The Wooden Ox and Flowing Horse are transport devices associated with Zhuge Liang’s northern campaigns in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. They turn the problem of moving grain through difficult country into a story about planning, craft, and control of information.
Chapter 102 describes the wooden ox before introducing the flowing horse, gives dimensions and operating features, and has the Shu army use them to carry provisions. Sima Yi captures some devices and orders copies, but Zhuge Liang’s men exploit a concealed method to stop and recover the loads.
The pair belongs to military logistics rather than to a modern robot category. Their cultural force comes from making ingenuity visible: wooden forms, hidden handling knowledge, and a supply line that becomes part of strategy. Reconstructions may vary because the literary measurements do not settle every mechanical detail.