Medieval hand cannons -- asian?

fearn · 30th October 2008, 10:14 PM

There's a wikipedia article that talks about early Chinese gunpowder technology, and it includes a picture of the Yuan Dynasty handgun dated to 1298 CE. According to the article, the oldest evidence for a Chinese cannon is from a stone sculpture dated 1128 CE.

One thing that's interesting is that the article also talks about the predecssors of guns: bamboo (later metal) fire lances that burned gunpowder and sprayed poison, bits of ceramic, or whatever out the front. The step from a barrel shoving burning material in someone's face to spraying things to a gun is pretty direct, and for once, it looks like the weapons evolved in a fairly linear fashion, rather than the discontinuous mode we're used to seeing.

My 0.002 yuan,

F

30th October 2008, 10:14 PM	#10
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	There's a wikipedia article that talks about early Chinese gunpowder technology, and it includes a picture of the Yuan Dynasty handgun dated to 1298 CE. According to the article, the oldest evidence for a Chinese cannon is from a stone sculpture dated 1128 CE. One thing that's interesting is that the article also talks about the predecssors of guns: bamboo (later metal) fire lances that burned gunpowder and sprayed poison, bits of ceramic, or whatever out the front. The step from a barrel shoving burning material in someone's face to spraying things to a gun is pretty direct, and for once, it looks like the weapons evolved in a fairly linear fashion, rather than the discontinuous mode we're used to seeing. My 0.002 yuan, F