Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Earliest known written formula for gunpowder, from the Wujing Zongyao of 1044 AD.. Gunpowder is the first explosive to have been developed. Popularly listed as one of the "Four Great Inventions" of China, it was invented during the late Tang dynasty (9th century) while the earliest recorded chemical formula for gunpowder dates to the Song dynasty (11th century).
Gunpowder propelled fire arrows, rocket arrows, are invented by Yue Yifang and Feng Jisheng. [12] 975: China: The state of Wuyue sends a group of soldiers skilled in the use of fire arrows to the Song dynasty, which uses fire arrows and incendiary bombs in the same year to destroy the fleet of Southern Tang. [13] 994: China
Gunpowder was invented in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists searching for an elixir of immortality. [19] By the time the Song dynasty treatise, Wujing Zongyao (武经总要), was written by Zeng Gongliang and Yang Weide in 1044, the various Chinese formulas for gunpowder held levels of nitrate in the range of 27% to 50%. [20]
A sophisticated economic system in imperial China gave birth to inventions such as paper money during the Song dynasty (960–1279). The invention of gunpowder in the mid 9th century during the Tang dynasty led to an array of inventions such as the fire lance, land mine, naval mine, hand cannon, exploding cannonballs, multistage rocket and ...
On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China." [100] Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China due to the large body of evidence that documents the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an ...
Evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (618–907). [334] The earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder are written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the Wujing Zongyao, a military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song dynasty (960–1279). [335] [336] [337]
The first fire arrows were arrows strapped with gunpowder incendiaries, but in 969 two Song generals, Yue Yifang and Feng Jisheng (馮繼升), invented a variant fire arrow which utilized gunpowder tubes as propellants. [26] Afterwards fire arrows started transitioning to rocket propelled weapons rather than being fired from a bow. [26]
Hand cannon, Ming dynasty, 1379 The first firearms were invented in China, following the invention of gunpowder.The earliest known depiction of a gunpowder weapon is the illustration of a fire lance on a mid-10th century silk banner from Dunhuang. [2]