarine used for military purposes was built in 1776 by David Bushnell (1742-1824) of the US. His "Turtle" was a one-man, wooden submarine powered by hand-turned propellers. It was used during the American Revolution against British warships. The Turtle would approach enemy ships partially submerged to attach explosives to the ships's hull. The Turtle worked well but the explosives did not.

Two rival inventors from the US developed the first true submarines in the 1890s. The US Navy purchased submarines built by John P Holland, while Russia and Japan opted for the designs of Simon Lake. Their submarines used petrol or steam engines for surface cruising and electric motors for underwater travel. They also invented torpedoes which were propelled by small electric motors, thereby introducing one of the most dangerous weapons in the world.