Talking about bellows

The humble bellows in the kitchen really made China's ancient scientific and technological level and comprehensive national strength lead the world for thousands of years.

As we all know, China first experienced the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age. Why did the Bronze Age come first and then the Iron Age? Obviously, the mineral reserves of iron on the earth are much richer than copper? This is caused by the underdeveloped level of ancient science and technology. At that time, people could only raise the temperature to about 800 degrees. This temperature is just right for forging copper, but it is far from enough for forging iron (the melting point of iron is 1535 degrees). This is the reason why so many bronze weapons appeared during the Warring States period.

However, bronze weapons have a fatal flaw-the texture is too brittle. If you take two bronze swords and iron swords of the same quality and style, the iron sword will surely win. Because of the hard texture of iron, iron not only has the characteristics of hard texture, but also has strong plasticity, and can be made into various production and living appliances such as farm tools and weapons. As mentioned earlier, the failure of ironmaking was due to temperature, but the invention of bellows solved this perfectly.

Anyone with a little common sense of life knows that material combustion requires three conditions: combustible, air and ignition point. When smelting weapons, it is also necessary to blow a lot of air to make the temperature of charcoal reach the melting point of molten iron ore. After being turned into molten iron, iron can be reshaped by craftsmen and turned into any desired tool. The bellows is just a tool that can blow a lot of air. As long as there is a bellows, it will make the ironmaking process easier. After the invention of bellows, mankind entered the Iron Age from the Bronze Age.

China's comprehensive strength and science and technology have been ahead of the world for thousands of years because of the great improvement of iron smelting technology and ability. Of course, there are also human factors that do not appear at the same time in North America and other places. However, even China's neighboring Xiongnu and other nomadic peoples, their scientific and technological level is far behind the iron-rich Central Plains dynasty.