Chapter 295: Where There Are Machines, There Are Sure to Be Machine Affairs

The last time Diwu Lun passed through Henei he had been hurrying to backstab Wang Mang; though he had long heard of Du Shi's name, he never had the chance to properly observe and inspect. This time, revisiting old haunts, he ordered Du Shi to take him on a thorough tour along the Qin River.

Du Shi had not expected Diwu Lun to single him out to accompany him on a county inspection, but neither was he particularly overwhelmed by the honor. After all, the loyalty of the Henei people toward the "King of Wei" had been achieved only under the press of swords and circumstance.

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What excited him was that someone of high rank and power actually cared about the contraptions he had tinkered together "instead of minding his proper duties." He simply said, "When Your Majesty asks your servant how he came up with the idea for the water-powered bellows, it was actually inspired by the water-powered trip-hammer."

Following Du Shi's directions, he saw that along the irrigation channels branching off from the Qin River, there were many workshops and huts. Drawing near the channel, he saw an upright waterwheel set over the channel water, with blades on the wheel. As the current pushed the waterwheel and turned it, it drove a cam, and the cam in turn drove the pestle shaft inside the hut, making the pestle head rise and fall — it was pounding the husked millet that had just been harvested that autumn.

This device had already spread everywhere in the canal-rich Guanzhong region as early as the Han dynasty and was nothing remarkable.

Pointing to the key component, the upright waterwheel, Du Shi said, "I do not know which skilled craftsman of the Qin or Han first produced this object. When your servant saw that it could use water power, a fanciful notion struck him: with the aid of this waterwheel, water power can be used to pound rice — so why could it not be used to blow a blast?"

"Jungong, you are a Merits Evaluator, in charge of promoting and demoting officials, are you not?" Diwu Lun looked at this official who held a lucrative post in the personnel department yet whose interests veered toward craftsmanship and machinery, and laughed. "Does this count as meddling in governance outside one's station?"

Du Shi had often been reproached in this way. Only after he made his report did Diwu Lun learn that Du Shi's father had once served as the Iron Overseer of Henei, and that he himself had once held a post in the ironworks. Although he had later been promoted for outstanding performance, he had never forgotten his old trade.

Henei lay close to the Taihang Mountains and also had iron mines. Du Shi took Diwu Lun on an inspection tour to the sweltering ironworks of Henei, where he saw a layout similar to the water-powered trip-hammer: beside a rushing channel, a wooden frame had been erected, and on the frame was a wooden waterwheel. But unlike the trip-hammer, it was not upright — it was horizontal, with wooden blades receiving the water current.

When the current struck the lower horizontal wheel, it drove the upper horizontal wheel to rotate, and the force was transmitted by a cord to turn a crank. This reciprocating motion made the bellows inside the workshop open and close, blowing the blast. It required neither human nor animal power, and once the furnace fire received this strong and steady wind, it blazed fiercely!

This was the water-powered bellows. Diwu Lun immediately brightened and had someone show Du Shi a diagram — it was a device built two years earlier at the Wu'an ironworks in Wei, which Diwu Lun had named the "water bellows." Its design was quite similar to Du Shi's water-powered bellows; the biggest difference was that it used an upright waterwheel.

"Those who smelt iron use bellows to blow the charcoal, but we use rushing water to drive them."

"Seeing yours today, I now realize that for water-powered bellows, the upright design is indeed inferior to the horizontal."

Diwu Lun was not ashamed to admit this. Science, after all, is not engineering — and what was more, he had been a poor student. He understood the principles but was utterly incapable of doing the hands-on work himself. What he did more often was set the broad outlines, establish a project, tell the craftsmen his ideas and plans, give them funds, manpower, and materials, and let them go ahead and build. With different people handling it, the finished product would turn out very differently.

Yet this Du Shi, without any acquired knowledge, had created this device out of thin air — truly impressive. The water-powered bellows was the culmination of hydraulic machinery since the Warring States period. It not only employed drive wheels, driven wheels, cranks, connecting rods, and other mechanisms to convert circular motion into the linear reciprocating motion of a pull rod, but also used belt transmission to make a rotary drum smaller in diameter than the driven wheel spin rapidly. Although some parts still needed improvement, it was already exceedingly rare and remarkable.

Du Shi deflected the credit, saying, "It was all worked out through discussion among the skilled craftsmen of Henei. Your servant merely offered an idea; it was they who did the actual hands-on work."

Having finally met a great figure who took an interest in this device, he promoted it with all his might: "In the old days, smelting used human-powered bellows. To refine one zhong of wrought iron took over a hundred men. When horse-powered or donkey-powered bellows were used instead, they still consumed animal strength. We borrowed the power of flowing water for the water-powered bellows. Reckoning its benefit, it is three times that of horse-powered bellows! Using this device to cast farming tools, one expends little effort but sees much result."

