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Ancient Chinese Military Civilization

( 2008-08-13 )

Many historical materials indicate that gunpowder first appeared before theTang Dynasty(618-907). From 300 to 650AD several recipes were written about inflammable mixtures. Some historians date the invention of gunpowder at 850AD when a Taoist book warned of three specific elixir formulas as too
dangerous to experiment.

The military applications of gunpowder began in the Tang Dynasty. Explosive bombs filled with gunpowder and fired from catapults were used in wars. During the Song and Yuan dynasties (960-1368), the military applications of gunpowder became common and some other weapons like "fire cannon",
"rocket", "missile" and "fireball" were introduced.

In theYuan Dynasty(1279-1368), the method of powder-making was introduced to the Arab world and Europe, bringing a series of revolutions to weapon manufacturing, as well as to stratagem and tactics on the battlefield. From Italy the making of gunpowder soon spread to other European countries, and
by the 1350s it had become an effective weapon on the battlefield.

Crossbow

The use of the bow and arrow for hunting and for war dates back to the Paleolithic period in Africa, Asia, and Europe. It was widely used in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, the Americas, and Europe until the introduction ofgunpowder. However, over two thousand years ago in China, the crossbow
was invented as an innovation to the basic longbow that extended the use of mechanical hand-held weapons throughout the world and which revolutionized warfare.

A crossbow is a bow set horizontally on a stock. When the shooter releases a mechanism, the crossbow fires arrows or bolts propelled by the mechanical energy of previously taut bowstring. In ancient times, it could be more powerful than the ordinary bow and could fire multiple arrows, darts, or
stones (nowadays the crossbow is definitely much stronger than the ordinary bow). Some designs were slower to fire than the longbow while others were small and useful for close combat.

Chinese literary records (such as The Romance of Wu and Yue) place the invention of the crossbow in China during theWarring States Period(475-221BC) in the kingdom of Chu about 500 BC. However, many contemporary writers, such as for example Yang Hong and Zhu Fenghan, contend the that the often
cited inventor improved upon a trigger mechanism, and that the crossbow may have existed from the seventh century BC or even much earlier. Some archeological evidence indicates that the crossbow was developed in China during the Copper Age around 2000 BC.

In Europe, crossbow-type artillery pieces were known to the ancient Greeks and were used in 397 BC at Syracuse (modern-day Sicily). Carthaginians in the second century BCE used a hand-held crossbow called the scorpion, as it is told in Derry and Williams: A Short History of Technology that 2,000
of these weapons were handed over to the Romans after the fall of Carthage (present-day North African country of Tunisia). Later, with the decline of Rome, the crossbow fell into disuse before reappearing again in Europe in the tenth century.

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