Things were Discovered in earliest China
Most of people living in earliest China were farmers. They cultivated wheat, rice, and millets and also domesticated wild animals to employ them for travelling, farming, and for their food. But over the years, the Chinese came to know many skills and discovered several things that are still used by people worldwide.
1. Silk production
The Chinese were the first who produced silkworms. The silkworms used to consume mulberry leaves. After a couple of weeks, the worms produced a cocoon by spinning around themselves. The cocoon was formed by using filaments or threads. These filaments were accumulated by the silk farmers to turn them into threads. Then the rich silk cloth was formed by weaving the threads.
The traders brought the beautiful silk cloth to the west. They sold the cloths at high rate and earned a lot of money. The road that was used to bring the silk to the west became popular as the silk route.
2. Invention of Tea and Chinaware
The Chinese also invented a tasty drink that could be made by adding some hot water into tea leaves. After many years, this drink became famous throughout the world. Soon they started to make tea cups using a special type of clay. But only rich people could use these special types of tea cups. The used clay is called porcelain. The cups were colored with blue and white.
How Chinese made porcelain? They mixed a mineral called feldspar with the clay before giving a new shape. Then they kept the mixture in a furnace to burn it. The outcome was called porcelain, which was used to make Chinaware.
3. Paper made in China
The paper was invented in China approximately 2000 years ago. It was created from silk and later they used the bark of trees, hemp, rags and old fishing-nets to make paper. The paper was made by the Egyptians too. But once the production of paper started in China, people soon began to like it. The discovery of printing was caused by the invention of paper and ink.
The ink was also discovered by the Chinese first. A gum mixed with the black powder was used to make ink in China. The production of the black powder occurs when an oil lamp fires. Therefore, the ink made in China was dark and permanent.
4. Printing
The modern printing machine was discovered by Johann Gutenberg who lived in Germany. The way that the Chinese used to print was slightly different from the way that is used in modern time.
They first cut a piece of wood, which was equal to two pages. A calligrapher wrote with a brush and ink on translucent paper, and then it was fixed on the piece of wood. The wood surrounding the letters eliminated so that the letters could become higher than the rest of the wood. The paper was then taken away from the piece of wood and the ink was spread on the elevated letters. Then they put a fresh paper on the inked letters so that the letter could be clearly seen on the paper. several copies of the same page were made by using the same process.