Illustrated Explanation of the Chariot System in the Artificers' Record

Illustrated Explanation of Carriage Construction: Volume I

...the text of the Record The Kao Gong Ji (Record of Trades), the oldest technical manual in China. likely contains occasional missing brushstrokes in its characters. There is no reason to doubt the underlying logic, so I follow the explanation of Master Zheng Zheng Xuan (127–200 CE), the most influential commentator on these ancient texts.. However, while Master Zheng recognized the error where the number "one" was mistaken for "two," he then treated the circumference of the hub-recess sou: the hollowed-out interior of the wooden hub as the circumference for the openings. This led him to the problematic circumference measurements for the xian the large opening of the hub and zhi the small opening of the hub. This is quite a divergence; he adapted his theory to claim the metal was one inch thick, which is even more incorrect.

Does he not realize that the metal of the xian and zhi does not fill the entire interior of the hub? Instead, a recess is carved in the center, and only the ends are designed to accommodate the thickness of the metal. The circumference of the metal sleeve gang: the metal bushing or lining of the hub is the same diameter as the circumferences of the large and small openings, and they are flush with one another.

Furthermore, I have examined the zhi of the small opening and found it to be the same zhi mentioned in the Rites of Zhou A foundational text on the bureaucracy and rituals of the Zhou Dynasty. under the "Great Charioteer" Da Yu: the official in charge of the King's carriages regarding the "sacrifice to the two zhi." There should be no concern about it sharing a name with the zhi In this second context, the term refers to the ends of the side-rails of the carriage frame. located inside the carriage body.

Master Dai Dongyuan Dai Zhen (1724–1777), a renowned Qing Dynasty polymath and philologist., in his Illustrations of the Record of Trades, cites the commentary of the Minister of Agriculture Zheng Zhong (died 83 CE). on the "Great Charioteer," noting that the ancient text wrote zhi as zhan meaning "to cut" or "sever.". Dai argues that the character in the Record of Trades should be changed to zhan to avoid confusion with the zhi of the carriage body.

However, I The author, likely Ruan Yuan (1764–1849). observe that the name zhi applies to two different things: one on the carriage frame and one on the wheel hub; they are inherently distinct. In the "Great Charioteer" section, the ancient text did indeed use zhan, but the scholar Du Zichun stated that zhan should properly be read as zhi.