During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang's Shu army and Cao's army faced off in Qishan Mountain. The mountainous area was steep and difficult to transport grain and grass. Zhuge Liang used wooden oxen and stray horses as tools to transport grain and grass to solve the difficulty of transporting grain.
The wooden cow and the flowing horse were vividly described in Chapter 102 of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
At that time, the armies of Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi were facing each other, and it was difficult to tell who was superior. All the food in Zhuge Liang's army was stored in the Jiange Pavilion, and it was inconvenient for men, cattle and horses to carry it. Zhuge Liang showed his ingenuity and said that he succeeded in building a wooden ox and a flowing horse, which could carry grain and rice, which was very convenient. Even cattle and horses can eat without water, and the transportation is endless day and night.
According to records, after a few months, the wood, cattle, and horses were all completed, as if they were alive, going up the mountains and down the ridges, doing their best.
Posterity has a poem praising: "The dangerous sword pass drives wandering horses, and the rugged sloping valley drives wooden oxen. If future generations can practice this method, they will lose in peace and make people sad."
The pictures above are all wooden cows and horses remade by modern people. There are many such reports on the Internet. Some people's wooden cows and horses remade by some people even obtained national patents.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang, the Prime Minister of Shu, went out to Qishan six times to provide food and grass, and specially built wooden cows and horses. The law of the wooden ox goes like this: a square belly with a curved head, one foot and four legs, the ox raises its two shafts, a human can walk six feet, and an ox can walk four steps. The Liuma method goes a step further: the rib is three feet and five inches long, three inches wide, two inches and two inches thick, and the left and right sides are the same. The front axle hole is divided into four inches of ink after removing the head and two inches in diameter. The front foot hole is divided into two inches of ink. The front axle hole is divided into four and five cents. inch, one inch wide, remove the rear axle hole and divide the front bar into one chi and five minutes, the size is the same as the front. The rear foot hole is divided into three inches and five minutes from the rear axis hole, and the size is the same as the front. Remove the rear bumper hole and divide the rear foot hole into three inches and five points.
Judging from the above description, the wooden cow and flowing horse should have no wheels and walk on four legs. However, according to historical records, during the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains, the Shu Kingdom built plank roads along the mountains, which were also very convenient for military and horse movements. Therefore, some people raised objections that wooden cows and flowing horses should be wheeled transportation vehicles!
Whether there are wheels or not, I think there are wheels! Since at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, wheelbarrows appeared, they were called "deer carts". During the Three Kingdoms period, Zhuge Liang improved it and it became "a wooden cow and a flowing horse".