Diwu Lun nodded. He too had had another version of the water-powered bellows used at the Wu'an iron mine and knew that it not only increased efficiency but also raised smelting intensity. Earlier, Diwu Lun had ordered the furnace hearth enlarged and the furnace body heightened, but they had to abandon the effort because the blast intensity was insufficient. Only after the hydraulic blast mechanism was produced could it be paired with the larger furnace. The furnace temperature rose considerably, and better iron could be smelted.

Watching the ingeniously constructed machinery run in continuous motion, driven by unique craftsmanship, was truly a delight to the eye and heart.

"How many of these devices are there in Henei?"

Du Shi said, "One and a half."

Diwu Lun found this strange. "What do you mean, a half?"

Du Shi shook his head. "The second one had just begun construction and was only half built when someone destroyed it."

Only then did Diwu Lun learn that the ones who destroyed the water-powered bellows were none other than the craftsmen and government slaves inside the ironworks.

Du Shi said, "In the past, iron smelting often used a hundred men to work the bellows. After working the bellows, they had a meal to eat. This was especially true when refugees multiplied — many people came to the ironworks to sell themselves to make a living. Someone spread a rumor that my water-powered bellows would cost them their livelihood."

So that was it. Henei, too, had many people and little land; many had turned to handicrafts or indentured themselves as slaves in government-run workshops. A single water-powered bellows needed only a few men to manage it. In their eyes, it was practically stealing the food from their mouths.

And the water-powered bellows that Du Shi had so eagerly had the craftsmen build — the Henei higher-ups were unwilling to promote it either.

Du Shi said, "I once went to call on the Grand Governor. The Grand Governor rebuked me with the story of Marquis Zhao of Han and his two attendants, the cap-keeper and the robe-keeper, telling me not to meddle in affairs beyond my duties."

"I also called on the former Adjutant, Lord Fu, and Lord Fu told me a story from the Zhuangzi."

Oh, so this Fu Zhan not only reads the Book of Documents but also reads Zhuangzi? Although Diwu Lun had been compelled to engage him as commandery Elder in order to win the hearts of the Henei gentry, in his heart he rather looked down on such people.

Du Shi said, "Lord Fu said: Zigong was traveling in the southern state of Chu. On his return, while on the road in Jin, as he passed through Hanyin, he saw an old man preparing to plant vegetables. Bent over, the man was drawing water from a well and carrying a jar to water the plants. After half a day he had still not finished watering one plot. He expended much strength but saw little result. Zigong then asked: There is clearly a labor-saving well-sweep — made of wood and worked into a machine, heavy at the back and light at the front, it draws water as fast as boiling water spilling over, and can water a hundred plots in a day. Why not use it?"

"The gardener flushed with anger and said: 'Where there are machines, there are sure to be machine affairs; where there are machine affairs, there is sure to be a machine heart. If a machine heart dwells in the breast, pure whiteness is not preserved; if pure whiteness is not preserved, the spirit grows unsettled; where the spirit is unsettled, the Dao will not abide. It is not that I do not know the method you speak of — I would simply be ashamed to use it!'"

"Lord Fu used these words to rebuke me, telling me not to be a man of the wind and waves, but rather to be a man of complete virtue."

This Fu Zhan, like the old man in the story, prided himself on preferring to toil with little result rather than break free of the constraints of the "machine heart," and he wished Du Shi to be the same — that as a scholar-official, he should concentrate on cultivating himself in the Five Classics and not degrade himself by keeping company with craftsmen.

Du Shi's water-powered bellows had thus been shelved for quite a few years. He had not grown disheartened, however, and merely drew diagrams in silence, pondering how to improve it.

After hearing this matter, Diwu Lun slapped the table and said, "Utterly absurd!"

"The noble man is not born different from others; he is simply good at borrowing from things. Borrowing from things to benefit the people — how has that become a 'machine heart'?"

No era lacked people like Fu Zhan. A thousand years, two thousand years later, they would speak the same way about all manner of foreign machinery, denouncing it as "bizarre and wanton craft." Fortunately, at present, it was Diwu Lun who had the final say.

"Under Wang Mang, people like Fu Zhan, who knew nothing but the Five Classics, were recklessly assigned to all sorts of posts — managing military affairs, managing industry and agriculture — and used their set of pedantic nonsense to delay proper business. There were far too many of them!"

After the reigns of Emperors Xuan and Yuan, the Five Classics flourished greatly, upright officials sharply declined, and Confucian officials who specialized solely in the Five Classics but lacked experience in local governance increased dramatically, reaching a peak under Wang Mang.

Diwu Lun had taken in the entire Lesser Treasury, the Water Conservancy, and the Three Offices of Shanglin from the Xin Dynasty. He did not lack craftsmen, nor would he lack gradually trained apprentices in the future. But even the best craftsmen needed someone to organize them to get things done. To implement and carry out Diwu Lun's ideas, what he needed most right now were "technical bureaucrats" with vision, like Du Shi.

"Do they not say that you neglect your proper duties?" Diwu Lun laughed. "Today I hereby appoint you as Assistant to the Water Conservancy Commandant of the State of Wei, rank six hundred dan. Is Jungong willing?"

