Traditional wooden boat manufacturing skills Hongze Lake wooden boat manufacturing skills expansion Hongze Lake wooden boat manufacturing skills are mainly distributed in the surrounding areas of Hongze Lake. Hongze Lake is located in the northwest of Jiangsu Province and the border area of Anhui Province. It connects the Huaihe River, Yangtze River, Bianshui River, Suishui River, Sishui River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. It is one of the five largest freshwater lakes in China. It is rich in aquatic resources and has extremely developed water fishing and transportation industries. The Hongze Lake area has a long history of fishing and shipbuilding. The earliest discovery is the canoe left in the Neolithic site of Fanjiagang in Xuyi County. According to page 382 of Hongze Lake Records, "In the past, it was connected to the Huai River, and now it is in the south of the capital. Since the Longqing period (1163), the Huai River has run through it, and there are more than a hundred fishing boats of various sizes." According to the "General Records of the Canal Transport" in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the number of ships and grain of each garrison is recorded: "The number of flag soldiers in Huai'an Garrison was 2,225, the number of ships was 223, and the number of flag soldiers in Sizhou Garrison was 3,041, and the number of ships was 304" (page 196 of the collection of papers of the National Academic Seminar on "Huai'an, the Capital of the Grand Canal"). There were more than 3,000 boats during the Republic of China, and during the Anti-Japanese War, the number of fishing boats in the lake area had developed to more than 4,000. By the end of 1985, there were 10,754 boats in the entire lake area, including 9,895 in Hongze County, 207 in Xuyi County, 450 in Sihong County, and 202 in Siyang County, with a total tonnage of more than 53,000 tons. According to the first and second sections of page 383 of "Hongze Lake Chronicles", these boats were all made by carpenters around Hongze Lake. During the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, wooden boats on Hongze Lake played an immeasurable role. General Zhang Aiping and other older generation revolutionaries organized "water guerrillas" on Hongze Lake to attack the Japanese and puppet army transport fleets, contributing to the great victory of the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation. It can be said that Hongze Lake is the cradle of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. There are many types of wooden boats in Hongze Lake, including net boats, hook boats, net boats, crow boats, and fish jumping boats, and they have significant characteristics, namely "square head and flat bottom", shallow and wide bottom, shallow draft, stable boat, wind and wave resistance, suitable for lake and inland river operations. The manufacturing process of wooden boats in Hongze Lake is complicated. First, oily and corrosion-resistant cypress, sand wood, pine wood, etc. are selected as boat planks, and strong and durable mulberry, locust, elm and other miscellaneous wood are selected as boat beams. The next step is manufacturing. The basic process is as follows: (1) Nail the bottom of the boat. After the bottom plate is nailed, kill a rooster and take its blood to pour on the center line to pray for safety; (2) Install the boat beam. There are three beams: front, middle and back; (3) Install the stand and the big pull. There are three main boards of the boat side. The bottom one is called the foot stand, the middle one is called the big stand, and the top one is called the big pull. The big stand, the big pull and the foot stand are connected and fixed to the boat beam with nails, and the inside is fixed with nails; (4) Install the bone mouth and pressure plate. The bone mouth is a narrower boat side board on the big pull. The installation method is the same as that of the stand and the big pull. The pressure plate is a board that is thicker and narrower than the boat side board. After the pressure plate is installed, the boat is basically formed; (5) Install accessories. There are oar support, rudder, sail seat, etc.; (6) Twist the boat. Use oil mud to plug the seams of the boat to prevent water seepage; (7) Oil tanker. Prevent the hull from being eroded by lake water. (8) Launch. During the launching ceremony, it is necessary to "hang red" (nail red cloth on the bow) and say happy words: "The golden rooster in the sky crows, and the phoenix cries on the ground. Lu Ban passed by here, and it was time to hang red. The first blow of the axe means a million taels of gold, the second blow of the axe means a full cabin of fish and shrimp, and the third blow of the axe means good luck and a full house of children." The wooden boat manufacturing technique of Hongze Lake has high cultural, historical and scientific value. The taboo beliefs in the process of wooden boat manufacturing are an important part of the Hongze Lake culture that combines the characteristics of the north and the south; the long history of shipbuilding in the Hongze Lake area provides important reference materials for the study of local politics, economy, culture, especially the history of fishing and transportation; the wooden boat manufacturing technique of Hongze Lake integrates scientific knowledge such as mechanics, mathematics, geometry, and is the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people in the Hongze Lake area. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)