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2. CHAPTER

HISTROY OF FLOATING BRIDGE

2.1. ANCIENT CHINA

In ancient China, the Zhou Dynasty Chinese text of the Shi Jing (Book of Odes) records

that King Wen of Zhou was the first to create a pontoon bridge in the 11th century BC.
However, the historian Joseph Needham has pointed out that in all likely scenarios, the

temporary pontoon bridge was invented during the 9th or 8th century BC in China, as this

part was perhaps a later addition to the book (considering how the book had been edited up
until the Han Dynasty, 202 BC – 220 AD). Although earlier temporary pontoon bridges

had been made in China, the first secure and permanent ones (and linked with iron chains)
in China came first during the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC). The later Song Dynasty (960–

1279 AD) Chinese statesman Cao Cheng once wrote of early pontoon bridges in China
(spelling of Chinese in Wade-Giles format):

The Chhun Chhiu Hou Chuan says that in the 58th year of the Zhou King Nan (257 BC),
there was invented in the Qin State the floating bridge (fou chhiao) with which to cross

rivers. But the Ta Ming ode in the Shih Ching (Book of Odes) says (of King Wen) that he

'joined boats and made of them a bridge' over the River Wei. Sun Yen comments that this
shows that the boats were arranged in a row, like the beams (of a house) with boards laid

(transversely) across them, which is just the same as the pontoon bridge of today. Tu Yu
also thought this. ... Cheng Khang Chheng says that the Zhou people invented it and used

it whenever they had occasion to do so, but the Qin people, to whom they handed it down,
were the first to fasten it securely together (for permanent use).

During the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), the Chinese created a very large pontoon
bridge that spanned the width of the Yellow River. There was also the rebellion of Gongsun

Shu in 33 AD, where a large pontoon bridge with fortified posts was constructed across the

Yangtze River, eventually broken through with ramming ships by official Han troops under
Commander Cen Peng. During the late Eastern Han into the Three Kingdoms period, during

the Battle of Chibi in 208 AD, the Prime Minister Cao Cao once linked the majority of his
fleet together with iron chains, which proved to be a fatal mistake once he was thwarted

with a fire attack by Sun Quan's fleet.

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