Classification of ancient weapons
Since primitive societies, in order to harvest more in farming and hunting, humans have invented a variety of devices with lethal and destructive power. From the Stone Age to the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the expansion of war and the progress of production levels have made these combat equipment continue to develop from low to high, from single to diverse, and later "Zhou Li Di Guan Xiao Situ" gave them a unified name - weapons, which the ancients also referred to as "soldiers".
Both Chinese and foreign scholars have taken the presence or absence of gunpowder as an important dividing line when studying ancient weapons. Simply put, weapons that do not carry gunpowder, explosives or other incendiary substances, can directly kill and injure the enemy in battle, and protect themselves in battle, are cold weapons, while shooting weapons that use high-pressure gas propulsion projectiles produced after rapid combustion of propellant fuel (early gunpowder) are hot weapons.
Chinese often say eighteen martial arts, in fact, refers to the common martial arts of various cold weapons (in the "Water Margin" written about the eighteen things are: spears, hammers, bows, crossbows, hammers, whips, hammers, swords, chains, lao, axes, cymbals, go, halberds, cards, sticks, guns, pickpocks; but there have been many interpretations of the "eighteen martial arts"),if you count the various strange weapons in the martial arts world, there are countless.
Although more than half of China's war history is the world of cold weapons, China is the homeland of gunpowder, and the prototype of modern firearms, ancient tubular firearms, was also invented in Chinese, but the earliest can be as early as when, there are still some controversies.
The first "hand-held musket" used on the battlefield
In the fifth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1072 AD), the Southern Song Dynasty's famous minister and military technician Chen Gui was born in Anqiu, Mizhou (present-day Anqiu, Shandong), and no one at that time could have imagined how much success this child would have in the future.
Chen Zhi learned to read the works of the soldiers from an early age, and then took the Ming Fa Section (a type in the imperial examination, similar to the Jinshi Section and the Ming Jing Section), starting from the grass-roots posts such as Tong Gong Lang and County Ling. In the second year of Shaoxing (1132), the stereotype of repeated great merits had been given three pins of clothing, and the affairs of the De'an Government were known.
Coincidentally, not long after, Li Heng, a former Song army officer who fell into the grass after being defeated by the Jin soldiers during the Jing Kang years, gathered a large number of men and horses to attack De'an, and they filled in the moat and approached step by step. Seeing that these people were about to attack the city wall, they suddenly encountered the stubborn resistance of the De'an soldiers and civilians, so they could not attack for a long time.
In this battle, in addition to using traditional martial arts to command military and civilian combat, Chen Zhi also invented a "musket" made of long bamboo poles. What does it look like?
"More than twenty long bamboo gun guns were built with artillery, and several hooks and sickles were used for each of them, all of which were held by two people. Prepare the overpass to enter the city and use it on and off the war shed"; "When the Hao Bridge fell, (Chen) ruled that sixty men with muskets would come out of the west gate, burn the overpass, and use fire cattle to help it.
From the records in the "Record of Defending the City" and the "Biography of Song Shi Chen", we can see that this musket uses a bamboo pipe with a knot as a barrel, and is not equipped with bullets or analogues, presumably before use, the gunpowder is first packed in a bamboo pipe, and when fighting, it is ignited from the rear end, mainly relying on the burning gunpowder to burn the enemy several inches away and destroy their siege tools. It's not so much a "musket" as a "flamethrower," and it works very similarly to the fireworks that are fired during the New Year's celebrations. I don't know if stereotypes are inspired by fireworks.
Firearms in the General Outline of the Martial Classics
In any case, this improvised musket is indeed the earliest tubular firearm in the world's military history. Li Heng and others were beaten into the wilderness and fled, and the stereotypes also left their names in history. In addition to muskets, he also combined his military thinking and actual combat experience to write the four volumes of "Offensive and Defensive Strategies", which was also the first true military defense monograph in China. In the eighth year of Qiandao (1172 AD), the emperor issued an edict to engrave and print one of the volumes of the "Records of the Defending the City of De'an" and promulgated it to the world as a reference and reference for other generals when defending the city, and built a temple of stereotypes in De'an Province, gave a plaque "Xianshou", posthumously awarded the title of Marquis of Zhongli, and later added the title of Marquis of Zhimin.
Needham's unexpected discovery
The Museum of Jimei in Paris has a Dunhuang silk painting "Descending Demons", which was excavated from the Mogao Caves, depicting the story of shakyamuni's surrender on the eve of the Tao, and according to the characteristics and style of the painting, it can be concluded that it was painted after the middle of the 10th century AD. Interestingly, in the large wave of demons and ghosts on the right side of the painting, there is a small ghost with three poisonous snakes on his head. He was naked, holding a strangely shaped weapon, which was tubular in its entirety, thick in front and thin in the back, like a slender tube inserted in a thick tube. There are several hoops in the thick pipe, and the mouth of the pipe is on fire, like a "musket".
"Musket" in Dunhuang silk painting
Once this painting was exhibited, it quickly attracted the attention of some Western scholars, including Professor Joseph Needham, an old friend of Chinese Min (British modern biochemist and expert in the history of science and technology, not only a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, but also a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose "History of Chinese Science and Technology" has a profound impact on modern Chinese and Western culture).
He wrote these words in several of his own articles:
"Now it is necessary to push forward the invention of the musket by two hundred years, because Clayson Brett found a banner of Buddhism in the Guimet Museum in Paris, dating from about 950 AD, which is clearly painted with a musket";
"If the dynasty is correct, there is no reason to doubt this picture, this musket can only originate in the five generations period (about 950) shortly before the Song Dynasty"; "This musket, in addition to being filled with gunpowder, is also stuffed with metal projectiles or broken metal and broken porcelain, which are fired along with the flames "...
If Needham's judgment is correct, the musket in this painting is obviously earlier than the musket used in the historical records. The old man's excitement and bold speculation can be understood, but we still have to calmly judge, after all, the most that can be seen in the picture is a flamethrower, and as for the metal projectile, it is purely personal opinion and cannot be taken seriously. So at the moment, it is still not considered the earliest "gun".
Yuan Dynasty fire hammer
Even without bullets, this painting from the Five Dynasties period does have a long pipe of fire-breathing, so why does the academic community still generally regard the invention of stereotypes as the world's earliest musket?
Personally, I think there are two reasons: First, from a technical point of view, in order to make a musket that can spray flames, it is necessary to fill the barrel with dry granular gunpowder, which was already available in the Southern Song Dynasty, and according to the Northern Song Dynasty military masterpiece "Wujing General Essentials", the gunpowder formula of the same era as the silk painting "Descending Demon Change" is not very mature, and because the vegetable oil is added as a whole is pastey, even if it is stuffed into a long pipe to ignite, it cannot be sprayed outward.
Second, from the point of view of records, stereotypes and their deeds are recorded in the history, based on real events in the real world, with a high degree of credibility, and "Descending Demons" itself is a painting of religious themes (non-reality), and it is likely that the painter will need to use some imagination when creating, and it is really difficult to say whether it will be just the product of the artist's free play. However, this painting does provide new information and clues for people to continue to study the origin of ancient tubular firearms.