Editing Military technology (section)

===Post-classical technology===
[[Image:Trebuchet1-intransit.jpg|alt=An ink on paper diagram of a trebuchet. A long arm with a spherical cap rests on top of a large square platform. The square platform is supported by four plain cut square beams, which connect to an open undercarriage. Rope hangs between the end of the pole that does not have the cap to the inside of the undercarriage, as far away from the start of the rope as possible. The assembly moves on four wheels attached to the sides of the undercarriage.|thumb|An illustration of a [[trebuchet]] catapult, as described in the ''[[Wujing Zongyao]]'' of 1044.]]
The ''[[Wujing Zongyao]]'' (''Essentials of the Military Arts''), written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and others at the order of [[Emperor Renzong of Song|Emperor Renzong]] around 1043 during the [[Song dynasty]] illustrate the eras focus on advancing intellectual issues and military technology due to the significance of warfare between the Song and the Liao, Jin, and Yuan to their north.  The book covers topics of military strategy, training, and the production and employment of advanced weaponry.<ref name=teacher>{{citation|title=Teachers' Guide for Military Technology|date=26 November 2001|page=1|url=http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/tg/tmiltech.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/tg/tmiltech.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=20 November 2014}}</ref>

[[Image:Chinese Flamethrower.JPG|alt=An ink on paper diagram of a flametrhower. It consists of a tube with multiple chambers mounted on top of a wooden box with four legs. How exactly the flamethrower would work is not apparent from the diagram alone.|thumb|A Chinese [[flamethrower]] from the ''[[Wujing Zongyao]]'' manuscript of 1044 CE, [[Song dynasty]].]]

Advances in military technology aided the [[Song dynasty]] in its defense against hostile neighbors to the north. The [[flamethrower]] found its origins in [[Byzantine]]-era [[Greece]], employing [[Greek fire]] (a chemically complex, highly [[flammable]] petrol fluid) in a device with a [[siphon]] hose by the 7th century.<ref name=pingyu>{{cite book|last1=Ping-Yü|first1=Ho|last2=Gwei-Djen|first2=Lu|last3=Ling|first3=Wang|title=Science and Civilization in China. The Gunpowder Epic|date=1986|publisher=Cambridge U.P.|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780521303583|edition=1. publ.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hNcZJ35dIyUC|access-date=20 November 2014}}</ref>{{rp|77}}  The earliest reference to Greek Fire in China was made in 917, written by [[Wu Renchen]] in his ''[[Spring and Autumn Annals of the Ten Kingdoms]]''.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|80}}  In 919, the siphon projector-pump was used to spread the 'fierce fire oil' that could not be doused with water, as recorded by Lin Yu in his {{lang|zh-Latn|Wuyue Beishi}}, hence the first credible Chinese reference to the flamethrower employing the chemical solution of Greek fire (see also [[Pen Huo Qi]]).<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|81}} Lin Yu mentioned also that the 'fierce fire oil' derived ultimately from one of China's maritime contacts in the 'southern seas', [[Arabia]] {{lang|zh-Latn|Dashiguo}}.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|82}} In the [[Battle of Langshan Jiang]] in 919, the naval fleet of the [[Qian Yuanguan|Wenmu King]] from [[Wuyue (Ten Kingdoms)|Wuyue]] defeated a [[Huainan]] army from the [[Wu (Ten Kingdoms)|Wu state]]; Wenmu's success was facilitated by the use of 'fire oil' ('huoyou') to burn their fleet, signifying the first Chinese use of [[gunpowder]] in a battle.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|81–83}} The Chinese applied the use of double-[[piston]] [[bellows]] to pump petrol out of a single cylinder (with an upstroke and downstroke), lit at the end by a slow-burning gunpowder match to fire a continuous stream of flame.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|82}} This device was featured in description and illustration of the ''[[Wujing Zongyao]]'' military manuscript of 1044.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|82}} In the suppression of the [[Southern Tang]] state by 976, early Song naval forces confronted them on the Yangtze River in 975. Southern Tang forces attempted to use flamethrowers against the Song navy, but were accidentally consumed by their own fire when violent winds swept in their direction.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|89}}

