The repeating Chinese crossbow led to the modern machine gun

April 11, 2018

Vendian.org reports, “The crossbow was invented in Ancient China during the Zhou dynasty, around the year 700 BC. … They had a range of up to 650 feet. The crossbow had a firing mechanism, which was so complicated that it would have been nearly impossible for an enemy to understand how it worked, thus reducing the chance that the crossbow could be copied by hostile civilizations. …  And, in the eleventh century, rapid-firing crossbows were developed that could fire 20 arrows in only 15 seconds.”

The mechanism that made this Chinese eleventh-century repeating crossbow work was the forerunner to the modern machine gun.

The Chinese also invented the stirrup around the fourth century A.D. Before that invention, all of the people on earth rode horses without stirrups and staying on horseback while fighting was a challenge. Scientific American says the “Invention of the stirrup may rival that of the longbow and gunpowder.”

Thanks to stirrups, the horse became a more stable platform for war. Prior to the stirrup, it was common for a man to ride about seven miles a day. After the stirrup, that distance was extended to as much as seventy miles a day.

The invention of the stirrup along with the repeating crossbow created powerful weapons. The Chinese could also manufacture items in mass, quickly and efficiently. The Chinese used pottery molds to accomplish this—even to build the advanced trigger mechanism for the crossbow. When it came to cast iron, the Chinese were a thousand years ahead of the world.

However, by the time of the Sung Dynasty, the world was catching up because China’s enemies were stealing their technology.  It’s ironic that today, many in the West accuse the Chinese of stealing innovations. If so, China is only doing what was done to them centuries ago.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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The Taoist search for Immortality led to millions of early Deaths instead

April 3, 2018

Gunpowder was discovered by accident in China a thousand years ago and it was called fire medicine. While mixing ingredients to find an elixir for immortality, Chinese scientists stumbled on the formula. Fireworks and rockets came first to scare away evil spirits.

In fact, several ingredients for gunpowder were in wide use for medicinal purposes during the Spring and Autumn Period of China’s history (722 – 481 BC).

Sulfur is the main ingredient of gunpowder, and gunpowder was first developed during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD). During the Northern Sung Dynasty, in 1044 AD, the book “Essentials of Military Art” published several formulas for gunpowder production.

Asian Education reports, “During the Song dynasty, gunpowder technology was further refined for military purposes and many kinds of firearms were invented. In the year 1000, Tang Fu designed and manufactured a gunpowder arrow, gunpowder ball, and barbed gunpowder packages and donated them to the Song emperor. In 1132, the fire lance was introduced with gunpowder in a long bamboo tube. When fired, flames were projected on the enemy. In 1259, a fire-spitting lance was enhanced with bullets. When fired, bullets were ejected with the flames.”

One theory says that the knowledge of gunpowder went to Europe along the Silk Road around the start of the 13th century, hundreds of years after being discovered in China. It is also ironic, that Britain and France used advanced gunpowder weapons to defeat China during the 19th century in the two Opium Wars.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Reunification after the Han Dynasty: Part 2 of 2

February 21, 2018

The only way to fight this battle would be across a small front with the armies facing each other. In August 208 AD, the enemy army approached the front of Cao Cao’s troops.

After a three month standoff, Cao Cao took a small force and led a night raid to the town where the enemy stored its food supplies and burned them.

When the battle with Yuan Shao’s army finally took place, Cao Cao used deception to make the enemy believe he was attacking in the east when he was in the west fifty kilometers from where the enemy expected him.

That deception caused the enemy general to divide his army, and while he was marching east, Cao Cao moved quickly to attack the other half of Yuan Shao’s unprepared army ending in victory.

In 189 AD, the emperor died and there was a power struggle to see who would control the dynasty. Thousands were murdered, and Cao Cao became the power behind the powerless, last emperor.

Due to the years of struggle, many of the farms had been abandoned leading to famine. Cao Cao became prime minister and reestablished the farms around the capital to end the famine. To deal with danger, each farm was populated with farmers and soldiers to work the land.

The harvests from those farms ended the famine.

Soon after Cao Cao’s death, Wei defeated the other two kingdoms and reunified China establishing the Western Jin Dynasty (265 – 420 AD). In death, Cao Cao was honored and named Emperor Wei Wudi.

Return to or Start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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Reunification after the Han Dynasty: Part 1 of 2

February 20, 2018

The man credited for reuniting China after the end of the Han Dynasty was Cao Cao who lived 155 – 220 AD, but he didn’t succeed. He just set the stage for what happened after he was dead.

Cao Cao also appears as a character in the historical novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms written in the 14th century by Luo Guanzhong.  The novel was based on historical events that took place during the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty when China fell into chaos and anarchy.

According to historical records, Cao Cao was a brilliant leader and military genius. However, in literature and opera, he has often been portrayed as a cruel and despotic tyrant, an image of a Chinese ruler unique in history.

During his lifetime, there was the three kingdoms of Wei, Shuhan, and Wu. Cao Cao led Wei in Northern China. When the war to reunify China took place, Cao Cao started out with the smallest military force of ten thousand troops.

But Cao Cao must have studied Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. His battle plans against the rival army of Yuan Shao was evidence of a military genius. He carefully studied the terrain and selected the location where the battle would be fought so his smaller army could not be outflanked or surrounded.

Continued with Part 2 on February 15, 2018

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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China after the Han Dynasty during the Three Kingdoms (220-265 AD)

December 19, 2017

I enjoy reading historical fiction. I also watch movies and TV series based on history. For instance, I recently watched the BBC’s Season 2 for The Last Kingdom (this one doesn’t take place in China).

Back in 2008, I bought the first version of the TV series for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1995), an epic about China’s history that has 84 episodes (45 minutes each for 63-hours). Based on the classical novel by Luo Guanzhong, this epic series covers the end of the Han Dynasty.


This episode with English subtitles is from a remake (2010) of the TV series.

Don’t let the title fool you. This story is not about romance as Westerners define that word. This historical fiction, based on fact, is about the romance of politics, war, and conquest. But don’t be disappointed, because there’s even a love story that comes with the ultimate sacrifice.

The novel was written in the 14th century and was more than a thousand pages long with 120 chapters. The translated English version is longer. After the Han Dynasty collapsed (206 BC to 219 AD), China shattered into three warring kingdoms.

This story is about how China was reunified as one nation again a few decades after the collapse of the Han Dynasty (205 B.C. – 220 A.D. I’ve seen the entire series once and plan to watch it again. When Jesus Christ was born, the Han Dynasty was more than 200 years old and had more than two hundred years left before it came to an end.

Discover China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, the man that unified China more than 2,000 years ago.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine, Crazy is Normal, Running with the Enemy, and The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova.

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Subscribe to my newsletter to hear about new releases and get a free copy of my award-winning, historical fiction short story “A Night at the Well of Purity”.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

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