Famous Ships in Chinese History (Part 3)

After the Northern and Southern Dynasties, people felt that the wind force and direction in nature were changeable, so they began to pay attention to the development of human-propelled ships, such as Emperor Yang of Sui's "Water Palace Dragon Boat".

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Dragon Boat (Picture from the Internet)

In 605 AD, Emperor Yang of Sui took a dragon boat to Jiangdu (now Yangzhou). The fleet stretched for more than 200 miles and employed more than 80,000 boatmen.

There are many historical records about the dragon boat ridden by Emperor Yang of Sui. The most detailed one is in "Miscellaneous Notes on Daye" by Lang Dubao, a writer of the Sui Dynasty: "The dragon boat is 45 feet high, 45 feet wide and 200 feet long. It has four levels. The upper level has the main hall, inner hall, east and west court halls; the middle two levels have 160 rooms, all decorated with cinnabar and powder, decorated with gold, jade, vermilion and emerald, with exquisite carvings, and embellished with flowing fragrance, feather ornaments, red silk and a network."

The dragon boat that the empress rode was called "Xiangchi". It was slightly smaller than the emperor's dragon boat, but was also extremely luxuriously decorated.

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Dragon Boat (Picture from the Internet)

In the early Sui Dynasty, in order to achieve his goal of destroying Chen and unifying the north and the south, Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, established the three-province and six-department system at the central level, implemented the state and county system at the local level, developed the economy, and worked hard to govern the country.

Starting from the first year of Kaihuang (585 AD), the construction of warships and the training of the navy began to be vigorously developed. In October of the same year, Yang Jian ordered Yang Su to garrison Yong'an in Xinzhou (now Fengjie, Chongqing) to supervise the construction of large warships.

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Yang Su

The Biography of Yang Su in the Book of Sui records: "Su lived in Yong'an and built a large ship named Wuya, with a five-story building on top, more than 100 feet high, and six cypress poles were placed on the left and right, front and back, each pole was 50 feet high, and could accommodate 800 soldiers, with flags on top."

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Five-toothed ship

The Wuya warship built by Yang Su can be called an aircraft carrier in the cold weapon era. "Wuya" actually means that the warship has 5 floors, is more than 100 feet high, can accommodate 800 soldiers, has 6 paddles, and is 50 feet high. The power is mainly paddled, equipped with 40 oars, 2 large tail oars and 1 towing rudder.

The slapping pole uses the principle of leverage to allow the huge stone tied to the long pole to fall freely. Once it approaches the enemy ship, it can quickly destroy it. The Wuya warship played an important role in the war to unify the country during the Sui Dynasty.