The merchant class included traders, animal breeders and money lenders. Merchants were considered the lowest social class in Ancient China. People believed that they did not contribute to the good of the whole society but only worked for their own gain. ... However they also traded other essential commodities.
NEW DELHI: Rice farming began in India far earlier than previously believed and may have developed parallel to rice domestication in China, latest archeological research from Indus Civilisation sites in India has revealed.
It was previously thought that rice farming originally developed in China from where it came to India around 2000 BCE. But new finds at Rakhigarhi in Hissar district, Haryana show that local variety of rice was being cultivated more than 400 years before that.
The new research was led by scientists from Cambridge University, working in collaboration with colleagues at Banaras Hindu University and the University of Oxford. It is published in the journals Antiquity and Journal of Archaeological Science.
The research also confirms that Indus populations were the earliest people to use complex multi-cropping strategies across both seasons, growing foods during summer (rice, millets and beans) and winter (wheat, barley and pulses), which required different watering regimes. The findings suggest a network of regional farmers supplied assorted produce to the markets of the civilisation's ancient cities.
"We found evidence for an entirely separate domestication process in ancient South Asia, likely based around the wild species Oryza nivara. This led to the local development of a mix of 'wetland' and 'dryland' agriculture of local Oryza sativa indica rice agriculture before the truly 'wetland' Chinese rice, Oryza sativa japonica, arrived around 2000 BC," says study co-author Dr Jennifer Bates.
"While wetland rice is more productive, and took over to a large extent when introduced from China, our findings appear to show there was already a long-held and sustainable culture of rice production in India as a widespread summer addition to the winter cropping during the Indus civilisation."
Co-author Dr Cameron Petrie says that the location of the Indus in a part of the world that received both summer and winter rains may have encouraged the development of seasonal crop rotation before other major civilisations of the time, such as Ancient Egypt and China's Shang Dynasty.
"Most contemporary civilisations initially utilised either winter crops, such as the Mesopotamian reliance on wheat and barley, or the summer crops of rice and millet in China - producing surplus with the aim of stockpiling," says Petrie.
"However, the area inhabited by the Indus is at a meteorological crossroads, and we found evidence of year-long farming that predates its appearance in the other ancient river valley civilisations."
The archaeologists sifted for traces of ancient grains in the remains of several Indus villages within a few kilometers of the site called Rakhigari: the most recently excavated of the Indus cities that may have maintained a population of some 40,000.
As well as the winter staples of wheat and barley and winter pulses like peas and vetches, they found evidence of summer crops: including domesticated rice, but also millet and the tropical beans urad and horsegram, and used radiocarbon dating to provide the first absolute dates for Indus multi-cropping: 2890-2630 BC for millets and winter pulses, 2580-2460 BC for horsegram, and 2430-2140 BC for rice.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Rice-farming-in-India-began-much-before-Chinese-rice-arrived/articleshow/55539240.cms
I can give you the differences from an airboat builder’s point of view. We use both V8 car engines and horizontally opposed aircraft engines.
Aircraft engines produce their peak power around 2900 RPM whereas an automobile engine peaks above 4000 RPM. This is by design since propellers lose efficiency when their tips go supersonic. So an aircraft engine of similar displacement will have a smaller bore and longer stroke than the comparable automobile engine.
Aircraft engines use twin magnetos as compared to the capacitive discharge ignition and single distributor on a car. To turn off an aircraft engine you ground out both magnetos. To turn off a car you just stop supplying power to the ignition. The aircraft engine’s ignition system has no single point of failure. It will continue to run when the battery and generator are disconnected.
Aircraft engines have some very heavy bearings to handle the thrust and gyroscopic loads of a propeller. Automobile engines only need to handle torque to a clutch or torque converter.
Aircraft engines are lighter than car engines. Most automotive engines are water cooled. Most aircraft engines are air cooled. There are some notable exceptions to this rule in both camps. Aircraft engines cost more than car engines.
Assuming there are lots of exceptions, these are the generalities about the two engine types. Similarities:
Most are four stroke gasoline engine types.
Most have either 4 or 6 cylinders.
Most are made of aluminium with iron cylinder liners.
Most are naturally aspirated and fuel injected.
Most are designed to operate within a narrow and relatively low RPM range during cruise.
Differences: Layout - Most automotive engines use either inline four cylinder or vee six cylinder layouts. These layouts are relatively narrow to fit in the very confined space between the front wheels. Most aircraft engines use flat (horizontally opposed) four or six cylinder layouts.
These layouts are relatively short fit over the nose wheel and still allow the propeller more room to clear the ground. Their extra width allows more room for air cooling of the cylinders.
Control - Most automotive engines produced today use digital throttle control with electronic fuel injection, using either direct and/or port injection. The goal is higher fuel efficiency. Most aircraft engines produced today use mechanical throttle control with mechanical port fuel injection. The goal is design simplicity for reliability.
Fuel - Most automotive engines burn 87 octane unleaded gasoline fuel. This fuel type is driven by environmental regulations. Most aircraft engines burn 100 octane low lead gasoline fuel. This fuel is a carryover from the 1950’s to allow older aircraft to continue to operate.
