Story of China

(laughing) (speaking in Chinese) -

Host

So in it's ideas about the good life, the Song went beyond any earlier civilization, even the ancient Greeks. And in science, the list of their inventions is incredible. From gunpowder and blast furnaces to evolution theory. Like other great epochs of world civilization, from the ancient Greeks to the European Renaissance, China's rulers under the Song, like the Emperor Shenzong bought into the project to expand all forms of human knowledge. The most famous scientist came from a village down in Fujian on the south coast. Su Song, there he is, one of the great polymaths of the Song Dynasty, and they don't come much more poly than him. He was an engineer, astronomer, scholar, and poet; but he also wrote treatises on mineralogy and zoology and pharmacology. It's real left-brain right-brain stuff, isn't it? But their education enabled them to be both artistic and scientific, endlessly creative and endlessly curious. He reminds you of some of the great figures of the Renaissance in Europe. I suppose you could say that he's the Chinese Leonardo, but to put it more correctly, Leonardo is the Western Su Song. -

Host

This is Su Song's pet project, an astronomical clock. His proud hometown has just rebuilt a working replica 45 feet high; it's mechanism a water clock driven by an endless chain drive. The little painted wooden figures marking the days, hours, and minutes like a giant Swiss clock. Inside the clock there had to be a clock captain standing like the captain on the bridge of a boat 24 hours a day and periodically topping the water level up in the tanks. There you go. Wonderful imagining this, middle of Kaifeng, ringing out the hours 24 hours a day for the citizens as they go about their business. It's like the Song Dynasty's Big Ben.