Heilongjiang hand cannon
The Heilongjiang hand cannon or hand-gun
Description
The Heilongjiang hand cannon is 34 centimeters (13.4 in) long without a handle and weighs 3.55 kg (7.83 pounds). The diameter of the interior at the end of the barrel is 2.6 cm (1.02 inches).[5] The barrel is the lengthiest part of the hand cannon and is 17.5 cm (6.9 inches) long.[6] There is no inscription on the hand cannon.[3]
The hand cannon has a bulbous base at the
Historical context
Gunpowder was invented in China during the 9th century.
The predecessor of the hand cannon, the fire lance, was a spear tied with a bamboo or paper barrel that could fire projectiles.[13][14] The transition between the fire lance to the cannon or hand cannon was gradual, so literary references to a weapon called huotong (火筒; "fire tube") can either denote fire lances or metal-barrel firearms.[15] The Xingjun Xuzhi (行軍須知; "What an Army Commander in the Field ought to Know") dated 1230, lists huotong among other gunpowder weapons, but may refer to either a fire lance or a hand cannon.[15] This has been attested to by surviving metal cannons and hand cannons in China from the 13th and 14th centuries.[16]
The oldest among the excavated cannons is the Wuwei cannon dated to 1227.[17] It was discovered in Wuwei, Gansu and likely originates from the Western Xia period. The Wuwei cannon weighs 108.5 kilograms (239 pounds), a diameter of 12 centimeters (4.7 inches), and a length of 1 meter (3 feet 3+3⁄8 inches). An iron cannonball and a small quantity of gunpowder were also discovered at the Wuwei archaeological site.[17]
The earliest cannon inscribed with a date of manufacture is a bronze cannon. It is dated to 1298 according to an inscription in the
The Heilongjiang hand-gun is dated to 1288.[19] At 3.55 kg (7.83 pounds) and is considerably lighter than older projectile devices such as the bulky trebuchets that were used to launch explosive bombs.[20][5] Since the earliest textual reference to a "huo chong," or "fire tube," is dated to 1230 and the oldest surviving hand cannon is dated to 1288, the invention of the hand cannon likely occurred in the mid-13th century.[4] The invention of the metal-barrel hand cannon in China did not diminish the popularity of the earlier bamboo-barrel fire lances. The fire lance was cheaper and more portable than the hand cannon and was still used in China until the 16th century when the musket replaced the fire lance.[21]
Excavation and dating
The hand cannon was discovered in July 1970 at an
The archaeologists discovered several bronze objects that were excavated with the hand cannon.[2] The excavated objects were a bronze vase, a bronze mirror, and a bronze cooking pan. All the bronze artifacts were manufactured in the style of the Jurchen Jin dynasty.[2] The Jin dynasty collapsed after the Mongols besieged and captured Caizhou in 1234, which suggests that the Heilongjiang hand-gun can reasonably be dated to the 13th century at the latest.[22]
The dating of the Heilongjiang hand-gun is based on battles in 1287 and 1288 that were fought near the site where the archaeologists discovered the hand-gun.
In 1287, a group of soldiers equipped with hand cannons led by commander Li Ting (李庭) attacked Nayan's camp. The History of Yuan reports that the hand cannons not only "caused great damage," but also caused "such confusion that the enemy soldiers attacked and killed each other."
Wei Guozhong (魏國忠) was the archaeologist who excavated and dated the cannon.[3] He wrote a description of the archaeological find in the article "A Bronze Bombard Excavated at Banlachengzi in Acheng Xian in Heilongjiang Province," which was published in 1973 for the journal Reference Materials for History and Archaeology.[24][b] Wei proposed a connection between the hand cannon discovered in Banlachengzi and the nearby battle sites. The historian Joseph Needham remarked that Wei's "find will long remain of capital importance since it is the only metal-barrel hand-gun so far discovered which almost certainly belongs to the 13th century."[20]
See also
- Gunpowder weapons in the Song dynasty
- Hu dun pao
- Huochong
- Military of the Yuan dynasty
- Wuwei Bronze Cannon
- Xanadu gun
Notes
^ a: Hand-gun is an alternative name for the hand cannon and should not be confused with modern handguns. Particularly in British English, the term hand-gun refers to historical cannons that could be carried by a single individual due to their small size.[25]
^ b: The journal was later renamed Culture Relics (文物).
References
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 290; Needham 1987, p. 304.
- ^ a b c d e f g Chase 2003, p. 32.
- ^ a b c d e f Needham 1987, p. 293.
- ^ a b c Needham 1987, p. 304.
- ^ a b c Needham 1987, p. 290.
- ^ a b Chase 2003, p. 32; Needham 1987, p. 293.
- ^ a b Needham 1987, p. 289.
- ^ a b Lorge 2008, p. 69; Needham 1987, p. 293.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 289; Needham 1987, p. 330.
- ^ a b Parker 1995, p. 106.
- ^ Parker 1995, p. 106; Chase 2003, p. 31.
- ^ Haw 2013, p. 448.
- ^ Chase 2003, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 220.
- ^ a b Needham 1987, p. 222.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 284.
- ^ a b c Haw 2013, p. 450.
- ^ Haw 2013, p. 451.
- ^ Lorge 2008, p. viii; Needham 1987, p. 580.
- ^ a b c Needham 1987, p. 294.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 251.
- ^ Franke 1994, pp. 264–265; Needham 1987, p. 293.
- ^ Rossabi 1988, p. 222.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 610.
- ^ Needham 1987, p. 276.
Bibliography
- Chase, Kenneth Warren (2003). Firearms: A Global History to 1700. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82274-9.
- ISBN 978-0-521-24331-5.
- Haw, Stephen G. (July 2013). "The Mongol Empire – The First 'Gunpowder Empire'?". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 23 (3): 441–469. S2CID 162200994.
- Lorge, Peter (2008). The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-84682-0.
- Needham, Joseph (1987). Science and Civilisation in China: Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic, Volume 5, Part 7. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30358-3.
- Parker, Geoffrey (1995). "The Gunpowder Revolution". The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare. Cambridge University Press. pp. 106–119. ISBN 978-0-521-73806-4.
- Rossabi, Morris (1988). Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06740-0.