Page 586 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

1226 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

as complexity in mechanics, skill in using materials and mechanisms and precision
in measurements were concerned.
5) in maritime technology the coming of the compass, techniques of bulkhead
construction and trapezoidal sails for navigating against the tide;
6) porcelain (for example the famous Nanchino pagoda measuring up to 80m, 262’.5”)
7) long before Eilmer from Malsbury’s experiments in the west, the Chinese had
already experimented the use of gliders and their armies already used war machines
such as the crossbow and trebuchet.
As of the 1400s we see a decrease in the rate of technological change, not to be
mistaken with a time of economical stagnation which didn’t occur, because there was an
economical expansion based on developing the southern woodlands of China.
Ultimately 15th Century China with the Ming Dynasty decided to ignore western
civilization.

Why the decline?
Various and not all exhaustive the reasons investigated in time, some of structural
nature, for example the movable characters in printers were not suitable for Chinese
ideographic writing (Chinese characters) but a lot more so with simple western alphabets,
hence it was easier for the printed book culture to develop in the west. For example: rice
cultivation promoted production within domestic walls where the presence of 3 people
was a handicap, this might have caused the lack of developing a jenny as was needed.
Other reasons are of social and institutional nature:
1) measuring time was influenced by the same concept of time itself (“ emperor’s time
is China’s time”) so that the water clocks served to magnify the emperor’s power
and that of the dominating cast regulating time. Unlike in western cultures where the
“time of merchants” was adopted by the entire population.)
2) The preparation of technical knowledge came to an end since technical treaties,
and particularly regarding agriculture, privileged the representation of ritual over
operational practice.
3) Unlike the Chinese, Europeans didn’t spare land and capital in order to employ a more
and more intensive form of work. European inventions were aimed at saving work,
land, and at times, were neutral from this standpoint. Their main characteristic laid
in their ability to produce more and better quality articles (the difference practically
consisted in the technological creativity of the west).
4) The decline of oceanic navigation, the abandonment of its technologies seem to be
due to the development of internal Chinese politicies following 1430.
5) The opportunities of southern woodlands lead entrepreneurs away from avant-guard
technologies in the Sung Dynasty, placing Ming and Manciu on the road to static
development..