How did the ancients fight fire?

There is a famous "Flame Mountain" in the Turpan area of ​​Xinjiang, China. It is famous for the story of Tang and his disciples who died in the West. "Journey to the West" describes: "The Flame Mountain has 800 flames, and there is no grass everywhere. If you pass through the mountains, you will find copper heads and iron bodies, and you must turn them into juices!" In order not to burn monkey hairs and protect them from the past. The Monkey King spontaneously launched a fire-fighting operation. As we all know, in the end, Sun Wukong fanned out the fire with a banana fan. In a word, the Monkey King is also regarded as the most famous "firefighter" from ancient times to the present. However, let us not forget that this fire was originally ignited by the Monkey King when he was playing in the Temple of Heaven. Therefore, Sun Wukong's "firefighter" deserves less glory.

Although the myth cannot be believed, the people of our country paid great attention to the harm caused by the fire long ago. Fire extinguishing is naturally carried out with great care. In ancient times, almost all the sculptors in the fire pit used in the fire pits had two kinds of hominids called "drinking water buffalo" and "Bi-bird." According to the Shan Hai Jing, “Buffalo Water Buffalo” is: “It is shaped like a cow. It has no body and no horns, and it is full of water. It will wind and rain when it enters and exits the water. Its light is like the sun and the moon, and its sound is like thunder. Its name is.” The opportunity to visit the museum can be seen in the unearthed cultural relics exhibition hall. According to current scholars' research, the prototype of “drinking water buffalo” is unique to China and protects the animal's alligator.

In fact, before the Song Dynasty, our country did not have a special fire brigade. During the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty, around 1190 to 1194 AD , a relatively famous person called Yan Xie was sent to Huizhou (currently Anhui) to serve as the master of the prefecture. Because he had suffered several major fires at his young age, he was burned to bankrupt and his family was killed. Therefore, at the beginning of his inauguration, he attached great importance to firefighting work and set up special fire prevention “fighting guards” and firefighting “sneaked combat soldiers” and deployed fire fighting appliances. This is considered to be the embryonic form of the Chinese fire brigade. The report of the failure to write for the emperor on firefighting matters was also included in the "President of the Ming Dynasty."

In the blink of an eye 1201 AD , it was the first year of Song Ningzong Jiatai. On the evening of March 23 this year, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, Lin'an (today's Hangzhou), was ignited by a sudden fire in the imperial court. Since Lin'an did not have a full-time fire brigade at that time, it caused a delay in the organization of fire-fighting forces and a lack of dispatch. As a result, the fire blew up to official residences such as Yushitai, military surveillance and storage, and burned for four consecutive days. According to historical records, there are more than 50,000 affected residents, a total of 180,000 people, and 59 deaths are known. This was the biggest fire in the capital during the Southern Song Dynasty. After the fire was extinguished, Song Ningzong was very angry. So he took the drunken drink that night and did not promptly command the save.

However, even if several officials were dealt with, the fire problem in the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty has not been well resolved. During the winter of November of that year, and in July and July of the following year ( 1204 AD ), there was a fire in Lin’an and the loss was heavy. This made the Ning Zong Emperor very annoyed at the time. Therefore, how to solve the problem at the root was placed before his minister.

In the Southern Song Jiading Period (AD 1208 ), Zhao and Yu were sent to the office of the Governor of Lin’an (today's Chief Executive). He first created 20 teams of flood prevention soldiers and 7 teams of submarine soldiers, with a total of 53,000 people. Thousand one hundred and sixteen people. This is currently recognized by the academic community as the first government-owned fire brigade in China and even in the world.

At the same time, there were also some civil fire brigades, such as “water shop” and “Yoshisha”, which were spontaneously organized by the people in our country’s Zhejiang Province. These private fire brigades, linked by relatives, neighbors, or ethnic groups, usually do their own thing. Whenever they encounter a fire, they perform their duties according to prior exercises and appointments, jointly extinguishing the fire and protecting their lives and property.

When it comes to ancient firefighting, it is necessary to talk about the various fire-fighting tools invented by our working people using their own wisdom. During the Tang dynasty, due to technical restrictions, people used a horse or cow's skin to make a water bag that could hold three or four pounds of water. When the fire was extinguished, several brawny men carried it to the scene of the fire, and then inserted a bamboo pole in the middle into the pocket of the water bag, and used a bamboo raft to drain water from the fire point to extinguish the fire. However, this method obviously lacks flexibility, and it must also be saved at high altitudes.

So, in the Song Dynasty, people invented more advanced fire-fighting tools. This is a fire extinguishing tool that is specially treated with the bladder of a pig or cow. When used, inject it into water and tighten the water inlet, and then throw it to the fire point. When it encounters high temperatures, the water bladder will break, and the water inside will flow out to achieve the effect of fire extinguishing.

By the Ming and Qing Dynasties, people's awareness of fire prevention has been further strengthened. In 1791 , Qianqing Palace was inadvertently caught fire. The emperor Qianlong, who had already been emperor, was responsible for the crime. He also said that he was “all who passed the battle and not the emperor.” In fact, as early as in the Ming Dynasty, in order to prepare for the fire, the Forbidden City put a large water tank in front of many palaces and called it "Taiping cylinder." According to the records, there were a total of 308 such large cylinders.

Taiping cylinder in the Imperial Palace

At the same time, the management of these large water tanks is also very careful. In summer, the water in the large tank is updated every day to prevent odors and mosquitoes. In winter, large water tanks need to wear “cotton coats” to keep warm. If the weather is particularly cold, charcoal must be heated in large tanks to prevent the water in the tank from freezing.

Later on, there appeared the familiar “mini-dragon” fire truck, which was a relatively advanced water-discharging tool. The working principle is a pressure lift handle, the water contained in the barrel will be pressurized through the soft hose, then just point the soft hose to the fire point, then you can extinguish the fire. The first time there was only the "water dragon" made of wood, commonly known as "the earth dragon." Later, there were iron and copper one after another. They were called "Iron Dragon" and "Golden Dragon".

Water dragon in the museum

In fact, the "water dragon" is a round large wooden barrel that can hold several kinds of water. It is filled with a metal cylinder and two pistons are installed inside. Above the piston is a rough wooden bar that grows four or five feet longer than the barrel. The cylinder is in fact a human-powered water pump. It has an interface with a canvas hose and a water hose with a water gun on the other end.

The "water dragons" are all equipped with wheels and can quickly move to the scene of the fire to save. When the “Hailong” rescued the fire, more than a dozen guys ran and rushed back and forth with the buckets and shuttled to the river to get water and pour into the water dragon. At the ends of the water dragon, two or three guys pressed the lever up and down, and the piston went up and down, and the water column was carried by the canvas hose to the water gun. It is a foot or twenty meters away. And each "water dragon" has copper bells hung on it. When it comes to action, it can hear its voice from afar and let the front pedestrians dodge to the side of the road in a timely manner. This has played a role in today's fire truck sirens.

Today, ancient firefighting tools have already drifted away from us. However, the unique wisdom and collaborative spirit demonstrated by the Chinese nation under that original condition is worth remembering and bearing in mind.

This article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.