The Water Conservancy Commandant's purview overlapped somewhat with the Lesser Treasury; its subordinate offices included the Mint, Copper Assayer, Mountain Forest, and Technical Skills, and it oversaw a great deal of government-run handicraft industry and also shared responsibility for waterworks. Diwu Lun had packed up all its subordinate craftsmen and government slaves and moved them north of the Wei River; now it lacked a chief officer.

But because Du Shi was relatively young and his seniority shallow, he could not directly become Water Conservancy Commandant, a post comparable to the Nine Ministers, so Diwu Lun made him Assistant.

Du Shi did not agree at once; his expression showed a trace of hesitation. He had little interest in climbing the official ladder step by step. If he accepted, he might have to follow Diwu Lun and leave his home region of Henei.

Diwu Lun then had Du Shi stop with him before the waterwheel. Pointing to it, he said, "I have an old friend, Huan Tan."

"He once wrote an essay called 'The Li Cart,' in which he spoke of the water-powered trip-hammer."

"When Fu Yi devised the benefit of the pestle and mortar, the myriad people were thereby aided. In later ages, ingenuity was added: by extending force and borrowing the weight of the body to tread the pestle, the benefit increased tenfold. Then further, machines were set up using donkeys, mules, oxen, and horses, or by channeling water to do the pounding, and the benefit increased a hundredfold."

From the pestle and mortar of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, which could only pound grain by hand, to the treadle-operated pestle of the Qin, which could pound rice by foot, to the present-day water-powered trip-hammer — a hundredfold increase in efficiency was an exaggeration, but tenfold was perhaps real. The appearance of the water-powered trip-hammer caused the harsh penal labor of "wall-building and grain-pounding" to dwindle to almost nothing by Wang Mang's time, because the government offices and the Grand Granary were happy to use the highly efficient water-powered trip-hammers that worked day and night, while government slaves were used for other labor.

Although Huan Tan himself did not realize it, this passage, translated into the language of later ages, was nothing less than "liberating the forces of production"!

He told Du Shi his plan: the water-powered bellows must be promoted at every iron office workshop under Wei's control — Wei Commandery, Hedong, Henei, all of them. Beyond that, using the waterwheel principle, all kinds of hydraulic machinery should be researched and built by the craftsmen of the Lesser Treasury and the Water Conservancy.

Although he often made quips at the expense of the various Han regimes, Diwu Lun was deeply grateful to the Han dynasty. Traveling from Guanzhong to Hedong and then to Henei, what he saw was the enormous legacy left by the House of Han, especially during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han: irrigation channels spread across every commandery. These watercourses could be used not only for irrigation, but also fully harnessed.

"I hope that in ten years, twenty years, every channel outside every village gate in the realm will have a watermill built beside it, grinding the hard-to-swallow wheat grains into flour for the common people, making soup cakes and barbarian flatbreads, bringing joy to every household."

"The water-powered trip-hammer can be used not only to pound grain, but also to crush medicinal herbs, to beat silk and hemp, to pulverize ore — even to forge fine steel! So that hundred-refined steel need not consume endless time and strength!"

"In the future, we must also build large hydraulic spinning frames, so that the cloth which takes hundreds and thousands of women, toiling until their hair turns white and their eyes go blind, can be woven in one continuous process with the aid of water power!"

Beyond that, there were also bleaching and dyeing cloth, and sawing wood. Boldly giving play to the imagination, with technically knowledgeable bureaucrats organizing craftsmen to invent, and with a strong government to promote it all, Diwu Lun believed that hydraulic machinery would surely blossom everywhere that water resources were abundant.

Just like the gradually vanishing punishment of "wall-building and grain-pounding," a colossal amount of human labor would be liberated. As for where they would be used — Diwu Lun had not yet fully thought it through, because no one knew how long the chaotic times would last. Digging channels, opening up wasteland, performing corvée labor — wartime required too much manpower. A suitable amount of hydraulic machinery could ensure that when they were conscripted, farming and handicrafts would not be neglected too severely.

Du Shi was stunned by Diwu Lun's vision. Beyond being moved, he could only sigh inwardly. Men in high places either made squeezing the people's fat and blood their chief business, or, when they wished to display their own virtue, did no more than treat the worthy with courtesy and discourse at length on poetry, documents, rites, and music. He had never expected there to be such a singular figure as Diwu Lun — it was truly beyond anything he could have imagined.

He bowed in acceptance, taking up the post of Assistant to the Water Conservancy Commandant, and also cautiously raised his own doubts. Diwu Lun then laughed and said, "Because in my view, seeking what is workable, striving for what succeeds, and using little effort to see much result — that is the true Way of the Sage!"

……

Diwu Lun did not linger long in Henei. Just as he had finally received his wife and child — holding his long-separated wife Ma Chanchan close, then cradling his only son, now nearly half a year old, in his arms with doting reluctance to let go — a piece of news arrived from the west.

"The Green Han Grand Chancellor Liu Bosheng has led thirty thousand troops into Guanzhong!"

……

PS: Chapter 2 at 18:00.

Recommending a book written by a reader: A Petty Clerk at the End of the Northern Song.