The “Shinansha,” or the South Pointing Carriage

Nobody today thinks a compass is remarkable, with its needle that always points north, though it must have seemed a marvel when it was first invented. But long ago in China there was an invention more wonderful still, called the shinansha. It was a kind of chariot carrying the figure of a man whose arm always pointed south. However the chariot was turned, the little figure swung round and pointed south again.

In the legend, this curious machine was the work of Kotei, one of the three Chinese emperors of the age of myths. Kotei was the son of the Emperor Yuhi, and before he was born his mother had a sign that her son would be a great man. One summer evening she went walking in the meadows to enjoy the cool breeze at the end of the day and gaze up at the stars. As she looked at the North Star, it suddenly shot out bright flashes of lightning in every direction. Soon afterward her son Kotei was born.

In time Kotei grew up and followed his father as emperor. The early years of his reign were troubled by a rebel named Shiyu, who wanted to make himself king and fought battle after battle to get his way. Shiyu was a wicked magician with a head of iron, and no man could defeat him.

At last Kotei declared war on the rebel and led his army out. The two armies met on a plain called Takuroku, and the Emperor attacked boldly. But the magician brought a thick fog down over the battlefield, and while the royal soldiers stumbled about in confusion, unable to find their way, Shiyu slipped off with his troops, laughing at how he had fooled them. However strong and brave the Emperor’s men were, the rebel’s magic always let him escape in the end.

Kotei went back to his palace and thought long and deeply about how to beat the magician, for he was determined not to give up. In those days there were no compasses. After a long time he invented the shinansha, with its figure that always pointed south. With that to show the way, he need not fear the magician’s fogs.

Once more Kotei declared war on Shiyu. He placed the shinansha at the front of his army and led the way to the battlefield. The fighting began in earnest, and the rebels were being driven back when Shiyu turned to his magic, shouted some strange words, and at once a heavy fog rolled over the field. But this time not one soldier was troubled. By watching the shinansha, Kotei could find his way and guide his army without a single mistake. He chased the rebels hard and drove them back until they reached a great river. There Kotei found that the water was swollen with floods and impossible to cross. Shiyu used his magic to carry his army quickly over, and shut himself up in a fortress on the far bank.

The Emperor was wild with disappointment, for he had almost caught the rebel when the river stopped him. There was nothing to be done, since in this telling boats had not yet been invented, so he ordered his tent to be pitched in the pleasantest spot he could find.

One day he came out of his tent, wandered about for a while and sat down beside a pond, lost in thought. It was autumn. The trees at the water’s edge were dropping their leaves, which drifted here and there on the pond. Presently Kotei noticed a spider at the edge of the water, trying to climb onto one of the floating leaves. At last it managed it, and soon it was sailing across to the other side.

Watching it, the clever Emperor began to wonder whether he could make something that would carry him and his men over the river the way the leaf had carried the spider. He set to work and kept at it until he had invented the first boat in the world of this story. When he saw that it worked, he had all his men build more, and in time there were enough boats for the whole army. Kotei took his soldiers across the river, attacked Shiyu’s stronghold and won a complete victory, ending the war that had troubled the country for so long.

This wise and good emperor did not rest until there was peace and plenty throughout his land, and his people loved him and lived happily under him for many years. He spent much of his time on inventions that would help them, and he succeeded with many others besides the boat and the south-pointing chariot.

He had reigned for about a hundred years when one day, as he looked up, the sky turned suddenly red and something glittering like gold came down toward the earth. As it drew nearer he saw that it was a great Dragon. It came to the Emperor and bowed its head before him. The Empress and the courtiers were so frightened that they ran away screaming, but the Emperor only smiled and called them back.

“Don’t be afraid. This is a messenger from Heaven. My time here is over.” He climbed onto the Dragon, which began to rise into the sky.

When the Empress and the courtiers saw this, they all cried together, “Wait! We want to come too!” They ran and grabbed the Dragon’s beard and tried to climb on. But the Dragon could not carry so many. Several of them were still hanging from its beard when it rose, so the hairs pulled out and they tumbled to the ground. The Empress and a few courtiers, though, were safely seated on its back, and the Dragon flew so high that in a short time the disappointed people left in the palace could see them no longer.

Some time afterward a bow and an arrow fell to earth in the palace courtyard. Everyone knew them as the Emperor Kotei’s. The courtiers picked them up with great care and kept them in the palace as sacred treasures.

About this story

“The ‘Shinansha,’ or the South Pointing Carriage” is the fifth tale in Yei Theodora Ozaki’s Japanese Fairy Tales, and like the last story in her book it is a Chinese legend told in Japan. Ozaki calls Kotei one of the three Chinese emperors of the mythological age and son of the Emperor Yuhi.

Ozaki opens the tale by comparing the shinansha with the ordinary compass, which points north, and she gives Kotei the credit for two inventions in one story: the chariot that beats the magician’s fog, and the first boat, inspired by a spider riding a leaf.

Read the original: Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 9–12 — an inventor-emperor, a magician’s fog and a ride on a dragon at the end of a long reign.

Two obstacles, two ways of finding a route

The fog hides a route that already exists; the river interrupts it. The carriage answers the first problem by keeping a direction, while the boat answers the second by creating a crossing. Kotei therefore cannot solve both problems simply by fighting harder. The quiet scene beside the pond becomes as decisive as the battles.

This is a legend of invention, not a documented history of the compass, boats or their inventors. The story gives no mechanism for the south-pointing figure. Draw the two obstacles and label the information or tool each solution supplies. What does watching the spider teach Kotei that commanding his army did not?

Think about it

• How did the shinansha help Kotei’s army in the fog?
• What gave Kotei the idea for the first boat?
• What do you think the bow and arrow falling from the sky meant to the people left behind?

More stories like this

• The Story of Prince Yamato Take — a royal hero fights the enemies of the throne
• The Happy Hunter and the Skillful Fisher — another legend of the earliest rulers
• The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child — a heavenly departure that leaves a palace in tears