Meteorology
In Our Time
00:00
The History of China
China as a landscape is incredibly complex, geographically and meteorologically. For most of its early history was divided into constantly warring states that were very closely neighbouring to each other in the mountainous regions. The 14th century B.C. had developed incredibly centralised, militaristic, bureaucratic, stately structures where knowledge was power. They created instruments such as snow gauges, which were bamboo cages, which were put up in the high parts of the territories,. How did that work then? You could go bamboo cage in the high territories, then what? It fills up with snow, and there's a snow drift, and a poor local official has to gauge the amount of snow in there.
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