Spark - Most automotive engines have one spark plug per cylinder using a single coil per cylinder. The goal is precise control of spark timing to improve fuel efficiency. Most aircraft engines have two spark plugs per cylinder with dual magnetos, each firing half of the spark plugs of each cylinder. The goal is redundancy for reliability.
RPM Range - Most automotive engines rev to a maximum of about 6000 RPM and produce maximum horsepower around 5000 RPM. Most operate between 1500 and 3000 rpm in normal cruise using gearing to stay within the range.
Most aircraft engines rev to a maximum of 2700 RPM, where they also produce their maximum horsepower. Engine RPM is usually limited by the propeller vs the engine itself. Most aircraft engines cruise between 2000 and 2500 RPM.
Displacement - Most automotive engines have far smaller displacement than the equivalent rated horsepower aircraft engines. For example, the IO-360 aircraft engine produces about 170 hp from 5.9 l (360 CI). The equivalent horsepower gasoline engine displaces 2.5 l (152 CI). The large displacement for aircraft engines is driven by the need to produce relatively high horsepower at low RPM’s.
Automotive engines displacement is driven by the need to provide satisfactory acceleration at maximum weight at normal speeds. The smallest engine to produce the desired power level and return the highest fuel economy is used.
Weight - Most automotive engines weigh more than the equivalent rated horsepower aircraft engines. The example IO-360 engine weighs about 300 lbs with oil whereas a 2.5 l automotive engine weighs about 400 lbs with fluids. Despite a far smaller displacement, the cooling system and more complex cylinder heads adds weight.
Cooling - Most automotive engines are liquid cooled using a water and anti-freeze mix. This makes these engines very tolerant of environmental temperature changes. Most aircraft engines are air cooled using ram air from forward flight. This makes these engines subject to overheating when on the ground and shock-cooling damage when descending from high altitudes and in cold weather.
Forced Induction - Most automotive engines that use forced induction (turbocharging or supercharging) use it to gain about 50% more horsepower over the same sized naturally aspirated engine. That way a smaller engine can be used in a larger vehicle and gain fuel efficiency.
Most aircraft engines that use forced induction do not gain any horsepower over the same sized naturally aspirated engine. Instead it is used to maintain full power up to higher altitudes, typically about 18,000 feet MSL.
Costs - Most automotive engines cost less than $10,000 to replace. This is partly due to the extremely high production rates typically in the hundreds of thousands. It is also due to the extremely high competitive pressures to keep prices down. Most aircraft engines cost more than $30,000 to replace.
This is due to the relatively low new production rates (hundreds per year) and the need to certify the engine with the various governments around the world. There is also very little variety in manufacturers and types, so competitive pressures are relatively low compared with automobiles.
A car engine is required to work over a wide range of power settings and speeds (effectively an infinite variety of settings) whilst returning usable torque and power across that range. It is also required to produce low pollution output whilst doing so. This is what makes them hideously complex.
By contrast, an aircraft engine is designed to operate (mostly) at one power, load and speed setting (cruise - usually about 95% of max power) or at idle with virtually _nothing_ in between other than some periods of full power (takeoff power) where pollutant output is not considered important and the engine is usually run rich to ensure cylinder cooling.
As a consequence, they’re relatively simple. The cost comes from the fact that they need to be built as light as possible and still be ultra-reliable - a failed engine on an aircraft makes for a _VERY_ sweaty pilot (that thing on the front is a fan to keep him cool, otherwise he’d be sweating all the time), vs one on a car just meaning you have to roll to a stop on the side of the road.
This is why putting things like aircraft radial engines on cars is a _bad_ idea unless it’s an art installation. You can usually run a car engine at full power for prolonged periods without too many problems (which is why VW engines used to end up on the nose of small aerobats), but an aircraft engine simply is not designed for the continually varying loads that driving on a road requires - or for the fact that the engine will spend most of its operating time at 10% output or less.
Aeromotive engine design has more in common with power generators and other stationary engine installations than with automotive uses - even rail engines spend far too much time running up and down their power ranges to be considered a similar load profile. This is why the gas turbine core of modern turbofans and the gas turbine generators of CCGT power stations are usually products of the same design base.
As others said, reliability. It is designed in from the get-go. Dual ignition, full oil filtration, ball bearings instead of bushings, anti-icing carburetors, and a lot more.
Internally the crankshafts are beefier to carry the loads the propeller creates, loads that are not present in a car engine. The prop pulls the plane through the engine mounted on the airframe. In a car, the axle and suspension takes that “push” load. The engine only supplies torque to turn the wheels. There is no push or pull on the crankshaft or engine.
The major and usual visual difference is aircraft piston engines are air cooled (lighter weight, mechanically dirt simple) and flat rather than V designed.
While an automotive engine can produce more power than a typical aircraft engine of the same displacement, they are far heavier.
Many good answers so far, but none have touched upon what to me is the most critical single difference. Airplane engines are basically designed for operating at a constant speed for long periods of time at a very high percentage of their maximum power output. In that sense they are very much like industrial powerplants, that power generators or yard machines.
Quick throttle response is far less important than steady, reliable constant-speed operation. In addition, they must be relatively light, since every smidgeon of additional mass in an aircraft’s empty weight means that much less payload which it is able to carry aloft. Reliability is also extra-crucial, given these usual operating parameters, and the inability to pull over to the side of the road and fix a “minor” problem such as one could in a car.
