A joke about a wooden ox and a flowing horse

"Mu Niu Liu Ma" has been recorded in many historical books, and later generations Zu Chongzhi also copied it, so it is not a legend, and it does not mean that it cannot be copied.

As we all know, Zhuge Liang is not only an excellent strategist and politician, but also a great inventor, such as Zhuge Liang's lantern, Zhuge Liang's crossbow, Mu Niu Liu Ma and Kong Mingsuo. Some people even say that he invented steamed bread. Today we will talk about one of his inventions-Liu Ma, a cattle herder.

There are many references in the Biography of the Three Kingdoms of Zhuge Liang, such as "nine years later, Liang returned to Qishan, transported the cattle and horses, and all the food was withdrawn", and "twelve years later, Liang learned that the masses had left the oblique valley to transport horses". "Biography of the Three Kingdoms" also records that "in ten years, Liang Xiu advised farmers to go to Huangsha and taught soldiers martial arts." Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a more detailed description of cattle herding Liu Ma, so I won't go into details one by one. At the same time, he gave a detailed description of the making method of cow Liu Ma, which is considered to be the closest to the making method of cow Liu Ma's mantra seal.

Modern people do it according to the production method described in Luo Guanzhong's novels, but it turns out that it is actually what we call a scooter and a square box, and there is nothing particularly strange. Maybe it was invented by Luo Guanzhong himself when he was writing a novel.

Are they really ordinary station wagons and unicycles?

Zu Chongzhi thinks that Liu Ma, a cattle herder, is a highly skilled automatic machine. "Zhuge Liang has A Mu cattle and Liu Ma, but a device was made, not because of Feng Shui, so it is easy to transport the machine." According to Zu Chongzhi, the machine he made after improving the wooden cow Liu Ma is even more magical. Unfortunately, he didn't leave any sketches or objects, so people always doubted the authenticity of Liu Ma.

In the Song Dynasty, Gao Cheng wrote in Shi Ji.

Today, it's a wooden cow with a front axle on the car. Today, it's a person pushing the horse.

Modern historians Fan Wenlan and Guo Moruo both think that "the wooden ox and the flowing horse are unicycles". Later, modern historians thought that Liu Ma should be a winch cableway system driven by a gear set mounted on a four-wheeled vehicle. In Sichuan, this system is still in use and expanded organically.

So, why has such a simple system never been replicated?

In fact, Zu Chongzhi has copied it, and the time is close to the Three Kingdoms period. It is estimated that he can still get the design drawings and even the physical objects. However, with the passage of time and the invasion of war, countless ancient documents in China have been destroyed, and there is no specific reference. The difficulty of imitation can be imagined.

Fortunately, with the in-depth study of cow Liu Ma in recent years, some folks have followed the model of "no labor" described by Zu Chongzhi, but they still can't reach the level of "carrying 400 kilograms and walking 20 miles".