Pili Che 霹靂車

In the 5th year of Jian'an (200) Yuan Shao, ignoring Ju Shou's advice to hold out slowly over a long period, advanced little by little with his camps linked together, closed in on Guandu and joined battle. When Cao Cao's troops fared badly and withdrew into their ramparts, Yuan Shao raised tall towers and built earthen hills and shot arrows into the camp; inside the camp everyone moved about covered with shields, and the men were greatly afraid. Records, Wei 1 §58Records, Wei 6 §51–52

Cao Cao then made stone-throwing carts and struck Yuan Shao's towers, smashing them all, and Yuan Shao's men called them the Pili Che. When Yuan Shao dug tunnels to raid the camp, Cao Cao blocked them by digging a long trench on the inside. The Annals of Emperor Wu record only that when Yuan Shao raised earthen hills and dug tunnels, Cao Cao did the same on the inside to counter him, and do not mention the stone-throwing carts. Records, Wei 6 §52Records, Wei 1 §64

The Weishi Chunqiu quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary records that, since arrows and stones had been used in battle from ancient times, and an old commentary has the saying "when the kuai moves, the drums are beaten," which the Shuowen glosses as "the kuai is a stone-thrower," stone-throwing carts were accordingly made. Records, Wei 6 §52

The writing of Fu Xuan quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary to the Biographies of Technicians in Records of Wei 29 records that Ma Jun, concerned that with the stone-throwing cart, if the enemy hung wet oxhides along the edges of their towers, the stones would drop when they struck and could not be launched in succession, sought to build a cart that would turn, by a mechanism, a wheel hung with dozens of large stones and fling them one after another, and that as a trial he hung dozens of bricks on a cartwheel and flung them several hundred paces. Records, Wei 29 §36