Automobile engines, by contrast, are designed for operating over a wide range of speeds, from near idle (when getting underway from a standing stop) all the way up to its maximum designed output, and to accelerate quickly from one speed to another, while operating for most of its time-in-use at a very small fraction of its maximum power output.
Saving weight is not quite as important as in an aircraft engine, and while reliability is of value, designers may make compromises for lower-cost and simpler solutions that provide the needed reliability most of the time, and are easy to fix (in a car) by a roadside repair.
Virtually all of the design differences between the two types of engines trace back to these factors. For instance, a typical engine for a 4-seat single-engine plane, the air-cooled, 4-cylinder, horizontally-opposed Lycoming O-360, weighs 258 pounds (dry, no oil) and displaces 361 cubic inches (5.9 liters) to put out 180 horsepower at a maximum 2700 rpm.
A typical cruise profile at altitude will have this engine putting out a constant 75% of its maximum rated power (135 horsepower) at, say, 2500 rpm, which is over 92% of its maximum rated RPM, which can produce a typical cruise speed (in, say, a Cessna 172) of 120 knots (around 138 mph) or so.
Lycoming O-360 - Wikipedia - Compare this with a roughly same-sized auto engine, the Ford “big-block” 361 V-8, which, in a mild state of tune (for truck use), puts out a maximum of 215 horsepower at 4,100 rpm but weighs in at a hefty 650 pounds, with its cast-iron block and cylinder heads.
This engine, in ordinary highway use, will typically only need to put out about 30 horsepower to keep its vehicle rolling at 60 mph on flat ground, and (in top gear) will be turning around 1,500 rpm (with an overdrive transmission). That’s only about 14% of its maximum power output at about 36% of its maximum rated RPM. Driven that way, the automotive engine can reliably last a good, long time, too.
Ford FE engine - Wikipedia - But the aircraft engine is designed to put out that kind of high power, for hours at a time, with no significant maintainance until its next 100-hour oil change and inspection is due, without exploding into smithereens.
Try running an automotive V-8 at near its maximum output for just a couple of hours at a stretch. Oh, wait, people do that — in NASCAR races. How long do those engines last? About one race — IF they are lucky. That’s the main difference between the two.
Outside of most aircraft recips being air cooled and automotive being water cooled? The bore diameter and maximum operating RPM are the primary differences. Aircraft engines run under a handicap of prop tip speed limitation of M .88-.92.
Given the state of the art in design for propellor efficiency, in the power ranges of automotive engines, the prop speed will be limited to around 2700 rpm. This is why aircraft engines run larger bore diameters they need more square inches of pressure to produce the required pressure/torque for a given Horsepower for the lower RPM than an automotive engine would be at. Some aircraft recipes in the higher horsepower for their genre will have a gear set that allows the engine to turn ~3400 rpm.
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They also have to be able to displace considerably more heat. While an automobile may have 350 horsepower, it will rarely see that. Unless it’s in a race car, it will spend 80% of its time below 20% power.
An aircraft engine will spend 99% of its life running at above 65% power, and many will see the majority of their lives producing over 75%, and all of them will produce 100% for several minutes straight on take off.
The other big difference is in engine management, although the choice to eliminate this difference is available, and that is aircraft recips still use mechanical fuel injection or carburetors to provide the fuel, and magnetos to provide the spark, and the fuel mixture is manually set by the pilot.
The main point is reliability. A friend was building a kit plane. The kit would accept a 5.7 litre Chevy V8 or a four cylinder Continental Aircraft engine. The Continental engine cost twice of the Chevy and was rated at half the horsepower.
My friend (who flew F18 in the US Navy) finally opted for the Continental. When I asked why, his reply was simple. “ Chevy engines can fail, you just pull to the side of the road. At 500 ft, there is no side of the road. The Continental is designed to fly.
Their primary focus is reliability. They can't fail. They almost never fail because of FAA maintenance rules. I love my ass more than money”! Just because an engine runs and makes power does not make it suitable for any application.
In some cases, NOTHING - quite a few automotive engines have been sucessfully used in aircraft. The PRIMARY difference is that an aircraft engine has to handle high altitudes and much lower temperatures, and most have a torque/power/efficiency peak in the 2700–3200 RPM range where most auto engines have their peaks at quite a bit higher RPMs (you have to use a gear or chain drive in many cases to use an automotive engine in an aircraft, as you can’t rotate a propeller that fast and have IT still be efficient).
Reliability on MODERN engines isn’t a real factor any more - auto engines routinely see worse conditions (other than temp) and aren’t cared for nearly as well, yet commonly last LONGER than aircraft engines in terms of hours of operation.
Apart from the answers already given, some of the differences are as follows:
1/ Aircraft engines do not need a heavy flywheel, the propeller takes care of that.
2/ Most aircraft engines are extremely old technology, many were designed in the 1950’s
3/ Aircraft engines are designed to produce maximum power with minimum weight, will high reliability.
4/ Aircraft engines do not have a need for gearbox connection, so they do not have a bell housing.
5/ Most aircraft engines can operate at extreme angles, sometimes even inverted.
6/ Aircraft engines are designed to perform at relatively high altitude, where automotive engines would produce little, if any power.
