By the Sui Dynasty, science and technology at this time had been influenced by extremely strong national strength, and the level of science and technology had entered an unprecedented glorious period. The prosperity, grand pattern, open momentum and magnificent scenes of Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty are incomparable in all previous dynasties. In the world at that time, China was at the forefront of scientific and technological development and was the most civilized, advanced, prosperous and powerful country. Of China's four great inventions, two were invented at this time (paper was invented by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty, except the compass used for navigation in the Northern Song Dynasty), and the earliest printing and gunpowder in the world were born at this time.
The earliest printing and block printing in China appeared in the early years of Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty. In 588 AD, Emperor Wendi of Sui ordered 300,000 copies of the imperial edicts against Chen Houzhu's crimes to be widely posted around the world, indicating that printing had been widely popularized among the people at that time. Later, printing appeared frequently in the official history. In the 13th year of Emperor Yangdi Huang Kai (A.D. 593), Emperor Wendi of Sui Dynasty promulgated that "taking pictures is the beginning of printing books". In the Sui Dynasty, there were carved Buddhist calendars and books.
When Yang Di went to the West for three times, gunpowder began to be widely used in the military and made great achievements.
The brilliant achievements of the Sui Dynasty in urban construction are unparalleled in the ancient history of the world, especially in the construction of two world-famous metropolitan cities, Xijing Daxing City (Chang 'an) and Oriental Luoyang. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), Emperor Wendi of Sui Dynasty thought that Chang 'an, which was built in the early Western Han Dynasty and later used by the Northern Zhou Dynasty, was too small, and ordered Yuwen Kai to build another Daxing City. Huang Kai started construction in June of the second year and was completed at the beginning of the second year. Daxing City was built on the south bank of Weihe River, about 7 kilometers southeast of the old Chang 'an City, with a total area of 84 square kilometers, about 7.5 times that of the old An City (built in Ming and Qing Dynasties). According to "Geography of Sui Shu", Daxing City is in the north and south 15, and in the east and west 175 (according to archaeological investigation, it is actually 125 in 16, that is, 8651.25m). There are three doors in the east, south and west, and one door in the north. The northern centers of the city are Miyagi and Imperial City. Miyagi is the residence of the royal family, and the imperial city is the seat of the government. On the east, south and west of Miyagi and Imperial City, there are 106 residential areas-Fang (including official residences, common people's houses and temples). There is a city in the east and a city in the west as a place for folk commodity trading activities. Miyagi, Imperial City, Square and City are all made up of 25 rules.
The streets are separated. Among them, the six main streets leading to the city gate are as wide as 150 meters, and other streets are generally tens of meters wide. There are walls around each square, and the doors are closed at night. There are streets and alleys in the square. In order to meet the water demand of the city, a number of canals have been built to guide swimming and algae rivers through the city respectively. The layout of Daxing City is neat and symmetrical, and the planning is neat. At the same time, it has obviously changed the old urban construction pattern with its back to the city since the Western Zhou Dynasty, and given more consideration to the needs of residents in transportation, water use and commodity trading activities. It was the further development of Yecheng and Luoyang in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and Daxing City was a huge capital rarely seen in the ancient world. The construction of the ancient capital of Japan was greatly influenced by Daxing City. Someone once compared the area of ten ancient cities in the world: (1) Daxing City in Sui Dynasty, built in 583, with an area of 84. 1 square kilometer; (2) Luoyang City in Northern Wei Dynasty, built in 493, with an area of about 73 square kilometers; (3) Beijing City in Ming and Qing Dynasties, built in1421-1553, with an area of 60.2 square kilometers; (4) Yuan Dadu, built in 1267, with an area of 50 square kilometers; (5) Tokyo (Luoyang City), built in 605, with an area of 45.2 square kilometers; (6) Ming Nanjing, built in 1366, with an area of 43 square kilometers; (7) Han Chang 'an (Niancheng), built in 202 BC, with an area of 35 square kilometers; (8) Baghdad, built in 800, with an area of 30.44 square kilometers; (9) Rome, built in 300 years, with an area of 13.68 square kilometers; (10) Byzantium, built in 447, covers an area of 1 1.99 square kilometers. As can be seen from the above table, the scale of Daxing City in Sui Dynasty is unparalleled in the world, and it has been called the first city in the world since ancient times.
The Sui Dynasty not only created Daxing City, the world's first city, and Luoyang, the splendid oriental capital, but also made great achievements in other fields of architectural history. Yu Wenkai's Wind Watching Palace is a movable palace. Can be disassembled, combined and walked. Your highness has a shaft and can rotate freely. This walking hall is a hall for hundreds of people, which is dedicated to the emperor when patrolling the border. Another skillful craftsman, He Chou, built Liuhe City, which is an activity city with eight miles in Fiona Fang and ten feet high (called eight feet or seven feet in ancient times). It was built by Emperor Yang Di when he attacked Korea. It was built overnight, and the city was full of soldiers and flags. When the Koreans saw it the next day, they were very surprised and thought it was amazing. There is also a device that automatically closes the brocade curtain to open the door, which is ingenious and well-made. In the study in front of the temple of Emperor Du Dongguan, there are two flying immortals hanging outside the door. There seems to be nothing strange, but when people walk to the curtain and their feet touch the machines around the ground, Feixian will come down from Ran Ran, put away the brocade curtain and the door will open quietly. /kloc-More than 0/000 years ago, in the Sui Dynasty, there appeared something that seemed to exist only in myth.
