The role of wooden cattle and flowing horses is to transport grain. Wooden oxen and floating horses are the means of transport invented by Zhuge Liang, the prime minister of Shu Han in the Three Kingdoms Period. They are divided into wooden oxen and floating horses. According to historical records, it was used by Zhuge Liang during the Northern Expedition in the ninth to twelfth years of Jianxing (231-234). Its carrying capacity was "grain for one year", about 400 jin or more. The daily journey was "dozens of miles for special travelers, 30 miles in groups", providing food for the 100000 troops of the Shu Han Dynasty. However, the exact way and appearance are still unknown, and there are different explanations for it.
Wooden cattle and flowing horses:
There are many explanations for wooden cattle and horses, one of which is the single wheel wooden cart, which is a wooden walking cart with swinging cargo boxes for transporting granular goods on mountain roads. Imagine a horizontal wooden strip three feet above the ground, four feet long and six inches high. The left end of the wooden strip is cut into a handlebar shape, and the right end has three pinholes. Let's imagine that these two wooden strips are arranged on the left and right shafts of the bicycle. Then imagine that a three foot long shaft is inserted between the top holes of the two chevrons. In the two holes below the chevrons, a wooden column that can swing along the small shaft and touch the ground at the other end is hinged with a small shaft. This four legged rickshaw is a wooden ox.
The Liuma is a wooden box with an upward opening and a hole on the vertical centerline near the upper edge of the left and right side walls. The three foot long axis of the wooden cow passes through the two holes of the horse, and the horse can move back and forth on the axis. In order not to move loads such as millet and rice left and right in the box, a longitudinal partition divides the box into two, and the grain is first put into cloth bags and then into the box.
When the wooden ox splits its front and rear legs, it can stop on the slope at any time. The fork opening is limited by the limit pin on the four foot long shaft. Pull the handle of the shaft to the front and press it down. The top hole of the pin moves above the left hole of the pin, that is, the center of gravity moves to the front leg. At this time, the right hole of the pin is pried up, that is, the rear leg is free of force and lifted in the air, and under the action of gravity or driven by the pin of the horse, it moves down to the front leg.
When the center of gravity is moved out of the left hole of Pinzi, the wooden ox has moved forward half a step, and then it will be overturned. At this time, the handle can be quickly pulled up and pulled forward, so that the top hole of Pinzi moves backward to the right hole of Pinzi, so that the center of gravity falls on the back leg. The result of pulling forward is to split the back leg, and the front leg is pushed forward by the pin on the horse. In this way, the wooden ox walked the rest of the way.