Higher qualify components throughout. Pistons are forged not cast. As are crankshafts, conrods and reciprocating valve activating mechanisms. The block and head(s) are made with a high nickle content and valves and springs are premium quality too. Dual ignition with two distributors and two sparkplugs per cylinder are common.
One other difference is valve timming. Most direct drive airplanes (prop speed=crankshaft speed) are designed to produce high torque at slower rpms usually 2200- 2500.
The reason for this is to prevent sonic vibration which occurs when the tip of the prop moves faster than the speed of sound. Faster turning engines are sometimes still used but a crankshaft mounted planetary gear reduction nose-cone is used to keep the prop below the sonic threshold.
An aircraft engine has to be as light as possible,very,very dependable,and has to generate a lot of torque,to turn that propeller..An aircraft engine spends most of it”s time generating full power or slightly less.In cruise,you typicaly set the throttle to about 3/4 power…
which yields 2500 RPM.The max is 2700 rpm.This big bore,long stroke slow turning,horizontaly opposed,air cooled 320 cubic inch Lycoming engine,is working hard,but is quite comfortable,burning about 8 gallons of 100 low lead av gas an hour.This gives the Cessna a cruise of 115 knots true….
Now lets compare this to your car,the motor makes it”s full torque at twice the RPM,but basically spends most of it”s life at the bottom of the rev band making a fraction of that torque, in the neighborhood of 1500 revs,it can do this with the help of a big transmission,so weight isn’t of the utmost importance,but this combination will give you decent mileage…I could go into greater detail but you get the picture….
Speaking about post WW2 recreational engines. Aircraft engines are designed and made so they are lighter (usually aluminum or alloy block), they tend to have less vibration than most car engines, and may also feature different intake and exhaust manifolds. Aircraft engines are usually built to more precise specifications than automobile engines.
Speaking about WW2 aircraft engines. In WW2 the engines were all much larger than automobile engines. They may be inline like the Rolls Royce Merlin, or may be air cooled rotary engines (like on the B17 or B29).
They often had 12 to 16 cylinders and of course modified intake and exhaust systems. They often had ‘supercharge’ provisions where the pilot could get 120 percent out of the engine for a short time.
If you have heard about the inversions of kinematic chains you will know that piston engine of aeroplane is the 2nd inversion of slider crank chain. While piston engine of the cars is the 1st inversion.
Now I'll explain them…1st inversion is in which the frame is fixed. While in 2nd inversion the crank is fixed.now the question that will come to your mind is how the rotors of the plane rotate if the crank is fixed. The answer is the rotors are attached to the frame of the engine and in this inversion the engine rotates as the pistons slide
I think many of the answers are greatly over thinking the question. THE primary difference is that aircraft engines (or engines used in aircraft) generally run at moderate rpm and never at high rpm.
Car engines by contrast run over a wide rpm range. There are many secondary reasons why that is so but that is the defining characteristic difference. It is why the VW engine was used for so many experimental-homebuilt aircraft.
Technically,for axial engines,not much difference. I have seen cars equipped with aircraft engines,for example a lengthened Rolls Royce Phantom with a Merlin V-12,and a Porsche with a customised lycoming aircraft engine. However,when it comes to radial engines,it's a complete different matter. Of course,some idiot had to build a farm tractor with a Twin Wasp engine,but it did not work well.
Pretty much just the exhaust system. While cars have catylytic converters and mufflers, often airplanes just have manifolds or headers. And often, especially back in the 60s and 70s, you could find the same engines in airplanes as cars!
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-an-automotive-piston-engine-and-an-aircraft-piston-engine
Mencius was perhaps the first most influential interpreter of Confucius who very much developed upon the original teachings of the master. He not only defined the central Confucian concept of ren/jen (humaneness), which Confucius did not do, but also gave a systematic elaboration of what constituted ethical human nature.
The rise of Mencius was the result of the political activities of the shi class (educated commoners) who, during the Warring States Era (479-221 BC), were often employed as advisers/administrators to the newly risen dukes/kings who wanted to conquer the others and become the emperor.
As seen from the writings of Mencius, he himself often advised the king of Qi, one of the hegemons contending for the leadership of China. The ru/ju (Confucian), a group within the shi class, gained ascendancy, which paved the way for the eventual establishment of Confucian learning as the "state ethic" around the 2nd century A.D.
Mencius was very good at using allegories in clarifying his points. Many of his allegories have become Chinese proverbs, such as the story of one who tried to catch fish by climbing on a tree, meaning an impossible task.
1. The centrality of the family in the moral state - For Confucius, the family was the unit that taught political loyalty to the king, through teaching a son to be loyal to his father. Mencius continued the emphasis on the family, rather than society on the whole, as a unit to measure the success or failure of government. Like Confucius, Mencius sees the material well being of the family as essential to the well being of the state.
Much of Mencian writings are about government administration. In one instance he said a sign of social prosperity was 70 year olds eating meat and wearing silk, and the humaneness of the king was shown through how well a person's parents and family could be taken care of.
Repeatedly, Mencius emphasized the importance of filial piety and self-preservation as a form of filial piety: to him the most important service was serving one's parents, and the greatest vigilance was to preserve oneself.
To Mencius, the good ruler rules from the family to the state: the extended family. He quoted from the Odes (Book of Songs): He set an example for his wife; It extended to his brothers, And from there to the family of the state.
