Large animal teams pull the heavier vehicle.
DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷三
般載雜賣
How the city moves weight.
Meng Yuanlao compresses a freight network into a catalog of carts, pack animals and handling techniques. Read closely, the chapter tracks five variables at once: cargo, pulling power, wheel form, route and control.
OPEN THE SYSTEM ↓載LOAD力POWER制CONTROL
01 / FREIGHT MECHANICS
A heavy vehicle also needs a way to stop.
The Taiping cart passage is unusually operational. Meng records pulling teams, an audible warning and rear animals used to restrain a loaded cart on a steep descent.
The source gives a historical capacity expression; no modern tonnage is imposed.
The moving cart makes sound so approaching traffic can avoid it.
Rear animals restrain the vehicle on steep bridge or road descents.
02 / VEHICLE TAXONOMY
Different loads produce different forms.
The list reads less like a parade of curiosities and more like specialization. Wine, passengers, construction materials, huge timber and loose bulk goods move through different configurations.
FORMPOWERWHEELSUSE / LOADSPECIAL FEATURE
1. The Taiping cart turns descent into a control problem.
東京般載車，大者曰『太平』，上有箱無蓋，箱如構欄而平，板壁前出兩木，長二三尺許，駕車人在中間，兩手扶捉鞭裏駕之，前列騾或驢二十餘，前後作兩行；或牛五七頭拽之。車兩輪與箱齊，後有兩斜木腳拖夜；中間懸一鐵鈴，行即有聲，使遠來者車相避。乃於車後繫驢騾二頭，遇下峻險橋路，以鞭唬之，使倒坐綞車，令緩行也。可載數十石。官中車惟用驢差小耳。
WORKING TRANSLATION
The largest freight cart Meng names is the Taiping cart: an open box-like body on two wheels, pulled by a large animal team. A bell warns traffic. On steep descents two animals are tied behind and used to restrain the vehicle so it moves more slowly. Meng also gives a heavy carrying capacity in the historical unit shi.
GALOK READING
The key detail is control. Pulling power gets the load moving; the bell manages interaction with other road users; rear animals deal with gravity on the way down. One paragraph therefore preserves a small operating system rather than a static object description.
2. The rest of the list is a map of specialization.
其次有『平頭車』，亦如『太平車』而小，兩輪前出長木作轅木，梢橫一木，以獨牛在轅內，項負橫木，人在一邊，以手牽牛鼻繩駕之，酒正店多以此載酒梢桶矣。梢桶如長水桶，面安靨口，每梢三斗許，一貫五百文。又有宅眷坐車子，與『平頭車』大抵相似，但棕作蓋，及前後有構欄門，垂簾。又有獨輪車，前後二人把駕，兩旁兩人扶拐，前有驢拽，謂之『串車』，以不用耳子轉輪也。般載竹木瓦石。
WORKING TRANSLATION
Meng moves from a smaller ox cart used by major wine houses to a related covered passenger carriage and a one-wheel / chuanchē configuration used for bamboo, timber, tiles and stone.
GALOK READING
Wine distribution, passenger movement and building supply each leave a different trace in the vehicle catalog. The transport chapter therefore plugs directly into the commercial city described elsewhere in the book.
但無前轅，止一人或兩人推之。此車往往賣糕及糕麋之類人用，不中載物也。平盤兩輪，謂之『浪子車』，唯用人拽。又有載巨石大木，只有短梯盤而無輪，謂之『癡車』，皆省人力也。又有駝騾驢馱子，或皮或竹為之，如方匾竹差，兩搭背上，斛禮則用布袋駝之。
WORKING TRANSLATION
A Siku-family witness and later quotation preserve the reading 「此車」 where a common electronic witness has a graph variant. The passage continues with human-pushed and human-pulled forms, a short platform for very large stone or timber, and pack transport using camels, mules and donkeys.
GALOK READING
Several words in this portion are witness-sensitive. Function can be read with reasonable confidence; exact chassis geometry cannot.
The same book shows these vehicles inside supply chains.
A catalog becomes much more useful when another passage catches the same transport forms doing work.
The Ping-tou cart is tied directly to large wine houses. Freight specialization therefore links to the wine economy mapped earlier in Volume II.
Read Entry 13 ↗In 「天曉諸人入市」, flour in cloth sacks enters the city by Taiping cart or pack animal before daybreak. The vehicle name reappears in an actual market-supply scene.
Open Volume III text ↗The two passages together support specialization and recurring use. They still do not give standardized dimensions, fleet size, ownership structure or route statistics.
04 / VISUAL WITNESS
《清明上河圖》 preserves freight traffic as a visual parallel.
The Northern Song handscroll attributed to Zhang Zeduan contains carts, pack animals, bridge traffic and commercial movement. National Palace Museum material discussing historical transport imagery explicitly notes an ox-drawn freight cart in the 《清明上河圖》 tradition.
The painting does not label a vehicle as Meng's 太平車. It is independent visual evidence for an urban world in which animal-drawn freight and dense mixed traffic were visible features.
TEXTMeng names forms + functionsCROSS-TEXTEntry 26 shows Taiping cart in supplyIMAGEScroll shows freight traffic, not exact identification
NPM / Qingming scroll record ↗NPM research / historical cart imagery ↗
A common electronic reading and another witness diverge.
COMMON ELECTRONIC此畫往往賣糕……
↔SIKU / LATER QUOTATION此車往往賣糕……
The working primary text follows 「此車」 because the vehicle referent fits the sequence and appears in the Siku-family text and later quotation. Other harness and carrier graphs also vary, so the diagrams stay functional.
NOW MONEY COUNTS.
Entry 23 moves from physical load to a different urban operating convention: how a nominal hundred coins could be counted differently by transaction.