Kismet
UPH Guru
Was on locally last night on Public Broadcasting on the Nova series.
The Ghost army is the terra cotta warriors in China, but surrounding the discussion of these thousands of warrior statues on the program were discussions on their armament, the production of the weapons, the political background of the times, and the Emperor himself, who was the leader who first united China's warring states 2200 years ago--in no small part because of the weapons they produced and the assembly-line technique they used to produce them.
As history would repeat later, Emperor Qin (pronounced "Chin", later used for naming the nation, i.e., China) produced a functional cross-bow, with interchangeable parts, in VAST quantities which enabled his peasants to become lethal arms-men with virtually NO training, as opposed to the longbow men.
Main metal was bronze, but in things like arrowheads, the alloy of bronze, tin and lead varied from the haft of the arrowhead to the point--the point being harder and able to pierce the armor of the time. The parts of the weapons were individually signed by the people who made them. They worked in small groups, with a foreman, then supervisor, then big boss over them, and if there were flaws in the elements, they could be traced back to the person who made them.
Emperor Qin did all this...the uniting of the warring states, the establishment of the nation, and the standardization of language and ?writing?... not sure about that ...in his 37 year reign, and concurrent with his reign, started in on his kingdom for the afterlife...reputed to be the size of 100,000 football fields, the burial mound still unexcavated. The terra cotta guys were part of that afterlife prep.
It is really a great program, showing a lot production and action testing of the weapons and warriors.
Apparently, he was not a compassionate, touchy-feely guy, and problems were not forwarded to a human resources department.
If you can get a chance, watch this NOVA broadcast--it's one of the best I've ever seen.
The Ghost army is the terra cotta warriors in China, but surrounding the discussion of these thousands of warrior statues on the program were discussions on their armament, the production of the weapons, the political background of the times, and the Emperor himself, who was the leader who first united China's warring states 2200 years ago--in no small part because of the weapons they produced and the assembly-line technique they used to produce them.
As history would repeat later, Emperor Qin (pronounced "Chin", later used for naming the nation, i.e., China) produced a functional cross-bow, with interchangeable parts, in VAST quantities which enabled his peasants to become lethal arms-men with virtually NO training, as opposed to the longbow men.
Main metal was bronze, but in things like arrowheads, the alloy of bronze, tin and lead varied from the haft of the arrowhead to the point--the point being harder and able to pierce the armor of the time. The parts of the weapons were individually signed by the people who made them. They worked in small groups, with a foreman, then supervisor, then big boss over them, and if there were flaws in the elements, they could be traced back to the person who made them.
Emperor Qin did all this...the uniting of the warring states, the establishment of the nation, and the standardization of language and ?writing?... not sure about that ...in his 37 year reign, and concurrent with his reign, started in on his kingdom for the afterlife...reputed to be the size of 100,000 football fields, the burial mound still unexcavated. The terra cotta guys were part of that afterlife prep.
It is really a great program, showing a lot production and action testing of the weapons and warriors.
Apparently, he was not a compassionate, touchy-feely guy, and problems were not forwarded to a human resources department.
If you can get a chance, watch this NOVA broadcast--it's one of the best I've ever seen.