In the 11th century B.C., at the end of the Shang Dynasty, in the palace of Bianjing (present-day Shangqiu City, Henan Province), there were endless court struggles and undercurrents of pampering.
In that era of glitter and copper, a bewitching woman named Su Daji, who was notorious for disturbing the court with her beauty and torture by cruel means, became a notorious queen in the annals of history.
There are many legends about Su Daji. Among them, there is a torture invented by her (or the legendary her) that is simply terrifying.
According to historical records, Su Daji designed a torture instrument specifically for prisoners, called the "Hot Copper Pillar". It is a thick copper pillar with a smooth and hot surface, and a solid furnace inside the pillar that can heat up the entire body of the copper pillar to extremely hot.
The prisoners were forced to cling to the bronze pillar, and the flaming heat directly burned the skin, and the extreme pain made countless prisoners feel painful, and some even preferred to commit suicide before their execution than face such purgatory.
However, this design of Su Daji, along with many other cruel torture instruments, did not disappear into history with the fall of the Shang Dynasty.
In the long history of development, there has been a miraculous transformation - after countless evolutions, evolutions and redefinitions, the torture instruments designed by Su Daji have become indispensable household items for thousands of households, and have entered the lives of modern people with a completely different look.
Time flies, and the years are the best magicians. When the bronze pillars were no longer used for punishment in the court, but were used for heating, a new device was born under the gradual tempering of history, that is, the "radiator" we are now familiar with.
Modern radiators, its working principle is quite similar to the "hot copper pillar" - through the heating of internal water or air to dissipate heat and warm the surrounding environment, but there is no longer any trembling factor, but has become an artifact against the cold winter.
Families use it in the winter months, or with more modern heating systems to create a comfortable living environment.
If history is a series of overlapping and dislocated buildings, people can always find unexpected connections in this continuous rise and fall.
Just as the predecessor of the radiator – the once frightening bronze pillar – has appeared in modern society in a new way, they silently tell the transition from fear to tranquility, and also reflect the power of human civilization progress.
We have no way of knowing if Sudaji really existed, if she was really that cruel, if the torture she designed was really like summoning hellfire.
But we do know that things, no matter how dark, can evolve over time into creations that benefit humanity.
Su Daji's "torture", after countless years of baptism, was liberated from the painful memory of human beings, turned into a symbol of warmth and harmony, and became a must-have for home life.
Today, when we enjoy a warm and comfortable home life, we may rarely think about the history behind this radiator. But if you look a little back, you'll find that every commonplace object may have a story to tell.
And this bridge of history, which spans thousands of years, also makes us understand that whether it is good, evil, beautiful or ugly, it may eventually become one of the forces that push human society forward.