How did the ancients collect coal buried deep underground?

The ancients in China discovered coal as early as 3000 years ago. Shan Hai Jing in the pre-Qin period first described the existence of coal: "female bed mountain, red copper in the yang and stone nie in the yin". This place means that women rush into the mountains, the sunny south slope is covered with red copper, and the shady north slope is covered with lycopodium. In ancient times, the name "stone" meant a stone that could be used as a black dye. It can be seen that in the era of Shan Hai Jing, the value of coal has not been discovered, and it is regarded as an ordinary Blackstone. At that time, coal was only used as stone carving material.

In the Western Han Dynasty, people found that this kind of black stone could burn, and it had strong firepower and lasting burning time, which was much better than hay and wood, so they began to mine it on a large scale to make fuel.

Sima Qian's Historical Records: A Family of Concubine records that Dou Guangguo, the younger brother of Queen Dou, went into the mountains to dig coal when he was young. When he encountered a landslide, 100 miners were killed or injured, and only he escaped. It can be seen that coal mining has been quite large at this time. The iron smelting site of the Western Han Dynasty in Tieshenggou, Gongxian County, Henan Province is the earliest coal-using site discovered so far. A large number of briquettes and briquettes have been unearthed here, and coal has obviously become the main fuel of smelting industry. The coal mining technology in the Western Han Dynasty was relatively simple, basically open-pit mining, and the quality of coal dug out was not very high.

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, underground coal mining technology began to appear. During the Cao Wei period, the coal well in Wei Wu 'an City was eight feet deep, which was quite deep at that time. According to the Book of Jin, Shi Hu, the Emperor of the Later Zhao Dynasty, robbed an ancient tomb when he was young and found an abandoned coal well with a roof supporting the tunnel and a lot of tunnel water.

It can be seen that underground operation and tunnel mining were the main ways of coal mining at that time. Some local chronicles recorded the hardships of coal mining at that time. The workers dug the well and walked in naked with torches. The well is so deep and narrow that they can only crawl in it like snakes. After they collected the coal, they carried it like rats. This coal mining method is very unsafe, and the life safety of workers can not be guaranteed.

Summary: During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the ancients improved coal mining methods and many advanced mining technologies appeared.

First of all, the layered mining method is adopted, and workers arrange wells in the mine to divide coal transportation, coal mining and personnel entry into different areas, so that the complicated mining work is orderly. People also set up trapezoidal supports in the roadway to make the rugged underground a relatively flat working face. This method greatly improves the efficiency of coal mining and provides safety guarantee for coal miners.

During the period of 1959, archaeologists also found a drainage well in the mine of the Song Dynasty coal mining site in Hebi, Henan Province, from which we can also see the perfection of the underground coal mining system at that time. In Ming Dynasty, people introduced ventilation system into underground mines.

There is a picture in the Song Dynasty's Heavenly Creations: Before mining in a well, people sharpen a hollow thick bamboo pole, insert it into the underground coal seam, and lead the toxic gas out of the well. The adoption of these technologies not only ensures the personal safety of workers, but also ensures the smooth progress of production. The mining technology in Qing Dynasty was more scientific and reasonable, and there were mature methods for mine roadway layout, ventilation and drainage system. Although it was still manual operation at this time, at that time, China's coal mining technology could still be called the more advanced coal mining technology in the world.