Mencius commented: "This speaks of taking this mind and extending it to others. Thus if one extends his kindness it will be enough to protect all within the four seas, whereas if one fails to extend it, he will have no way to protect his wife and children." Almost all his examples of satisfactory human behavior involved taking good care of one's family.
2. Emphasis on rule by humaneness, instead of war - Although Mencius was no Mo Zi and did not advocate absolute pacifism, he was most of the time against wars. He advised rulers to take care of the people's livelihood to win their support: encouraging agriculture instead of fighting many wars (remember this is the Warring States Era, when rulers were all eager to fight to aggrandize their power).
Instead of focusing on war, Mencius advised the King of Qi, one of the nine large states in China then, to focus on humaneness in his administration.
Mencius said to the king of Qi: a hegemon needs a large state, but a humane king does not. A ruler just needs to take care of the people, acting like parents. Then nobody would want to attack him.
Mencius, however, was no democrat. Like Confucius, Mencius distinguished between ordinary people and gentlemen: while the latter would be able to "have a constant mind despite being without a constant means of livelihood," the ordinary people, without a constant livelihood, would succumb to all kinds of problems.
The constancy of mind, meaning a mind not swayed by external material things, was something Mencius cherished, and to him was achieved through self-cultivation. On the other hand, because ordinary people did not have such constancy of mind, their rulers must appeal to their material needs.
3. Developing on the Confucian ethical human nature - This was perhaps Mencius's greatest contribution to Confucian learning. Confucius described an ethical Heaven and ethical human beings that corresponded to and were supervised by Heaven, for Mencius, an ethical human being is a moral universe on his own. Indeed, ethical human nature and one's very physical life force, the qi, were intertwined.
If one nourishes the qi with uprightness and does not injure it, it will fill the space between heaven and earth. it is the companion of rightness and the way, born from an accumulation of rightness. If one's action causes the mind to be disquieted, it starves.
Here, Mencius means the qi and rightness were integral parts of the human being and, at their best, humans could constitute moral universes on their own, with or without external approval. These moral universes were tied to the very physical life force of the human being, therefore they were the physical universe as well. Mencius built an even more tightly knit moral/physical universe than Confucius.
For many people searching for the Chinese origins of humanism or respect for the individual, they often came to Mencius. It is not surprising, since Mencius, as shown above, gave individuals so much moral power! Unlike Confucius who was preoccupied with the correct practice of ancient rituals, Mencius was less concerned about rituals. To him, ritual propriety was not to depart from serving one's parents and older brother.
The whole spectrum of dead ancestors were cut from his definition of ritual practices! Mencius was less concerned about tradition than individual moral behavior, which he generalized into the universal principle of ren/jen (humaneness).
Like Confucius, Mencius believed human nature was inherently ethical. Therefore all moral virtues originated from natural human sentiments: Humaneness originates from human compassion; shame is the beginning of rightness; modesty and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom.
More than Confucius, Mencius emphasized moral exertion. His very refutation of the Mo Zi style argument that humaneness is external rather than an inherent part of human nature was also to show that humans should not shy away from what they can do, which is moral efforts.
4. Humaneness as an absolute principle instead of just concrete practices - In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius taught his students the definition of humaneness according to his students' weaknesses. To Confucius, humaneness was a way of human behavior that is realized in specific daily practices.
For Mencius, although the emphasis on practice continued, Mencius also championed humaneness as a more absolute principle that could be defined. Instead of the ritualized relationship between king and ministers, Mencius defined relationship between king and ministers, king and his people, more along lines guided and judged by the principle of humaneness.
Therefore the king was also required to practice humaneness, not just the abstract, remote judgment of the Mandate of Heaven.
When the king of Qi asked him about the kingdom of Yan that Qi attacked and possessed, Mencius says if a ruler like the king of Yan was not righteous, he could be deposed. But the king of Qi should practice humane treatment to the people otherwise he would not be a righteous ruler.
The relationship between king and ministers is reciprocal: the ruler should also treat the ministers nicely, otherwise the ministers would not treat the ruler nicely. The ruler serves as the moral exemplar of humaneness and rightness:
"if the ruler is humane, everyone will be humane. If the ruler keeps to rightness, everyone will keep to rightness."
The noble person preserves his mind through humaneness and courtesy, which enables him to love others, and he will be reciprocated.
Mencius even went to the extent to say that full dedication to reciprocity is humaneness. (156) Elsewhere, he did also define humaneness as inherent in the human sentiment of sympathy.
Unlike Confucius, however, who saw humaneness more as a form of practice, e.g. in social relationships, Mencius treated it more as a principle of kindness to others, reflected in rulers' care for their people, in son's filiality to father, and so on.
5. Mencius, Mo Zi, and Lao Zi - Obviously Mencius's this worldly glorification of human moral efforts differed from Mo Zi who denied an ethical human nature, and Lao Zi, who advocated conforming to nature and abandoning human efforts at anything. On the other hand, there also were resemblances of Mencius, Mo Zi and Lao Zi.
Mencius's emphasis on avoiding war and military expansion, although differing from Mo Zi's pacifism, also reflected the belief in the superiority of a moral code of behavior, this time humaneness, over military warfare. Although Mencius differed from Lao Zi, Mencius also had sentences like " to nourish the mind, leave the desires few," (p.158) which is likely to remind one of Lao Zi.
