What people led the world in useful inventions when the rest of us were still swinging from trees? We all know that the Chinese were brilliant don't we? But how brilliant were they? Lets take a trip back in our time machine and see what was going on in those days of yesteryear.

Picture Source: Beijing Observatory U.S. Library of Congress, WTC Collection

Everyone knows the Chinese invented gun power but what they may not know, was that this was at the time that China had an empress, their only one. Gunpowder was invented during the T'ang dynasty around 690 A.D.when Wu Chao, a former concubine reached the throne and was able to hold it for over 15 years. Over the years she had placed many relatives in important positions assuring her power. She believed in taxing the peasants heavily and giving large sums of money to her favored people and religious institutions. The Gunpowder was mainly used for shows at the time, it would be stuffed into bamboo tubes and set off, later it was used to scare enemies.

The Chinese decided that they needed an easy medium for transcription and invented paper and ink at the same time. They were invented somewhere in the time of the Han dynasty which ran from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D.. A Few hundred years later, again in the T'ang dynasty, they invented the printing press. It is believed that this press was invented somewhere between 618 and 868 A.D. The first known printing of a book occurred about 868 A.D. and it wasn't long before the Chinese had book shops in almost every town.

The Chinese were so far ahead of their time, it seemed they didn't even belong to the rest of the human race. Some of their inventions were astounding. They actually invented the helicopter blade. In the 4th Century A.D. they had invented a toy called the bamboo dragonfly which was a top with a small helicopter blade on top. The top was wrapped with a cord around it, and when you pulled the cord, the blade would rotate and lifted the top into the air. In the early eighteen hundreds the principle was studied and eventually led to the modern helicopter

How far ahead of the rest of humanity was China. Maybe this will give us an idea. The Chinese invented the first wheelbarrow ii the first century B.C.. The first record of any wheelbarrow in the west was in 1220 A.D.. Ancient reliefs, in china, show the wheelbarrow so we know for sure that it had to exist as far back as 118 A.D..

Another tip off of Chinese advancement was the invention of Malleable Cast Iron. In the fourth century B.C. the Chinese found out that if you use phosphorus to reduce the temperature for melting iron you can mold it into many different shapes, such as pots, pans and decorative objects. By the time we reached the third century another process, annealing, was added which allowed the production of plough shares and longer, stronger swords. The west had to wait to the eight century A.D. for Scandinavian blast furnaces but cast iron didn't become widely available before the late 1300s.

And what about what some consider the most important invention of them all, paper money? I guess since the Chinese invented paper they did have a head start on paper money. But the actual idea of being able to trade paper, that was essentially worthless, for items was genius. It made it so much easier to carry paper bills than heavy metal coins. We call it paper money, they called it flying money because it was easily blown out of you hand. The first paper money was an exchange certificate that merchants used. Paper money that the government backed with coins came into use in the 10th century A.D., but in the west it wasn't used until Sweden adopted paper money in 1661. In 1690 the Americans decided to print paper money.

The Chinese made a collaborative effort to advance medicine and medical treatment. From 475 to 221 B.C. a group of writings knows as the Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine appeared. It contained all that was known about diagnostics, physiology, treatment, prevention, and pathology. Bian Que, a doctor at the time was the first person to check pulses. Later a book on pharmacology was compiled. Then in the second century the Chinese discovered a power that had anesthetic properties and began to use it during surgery. No such relief was to exist in the West for the next 1500+ years.

Image Source: NASA

The compass was first invented by the Chinese around 200 A.D. but was not the compass as we know it today. The first modern use of the compass took place about 900 A.D.. The fact that the Chinese knew about magnetism put them way ahead of the rest of the world since the first western compasses didn't appear until 1500 A.D..

The amount of Chinese inventions boggle the mind, but here are a few, the clock, celestial measuring instruments, horse collar, decimal system, watertight compartments for ship's hulls, brandy, whiskey, abacus, silk, seismograph, matches, discovery of blood circulation, fan, kite, umbrella, stirrup, chop sticks, crossbow, cannons, guns, ceramics, porcelain, iron plow, rockets and so much more. They constructed a bridge that lasted over 1000 years using an arch. This type of construction is still used today.

I am sure that if the pace of invention would have continued in China and had China been able to avoid the ravages of war, people would be living on other planets by now.