The First Wonderful Object of Jinling

He met Ning Wu.70 cities in #70Last year, Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center collected a peculiar X-shaped iron ware weighing about 500 kilograms. After expert appraisal, this scissors-shaped giant cast iron castings is commonly known as "flying scissors" in folk, which should be dated to the Six Dynasties period.
"Feilaijian" is also known as "Shuangtiezhen". Because of its unique shape and mysterious use, it has been regarded as a flying thing from outside the sky by folklore, so it is called "Feilaijian", and is known as "the first wonder of Jinling". This "flying scissors" is 1.47 meters long, 0.94 meters wide and 0.17 meters thick. The overall structure is scissors-shaped X-shaped, weighing about 500 kilograms. On both sides of the intersection of iron shears, there is a circular hole about 10 cm in diameter.
Ganxi, a famous scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, mentioned in his book Baixia Trivial Words that there were three "flying shears" in Nanjing at that time, which were located in Tieta Temple, Linggu Temple and Dabao En Temple. Among the three "flying shears", the Linggu Temple has remained intact, the Iron Tower Temple has been moved to the Nanjing Museum, while the Dabao En Temple has one that remains unknown.
The "flying scissors" were collected from a Tibetan in Nanjing and were allegedly salvaged from the Qinhuai River by their ancestors, which have been preserved ever since. Because Linggu Temple and Nanbo’s "flying scissors" have been handed down in an orderly manner, if not unexpectedly, the newly discovered one should be the "flying scissors" lost in Dabao En Temple.
Compared with the objects in Linggu Temple and Nanbo, the newly discovered "flying shears" are basically the same in shape and size. According to the analysis of the cast iron material, the age of the experts should be in the Six Dynasties.
For thousands of years, it has been a mystery what the purpose of "flying shear" is. There are three kinds of views with high recognition: one is the thing of Zhenjiao Zhenshui, the other is a lifting tool, and the third is the component used to fix the ancient pagoda base.
The earliest record of "flying shears" appeared in Fan Zhiming’s "Records of Yueyang’s Fengdu" in the Northern Song Dynasty, which wrote: "There are several iron smelters in the sand moraines along the river bank, each weighing kilograms, one foot long, two feet thick and four ends evenly divided into swallow tails. If the two sides are opposite, each has its own gigantic knowledges and its own size…" However, Fan Zhiming is not clear about the purpose of "flying scissors".
Ganxi mentioned two kinds of folk saying about the use of "flying clippers" in Baixia Trivial Words at that time: one is that rice barn in Tieta Temple was often stolen, which was used as a treasure to prevent theft in town barn, and the other is that old monks in Linggu Temple called Jiao Xing Fei Iron, so they called it Zhenjiao. However, Ganxi disagreed with these two statements. Since the three "flying shears" in Nanjing were all located near the ancient pagoda temple, it was speculated that the "flying shears" were weighted pendants on orange buns (equivalent to cranes) when the pagoda was built in ancient times. They were pressed at one end and then lifted the building components to a high place.
In a book written in 1893 by L. Gaillard, a French missionary, there was a special discussion on the "flying scissors" in Nanjing. He believed that according to the wisdom of Chinese craftsmen, they would not use such heavy and extremely inconvenient "falling bodies" as "flying scissors". Gaillard found the trace of lead pouring in a "flying shear" hole. He proposed that the "flying shear" in Nanjing should be a "combination" between the pagoda body and the stone tower foundation with "swallow tail groove". Rivets were inserted into the hole of the iron shear, and then poured lead water for pouring and fixing, so as to stabilize the pagoda foundation and cushion the earthquake.
According to the relevant person in charge of Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center, there are six known surviving "flying shears" in the whole country at present. In addition to three in Nanjing, the other three are stored in Yueyang Building, Hunan Province. The shape and appearance of the "flying shears" in the two places are almost identical.