The Daur people are an ethnic minority group living in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China. Some of them have settled in Heilongjiang and Xinjiang provinces.
Recent DNA analysis has proved that they are the descendants of the ancient Khitan people from the 4th century. Before the 17th century, the Daurs lived in the region around the rivers of Shilka, Amur, and Zeya in Russia.
During the 1650s, they were forced southwards by Russian raiders to the banks of the Nen River in Heilongjiang. Some of them were conscripted into the Qing Imperial Brigade and later posted to Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.
The Daur language is an individual branch of the Mongolian family. It shares a lot of similar elements with other Mongolian languages. The Daurs do not have their own writing system, but most of them speak and write Mandarin Chinese.
Some of their literature was written in the Manchu alphabet. Existing manuscripts include poems and ballads by writers from the Qing Dynasty. There are also narrative poems and religious hymns that reflect the daily lives of the Daur people.
Their traditional religion is Shamanism mixed with totem and ancestor worship. Their multiple deities are all associated with nature, such as the sky god, the mountain god, the fire god, the river god, and so on. In May, they used to sacrifice livestock to all the deities in a special ceremony. Now, observance of the rituals has dwindled. Some of the Daurs have converted to Tibetan Buddhism.
Their biggest festival is the Lunar New Year. Festivities begin on the first day of the first lunar month and last until the 16th day, when they mark the end of the festival by smearing one another’s faces with dark ashes. They believe that the blacker one’s face gets, the luckier he will be for the whole year.
The Daurs are known for their medical knowledge. They are well versed in the medicinal properties of various plants and have invented a drug for anesthesia. They have also developed hot spring therapy and a regime for preventing diseases. All of this has contributed a lot to traditional Chinese medicine.
Hunting features prominently in their traditions. Now it has also become their favorite sporting hobby. They like to keep falcons for fetching small prey such as wild ducks and hares. Hockey is also a traditional sport. The game was passed down from their Khitan ancestors, who were documented to be keen players.
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The Daurs are mostly farmers and hunters. Game meat used to be a staple, but it is being replaced by livestock and poultry. Buckwheat, oats, barley, and other cereals used to be their major crops. Now they mainly cultivate millet and maize. Cow milk is a common ingredient of their beverages.
https://gbtimes.com/the-daurs-are-descended-from-an-ancient-northern-race
The Hineri-Komi was an aerial maneuver that was used by Japan during WWII. The maneuver consists of an aircraft being in front of its target, banking, and then utilizing the rudder to "slide". This then allowed the Japanese aircraft to cut down the rate at which it took it to perform a vertical loop and subsequently get on the tail of its chaser who would be performing a standard vertical loop, finishing the corkscrew.
The image above shows a cone of a Belgian redwood, the giant sequoia of Esneux, which is largely bigger than the cones of trees with a girth below 6 to 7 m (about 20 feet). The giant sequoia is monoecious, which means that the male and female parts are located on the same tree. So for pollinated, viable seeds you only need one tree, it's not necessary that there are other giant redwoods in the immediate neighborhood. It can take only a couple of years to a number of decades before a giant redwood starts producing cones. I have seen sequoias only 1.5 m (5 feet) tall with an abundance of cones and trees up to 20 m (about 60 feet) tall, with no cones at all. Probably they are forced to produce cones after a stress period, such as a long period of drought, as survival mechanism. Fallen green cones are also ideal to collect: when they open after a couple of weeks in a dry place, they are loaded with small, winged seeds. The biggest cones also produce the biggest seeds. On the left you can see some seeds from the Belgian giant sequoias of Oostmalle, on the right those of the one of Esneux, mentioned above. There's a distinguishable difference in size (scale in cm). Before sowing, it might be useful to place the seeds a couple of days to a couple of weeks in the fridge. When you sow them at last and place them in a warm place (like on the radiator of your heating system), the seeds "think" winter's over and the time to germinate has come. I have tried the seeds at different depths and had the most success when I did not put them in the (ordinary) compost, but on the soil, not to only very slighty covered. Probably they also need light to germinate. But be aware! The seeds need to be in (intense) contact with the moist soil, so you need to press them softly into the compost. The seeds are quite susceptible to drought. You can put a glass plate or some plastic foil over the pot, but you have to be careful not to kill them by making things too wet. Small germinated sequoias die rather easy because of overwatering. I can tell you: it's a very sad thing to see baby sequoias wither away! To keep the ground moist but not wet, it's ideal to use a garden sprayer instead of a watering can. You can sow them all year round, but because the plants in temperate regions like Europe will grow best in summer, it might be best to do the sowing in (early) spring. Seeds that germinated here (Belgium) around Christmas, have not grown noticeably until spring. How long does it take the seeds to germinate? Well, first of all it should be said that giant sequoia seeds have a very low chance of germinating. If a few from some twenty to fifty seeds germinate, you're already successful... With bought seeds, the germination rate is higher but it's highly probable that more than half of the seeds will do nothing. Readers of the website who already tried this, have had germination rates of 15 to 25%. The seeds germinate at the earliest a couple of days after sowing, but still can after months. Don't think things will not work out: patience is a virtue! https://www.monumentaltrees.com/en/trees/giantsequoia/growing_your_own/
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The Hineri-Komi was designed to be used as a low speed maneuver and is used to best effect when the Japanese aircraft performing the maneuver is being chased by an enemy aircraft. The maneuver was often coupled with other staple tactics such as the Immelmann Turn and Split-S Maneuver in combat to attempt to out fly the enemy. However, these tactics were not without risk and as the war progressed, counters were found to exploit their weaknesses such as in the Thatch Weave.