The shipbuilding industry in Sui Dynasty developed unprecedentedly, and the shipbuilding technology was very high, which made the later dynasties unable to surpass it. In order to prepare for the attack on Chen, Emperor Wendi of Sui ordered to supervise the construction of warships in Yong 'an, south of the Yangtze River. Its scale and technical level are unprecedented. For example, the "five-toothed" warship has a hull 100 feet and five floors. It is equipped with six paddles, which can be used to beat enemy ships and can accommodate 800 soldiers. Later, the Tang, Song, Yuan and Qing Dynasties could not reach this level. Only the treasure ship survey built by Zheng He in Ming Dynasty can match it. By the time of Yang Di, the scale of shipbuilding was even larger. According to the biography of Emperor Yang of Sui Shu, "In March of the first year of Daye, ... tens of thousands of dragon boats, phoenix boats, Huanglongchi boats and floor boats were built." According to Liu Yiqing's Miscellaneous Notes on Daye in Song Dynasty, the scale of the dragon boat that Emperor Yang Di took when he went to Jiangdu was: "45 feet high, 50 feet wide and 200 feet long. Quadruple: The last one is the Hall of the Great Hero, the Inner Hall, the East Hall and the West Hall, and the Zhou Gallery; There are 160 rooms in No.2 Middle School, all decorated with Danfen, resplendent in makeup and beautifully carved, decorated with tassels, feathers and silk screens; In the following long autumn, waiters and boatmen will bring in six large plain silk ropes from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. " In addition, there are 24 Zhu niao sailboats, Cang Zhu sailboats, White Tiger sailboats and Xuanwu sailboats, Qingfuge 10, Ling 10, 52 on the fifth floor, 20 on the third floor 120, 250 on the second floor, 2,000 yellow boats and other small boats. At that time, one after another, more than 200 miles of continuous cotton was really vast. In today's words, the dragon boat Yang-ti rode was 45 feet high and 200 feet long. It has four floors, the upper floor has the main hall, the inner hall and the east and west halls, and the middle floor has 65,438+020 rooms, all decorated with golden jade. It takes high technology to build such a huge ship. Compared with the world level at that time, the shipbuilding technology of Sui Dynasty was first-class.
Sui's bridge-building skills are also superb. At that time, Li Chun, an outstanding folk craftsman, designed and built the world-famous Anji Bridge in Zhaozhou (on the Weihe River in Zhaoxian County, Hebei Province). The bridge is a bridge with a span of 37.37 meters and is made of stone with a single arch and a large arc. There are two small stone arches on the back of the arch at both ends of the large arc connection, which can not only save stone and reduce the load of the bridge foundation, but also make the river flow through the small arch when the water level is high, thus playing the role of flood diversion, buffering and protecting the bridge body. The bridge is 50.82 meters long and 9.62 meters wide. Due to its large span, bridge opening is only 7.23 meters high. The slope of the bridge body is low and flat, and the deck is straight, which is convenient for pedestrians and horses to pass. This bridge is not only reasonable in design and firm in structure, but also beautiful and spectacular in shape, combining rigidity and flexibility, just like Changhong in the sky. On the stone railings on both sides of the bridge deck, the pattern of "dragon and beast" is carved, which is ingenious and realistic. This bridge fully demonstrates the unique style of China's ancient architectural art and is a great achievement in the history of Chinese bridges. Even modern architectural engineers are surprised to see this bridge. In 702 AD, Tang Zhongshu ordered Zhang to write an inscription for Anji Bridge, saying that the bridge was built by a skillful craftsman. People don't know why. This bridge in ........................................................................................................................... is the oldest stone arch bridge in the world, with a large span, which occupies an important position in the history of bridges at home and abroad. 1300 for more than 300 years, Anji Bridge still stands on the Weihe River, although it has been tested by many floods and earthquakes. The achievement of Anji Bridge shows that the bridge-building technology of China in Sui Dynasty has reached a very high level. It was after 1200 years that Europeans created similar arch bridges.
From 605 to 6 10, Yang Di dug the Grand Canal with Luoyang as the center, connecting Zhuo Jun (now Beijing) in the north and Yuhang (now Hangzhou) in the south, which is the earliest and longest Grand Canal in the world.
The porcelain-making technology in the Sui Dynasty was also excellent. Archaeological excavations in recent years have proved that there were porcelain among the funerary objects at that time. White porcelain, such as chicken-headed pot, double-dragon handle bottle, flat pot with two ears, were found in Li's tomb in the fourth year of Daye (AD 608) and Ji Wei's tomb in the sixth year of Daye (AD 6 10), and blue glass bottles were also found in Li's tomb. The Sui Dynasty began to set up Xing kiln to burn white porcelain, and invented the transparent fine white porcelain technology at the earliest, which is the best and most precious in all previous dynasties. Yao Xing White Porcelain is a pioneering work, and Yao Xing Transparent Porcelain makes the quality of China White Porcelain reach its peak. White porcelain technology failed to reach the technical level of Sui Dynasty in the following Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties, and it was not until the Yongle period of Ming Dynasty thousands of years later that Yao Xing transparent porcelain technology reappeared in the world. In addition, handicrafts such as carving, tea making, salt making, lacquerware, smelting and casting have also made great growth. During the Sui Dynasty, counters specialized in money deposit and loan business, which was the earliest prototype of banks in China, six or seven hundred years earlier than European financial institutions.