{{Further|Science and technology of the Song dynasty}}

Although the destructive effects of gunpowder were described in the earlier [[Tang dynasty]] by a [[Taoism|Daoist]] [[alchemy|alchemist]], the earliest developments of the gun barrel and the projectile-fire [[cannon]] were found in late Song China. The first art depiction of the Chinese '[[fire lance]]' (a combination of a temporary-fire flamethrower and gun) was from a Buddhist mural painting of [[Dunhuang]], dated circa 950.<ref name="needham volume 5 part 7 224 225">Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 224–225.</ref> These 'fire-lances' were widespread in use by the early 12th century, featuring hollowed bamboo poles as tubes to fire sand particles (to blind and choke), lead pellets, bits of sharp metal and pottery shards, and finally large gunpowder-propelled arrows and [[rocket]] weaponry.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|220–221}}  Eventually, perishable bamboo was replaced with hollow tubes of cast iron, and so too did the terminology of this new weapon change, from '[[fire lance|fire-spear]]' {{lang|zh-Latn|huo qiang}} to 'fire-tube' {{lang|zh-Latn|huo tong}}.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|221}}  This ancestor to the gun was complemented by the ancestor to the cannon, what the Chinese referred to since the 13th century as the 'multiple bullets magazine erupter' {{lang|zh-Latn|bai zu lian zhu pao}}, a tube of bronze or cast iron that was filled with about 100 lead balls.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|263–264}}

The earliest known depiction of a gun is a sculpture from a cave in [[Sichuan]], dating to 1128, that portrays a figure carrying a vase-shaped [[bombard (weapon)|bombard]], firing flames and a cannonball.<ref name=gwei>{{cite journal|first=Lu|last=Gwei-Djen|author2=Joseph Needham |author3=Phan Chi-Hsing |date=July 1988|journal=[[Technology and Culture]]|volume=29|issue=3|pages=594–605|title=The Oldest Representation of a Bombard|doi=10.2307/3105275|jstor=3105275|s2cid=112733319 }}</ref> However, the oldest existent [[archaeological]] discovery of a metal barrel handgun is from the Chinese [[Heilongjiang]] excavation, dated to 1288.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|293}} The Chinese also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed cannonball shells with gunpowder. Written later by [[Jiao Yu]] in his ''[[Huolongjing]]'' (mid-14th century), this manuscript recorded an earlier Song-era cast-iron cannon known as the 'flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor' (fei yun pi-li pao). The manuscript stated that:

As noted before, the change in terminology for these new weapons during the Song period were gradual. The early Song cannons were at first termed the same way as the Chinese [[trebuchet]] [[catapult]]. A later [[Ming dynasty]] scholar known as [[Mao Yuanyi]] would explain this use of terminology and true origins of the cannon in his text of the ''[[Wubei Zhi]]'', written in 1628:

The 14th-century ''[[Huolongjing]]'' was also one of the first Chinese texts to carefully describe to the use of explosive [[land mine]]s, which had been used by the late Song Chinese against the Mongols in 1277, and employed by the [[Yuan dynasty]] afterwards. The innovation of the detonated land mine was accredited to one Luo Qianxia in the campaign of defense against the Mongol invasion by [[Kublai Khan]],<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|192}} Later Chinese texts revealed that the Chinese land mine employed either a rip cord or a motion [[booby trap]] of a pin releasing falling weights that rotated a steel [[wheellock|flint wheel]], which in turn created sparks that ignited the train of [[Fuse (explosives)|fuses]] for the land mines.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|199}}  Furthermore, the Song employed the earliest known gunpowder-propelled [[rocket]]s in warfare during the late 13th century,<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|477}} its earliest form being the archaic [[Fire Arrow]]. When the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng fell to the Jurchens in 1126, it was written by Xia Shaozeng that 20,000 fire arrows were handed over to the Jurchens in their conquest.  An even earlier Chinese text of the ''[[Wujing Zongyao]]'' ("Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques"), written in 1044 by the Song scholars Zeng Kongliang and Yang Weide, described the use of three spring or triple bow [[ballista|arcuballista]] that fired arrow bolts holding gunpowder packets near the head of the arrow.<ref name=pingyu/>{{rp|154}} Going back yet even farther, the {{lang|zh-Latn|Wu Li Xiao Shi}} (1630, second edition 1664) of Fang Yizhi stated that fire arrows were presented to [[Emperor Taizu of Song]] (r. 960–976) in 960.<ref name=partington>{{cite book|last1=Partington|first1=J.R.|title=A History of Greek Fire and gunpowder|date=1960|publisher=Heffer|location=Cambridge|isbn=9780801859540|page=211|edition=Johns Hopkins paperback|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sHGdq4rLSTEC|access-date=20 November 2014}}</ref>

{{Further|Post-classical history}}