The Hineri-Komi maneuver was initially developed in 1934 in Yokosuka to replace older, western derived fighter tactics which had shown their age in the early combat over the skies of China. Although not a maneuver that could be used in every set of circumstances, it became a favorite among Japanese pilots.
Furthermore, it was extremely effective in combat, in part due to the extreme maneuverability of most Japanese planes. The tactic itself continued to be taught in Japanese fighter schools until the end of the war, being most closely related with the Mitsubishi A6M Rei-sen or "Zero".
https://world-war-2.wikia.org/wiki/Hineri-Komi_Maneuver
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If you’re trying to buy a rear-engined, aerodynamic, aluminum-bodied car for new Camry money, you don’t really have many options. That’s why this ad should be such a godsend to the significant portion of our readership finding themselves in this situation: it’s a rear-engined, aerodynamic, aluminum, and absolutely unique car, all for $25,000. It’s also a Beetle chassis with an airplane stuck on top of it.
We’ve seen a number of other airplanes-turned-into-cars here, and I don’t care who knows it, I think I love them all. There’s something about the strange, sleek snugness of small aircraft that just make for great car bodies. This particular one is from a 1959 Cessna 172, and it’s on what appears to be a fairly cut-down (as in floorboards removed, leaving the main backbone) 1968 Beetle chassis.
Inside, we have seating for four on two-tone, low-back VW seats, and the whole original, gauge-laden instrument cluster has been retained in the cockpit, with one of the gauges replaced with the Beetle’s all-in-one speedo/fuel gauge/warning lights instrument.
Headlights have been set into a grille around the propeller (which, it seems, can block them?) and the wings are hilariously cut down into stubby little winglets, which provide some shade and rain protection for the side windows.
The engine is exposed at the rear, but it’s got a nice chrome fan shroud and big chrome headers and lots of other shiny bits, so there’s no shame in showing it off. It’s a period-correct single-port motor, which, in original 1500cc guise, was good for 53 horsepower. Those headers probably help somewhat, but this plane isn’t likely to take flight.
https://jalopnik.com/this-volkswagen-based-land-airplane-is-an-adorable-and-1828137367
Chinese Admiral in the Indian Ocean - In the early 1400s, Zheng He led the largest ships in the world on seven voyages of exploration to the lands around the Indian Ocean, demonstrating Chinese excellence at shipbuilding and navigation.
Zheng He (pronounced jung ha) was born in 1371 in Yunnan, in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains, 6,000 feet (not quite 2,000 meters) above sea level and two months’ journey to the nearest seaport.
As a child Zheng He was named Ma He. Ma He’s father, a minor official in the Mongol Empire, was not Mongol; his ancestors were Persian Muslims. Both Ma He’s father and his grandfather even made the “hajj,” or pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Mongols had controlled the Silk Road routes across Central Asia from roughly 1250 to 1350, and ruled China for much of that time too, but the empire then splintered into a number of smaller khanates, each ruled by a different khan. The resulting anarchy and warfare on land encouraged traders to use sea routes and later, by about 1400, most long distance trade was moving by sea.
Three years before Ma He’s birth, the Chinese regained control of their empire under the new Ming dynasty. When Ma He was about 10, the Ming army invaded Yunnan to take it back from the Mongols and bring it under Ming control.
The Ming soldiers killed Ma He’s father in the fighting and captured Ma He. As was customary with juvenile captives, they castrated him by cutting off his testes and penis with a sword. He survived this trauma and was handed over to be a servant in the household of the emperor’s fourth son, Zhu Di.
Castrated men, called eunuchs, were a recognized group inside and outside of China. Emperors, princes, and generals employed them as staff members, figuring this as a way to have male servants serve women without risking the genetic integrity of the ruling family.
The prince whom Ma He served, Zhu Di, was only 11 years older than He. They were based in Beijing, in the north of China near Mongol territory, and they spent a lot of time together campaigning on horseback on the Mongolian steppe. Ma He grew unusually tall and strong and became a skilled fighter and brave leader.
When the first Ming emperor died, his grandson (the son of his deceased oldest son) succeeded him. In 1402, Zhu Di took the throne from his nephew by force and proclaimed himself Emperor Yongle (“Perpetual Happiness”).
He made his companion Ma He the director of palace servants (similar to a chief of staff), and changed Ma’s name to Zheng He in commemoration of his role in battles to win the throne. (Zheng was the name of Yongle’s favorite warhorse.) Yongle ruled from 1402 to 1424.
The Seven Voyages - Yongle proved extremely ambitious. He temporarily conquered Vietnam and tried to overpower Japan. He built a new imperial capital in Beijing, including the Forbidden City, and extended the Great Wall.
