The Study On The Travel Tools Of The Song Dynasty

The travel tools on land could be mainly divided in to three categories by the standard of power in Song Dynasty, which used the manpower, animal force and the combination of animal force and manpower. There were five kinds of travel tools using the manpower, including the emperor’s carriages, carriages, sedan chairs, human carts and eaves. The number of the carriages, emperor’s carriages, sedan chairs, human carts and eaves were respectively 25, 9, 6, 5 and 2. The eight kinds of travel tools using animal force contains chariot, car, horse, mules, camels, cow and elephant, the number of which were 6, 47, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 1 respectively. Chuan car was the only travel tool using the combination of manpower and animal force, the number of which was one. In total, there were 14 kinds of travel tools on land in Song Dynasty, the number of which was 107.As for the travel tools on the water, there were seven kinds, which were boat, ship, large boat, raft, craft, barge and Ling Chuang. And the number of the boats was 10, which was 8 less than that of the ships. Besides, the quantity of large boat and raft were equally 2, which doubled that of craft, barge and Ling Chuang separately. In Song dynasty, the sort travel tool on the water mounted to 7, the numbers of which were 35.There were 21 kinds of traveling tools in Song dynasty in total, the number of which were 142. The sort of traveling tools on land took up 66.67%, which nearly doubled the sort of the traveling tools on the water. The percentages of the number of traveling tools on land and the number of traveling tools on the water were almost 75.35% and 24.65% respectively. As can be seen from the statistical results of the number and the sort of the traveling tools, the traveling tools in song dynasty was largely based on land, which meant the on land traveling tools leaded the dominant position in the daily life of Song dynasty.There was a clear hierarchy on the traveling tools of people in every class. The traveling tools of the emperor in Song dynasty were mainly chariot, emperor’s carriage, carriage and car and those of the royal staff were mainly carriage, sedan chair and car. Government officials mostly used carriage, sedan chair, car and horse. Ordinary businessman basically used car and horse. Women basically used eave, car and donkey. As can be seen from the statistical results of the number and the sort of the traveling tools, people from all classes in Song dynasty mostly used land based traveling tools and they seldom used the traveling tools on the water. Since the Song dynasty, due to the impact of the natural and geographical factors, it had largely increased on the use of the traveling tools on the water.It was the differences of natural and geographical environment that resulted in the obvious regional differences on the traveling tools in Song dynasty. With the plain landscape in north in Song dynasty, the traveling tools on land were mostly based on the large-sized vehicles and domestic animals like horses. It wasn’t a common phenomenon that people in north traveled by the sedan chairs. Although people could also travel by boats and ships in the water, influenced by the climate factors, boat and ship travel were restricted because of the frozen water in winter. Meanwhile, the invention of Ling Chuang by people from the north solved the problem of traveling on the water in winter in north. With the rugged terrain in south in Song dynasty, the traveling tools on land were mainly based on sedan chairs and it was rare to see people travel by car or ride a horse. Due to the developed water system in south, people mostly commuted by traveling tools on the water. To sum up, the transportation in north mainly relied on land-based traveling tools whereas in south the transportation mainly relied on water-based traveling tools. The decoration of traveling tools in Song dynasty experienced the change from simplicity to extravagance and the return to simplicity. From Taizu Song to Renzong Song, the dominators forged ahead with determination, traveling tools were based on the simple decorations. After Song dynasty, with the unstable political turmoil, hurry need of recovering economic and the advocacy of a frugal life by dominators, the decoration of traveling tools were back to the simple style.There were mainly six features of the traveling tools in Song dynasty. The first point was about the increase on the sort. The second point was about the gradually civilian. The third point was about the shift of power from utilizing domestic animals towards manpower. The forth point was that it had become gradually conservative. The fifth point was that the highly producing and the perfect decorate. The sixth point was that confrontation between the regime and the surrounding country of the North travel tools to enrich the types of Song dynasty travel tools.The traveling tools in Song dynasty exerted a significant impact on the journey of people, the transportation of product, the construction of land and water transportation, the prosperity of leasing industry, the development of livestock and the prosperity of tourism. At the same time, the sort, appearance and passenger’s requirements of the traveling tools in Song dynasty also had an important impact on the descendent.