Chinese Diligent Learning Stories

Author: Luo Man, Lin Yin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features:
Master Lu Ban
Lu Ban was a figure from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. In fact, his surname was not Lu, but Gongshu, and his name was Ban. Because he was from the state of Lu, people called him Lu Ban. Lu Ban's family had been manual craftsmen for generations. Lu Ban himself was a highly skilled craftsman and an outstanding inventor. The hand tools used by carpenters today, such as saws, drills, planes, chisels, squares, and marking reels, were all invented by Lu Ban. And the invention of each tool was the result of Lu Ban's repeated experiments and research in production practice. Take the invention of the saw, for example. Once, the king ordered Lu Ban to felling three hundred pillars within fifteen days to build a grand palace. So, Lu Ban took his apprentices to the mountains. They worked day and night for ten days, exhausting themselves, but only managed to fell over a hundred large trees. What could they do? At night, Lu Ban couldn't sleep and tossed and turned in bed. He got up and walked up the mountain, deep and shallow steps. Looking up, he saw the morning star blinking at him—the sky was getting lighter. Suddenly, he felt something cut his hand. He looked up and saw that his calloused hand had been scratched open, with tiny droplets of blood. He carefully observed his surroundings and found that it was the silk grass that had scratched him. Lu Ban was amazed. He picked a blade of silk grass and noticed that its edges were covered with many sharp fine teeth. Turning around, he saw a large grasshopper with two large plate teeth, quickly eating the grass blade. Lu Ban caught the grasshopper and found that its plate teeth also had sharp teeth. Looking at the silk grass blade and then at the grasshopper's large plate teeth, he suddenly had an idea. Lu Ban made a bamboo strip and carved many saw teeth on it, similar to those on the silk grass blade and the grasshopper's plate teeth. Using it to pull the tree, the bark broke after just a few strokes. With a bit more force, a deep groove appeared on the tree trunk. However, after some time, the saw teeth on the bamboo strip either became dull or broke. At this point, Lu Ban thought of iron. He ran down the mountain and asked the blacksmith to forge an iron strip with saw teeth according to his bamboo strip. Using it to pull the tree was incredibly fast! This iron strip was the ancestor of the saw. With it, Lu Ban and his apprentices felled the trees in only thirteen days,