Since he was determined to control trading in the Indian Ocean, one of his first acts was to commission the construction of 3,500 ships, with Zheng He supervising the construction and then commanding the fleet.
Some of these ships were the largest marine craft the world had ever known. Zheng He’s nine-masted flagship measured about 400 feet long; for comparison, Christopher Columbus’s Santa Maria measured just 85 feet.
On the first voyage, from 1405 to 1407, 62 nine-masted “treasure ships” led the way, followed by almost 200 other ships of various sizes, carrying personnel, horses, grain, and 28,000 armed troops.
Historians were skeptical of accounts describing the size of these ships until, in 1962, workers on the Yangtze riverfront found a buried wooden timber 36 feet long (originally a steering post) beside a massive rudder.
It was the right size to have been able to steer a ship of 540 to 600 feet in length, and the right age — dated at 600 years old — to be from one of Zheng He’s ships.
Zheng He’s initial trip took him from the South China Sea through the Indian Ocean to Calicut, India, and back. The emperor’s purpose for this expedition seems to have been to obtain recognition and gifts from other rulers. The voyagers did not intend to conquer or colonize, but they were prepared to use military force against those who refused to respect them.
Near the end of the voyage Zheng He’s ships encountered pirates in the Sumatran port of Palembang. The pirate leader pretended to submit, with the intention of escaping. However, Zheng He started a battle, easily defeating the pirates — his forces killing more than 5,000 people and taking the leader back to China to be beheaded.
Five more voyages followed before Emperor Yongle’s death in 1424; they included excursions to Hormuz — the Arab port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf — and the coast of eastern Africa, from which He returned with giraffes, zebras, and other items unfamiliar to the Chinese.
On his seventh and final voyage, from 1431 to 1433, Zheng He apparently died at sea and was likely buried off the coast of India, although some of his descendants believe that he made it back to China and died soon after his return.
Leaving on his final voyage, at age 60 — the traditional Chinese age of reflection — Zheng He stopped at two places in China to have granite inscriptions placed so that his deeds would be understood and not forgotten.
These tablets were erected in Liujiagang (now Liuhe), a port on the Yangtze River, and at Changle, in Fujian province. In the first inscription Zheng He describes his dependence on Tianfei (“Heavenly Princess”), the goddess of Chinese sailors:
[We have] traversed over a hundred thousand li of vast ocean [and have] beheld great ocean waves, rising as high as the sky and swelling and swelling endlessly.
Whether in dense fog and drizzling rain or in wind-driven waves rising like mountains, no matter what the sudden changes in sea conditions, we spread our cloudlike sails aloft and sailed by the stars day and night. [Had we] not trusted her [Heavenly Princess’s] divine merit, how could we have done this in peace and safety?
When we met danger, once we invoked the divine name, her answer to our prayer was like an echo; suddenly there was a divine lamp which illuminated the masts and sails, and once this miraculous light appeared, then apprehension turned to calm. The personnel of the fleet were then at rest, and all trusted they had nothing to fear. This is the general outline of the goddess’s merit...
When we arrived at the foreign countries, barbarian kings who resisted transformation and were not respectful we captured alive, and bandit soldiers who looted and plundered recklessly we exterminated. Because of this the sea routes became pure and peaceful and the foreign peoples could rely upon them and pursue their occupations in safety. All of this was due to the aid of the goddess.
The “divine lamp” Zheng He mentions is thought be “St. Elmo’s Fire,” the electrical discharge from a ship’s mast that occurs after a storm at sea. On the second inscription, which follows below, Zheng He explains the purpose of the voyages and his gratitude to the sea goddess:
If men serve their prince with utmost loyalty, there is nothing they cannot do, and if they worship the gods with utmost sincerity there is no prayer that will not be answered...
We, [Zheng] He and the rest, have been favored with a gracious commission from our Sacred Prince to convey to the distant barbarians the favor [earned by their] respectfulness and good faith.
While in command of the personnel of the fleet, and [responsible for the great] amount of money and valuables [our] one concern while facing the violence of the winds and the dangers of the nights was that we would not succeed.
Would we then have served the nation with utmost loyalty and worshipped the divine intelligence with utmost sincerity? None of us could doubt that this was the source of aid and safety for the fleet in its comings and goings.
Therefore we have made manifest the virtue of the goddess with this inscription on stone, which records the years and months of our going to and returning from the foreign [countries] so that they may be remembered forever.
The voyages of Zheng He are a favorite topic of world historians today. They show that Chinese ships could have ruled the Indian Ocean for many more years and possibly been able to sail to the Americas. Why didn’t they? What if they had? How different would the world be?
After the final voyage, the Chinese emperor suddenly ordered that these expensive expeditions be halted. The ships were left to rot in the harbors, and craftsmen forgot how to build such large ships, letting the knowledge slip away.
The Confucian ministers who advised the emperor distrusted the eunuchs, who supported the voyages. New military threats came from the Mongols in the north and the ministers argued that resources needed to focus on land defenses there instead.
Three firsthand accounts survive, written by men who sailed with Zheng He — two from officers and one from a translator. Eventually, Chinese interest in these accounts revived in the 20th century. Prior to that, Zheng He’s exploits were passed on by storytellers who used them as a source of wonder, blending them with other fantastic tales.
https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/expansion-interconnection/exploration-interconnection/a/zheng-he
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