Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions (3/4)

August 1, 2010

The first firearm was invented in China about one thousand years ago. It was made of bamboo, fired pebbles and had a range of about thirty yards.

Bamboo is strong, flexible and hollow in the center. It was perfect for the first crude gunpowder weapons.  Over time, bamboo was replaced with bronze, and the pebbles became cast-iron chips or pellets. In fact, the first bronze handgun dates to 12th century AD. It was about a foot long and weighed eight pounds.

From these early weapons came cannons.  Long before the rest of the world knew anything about heavy artillery, the Chinese were making strong, mobile cannons from bronze. Since the Chinese already had repeating crossbows, the next step was repeating cannons along with exploding artillery shells.

During the Ming Dynasty, in the 14th century, the Great Wall was equipped with more than 3,000 cannons. In Europe, the first cannons were still being developed. The Chinese also invented the hand grenade about a thousand years ago along with grenade launchers—the bow powered grenade.

A computer analysis demonstrated that China’s largest cannons could fire more than a third of a mile.  It would take centuries before Europeans could match the weaponry of China.

Go to  hinese Crossbow and Other Inventions – Part 4 or return to the Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you ove a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love tory Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions (2/4)

July 31, 2010

The invention of gunpowder did not come from weapons makers but from alchemists. Chinese alchemy has a long tradition that is interwoven with other areas of learning.

There was no clear line between alchemy and politics.  In Chinese, the word for politics and finding a cure meant the same thing.

All Chinese alchemists had sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter. They just hadn’t combined them. Since saltpeter is white and many other powders used by China’s alchemist were white, there was a simple test to make sure.  If a small amount of the saltpeter were heated in a charcoal fire, there would be a purple flame.

The first account of the discovery of gunpowder comes from about 850 AD.  Soon after, they envisioned new kinds of weaponry.  By the 11th century AD, there were gunpowder weapons—crude rifles, cannons, etc.

The first gun or “fire lance” was produced in 905 AD. The next innovation was to add bullets to the fire lance.

Go to Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions – Part 3 or return to the Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions (1/4)

July 31, 2010

The Chinese invented the forerunner to the modern machine gun—a repeating crossbow. If you watch the video, you will see that firing the repeating crossbow takes the pull of one lever.  The arrows are in a clip above the firing mechanism.

Then the Chinese invented the stirrup. Prior to that, all of the ancient people on earth rode horses without stirrups and staying on horseback and fighting was difficult without the stirrup.

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 70 miles a day.

The invention of the stirrup along with the repeating crossbow created a powerful weapon. 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—meaning 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.

Go to Chinese Crossbow and other Inventions – Part 2 or learn more about The Accidental Discovery of Gunpowder

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Dangers of the Korean Incident

July 30, 2010

Sunny Lee writing for the The Korea Times reports that the majority of Chinese policymakers and academics feel that the Cheonan incident, where a North Korean torpedo allegedly sank a South Korean navy ship, “may” not be true. However, that doubt is not the only factor playing a crucial role in Chinese decision-making.

The Chinese also feel that the US and South Korea are politically motivated and overreacting. China sees the incident as part of the 60-year-long hostility between the two Koreas. In fact, China wants the US, South Korea and North Korea to pull back from the incident.

China’s opinion may be the best advice. 

If you do not agree, consider World War I, the “Great War” if a war may be called great. World War I was not caused by dictators hungry for power as in the case of Mussolini and Hitler and the military oligarchy that ruled Japan during World War II.

World War I was caused by a strong sense of nationalism and emotions that were allowed to rule the day. Strong feelings of nationalism fed hatred in pre-war Europe. It turned Frenchman against German and Russian against Austrian.  Source: Causes of World War I

Regarding the Cheonan incident, China is the cool head while the hotheads are the US, South Korea and North Korea. If these hot heads prevail, how much suffering and death would add to the 45 deaths already caused by the sinking of the Cheonan?

The match that lit World War I was the assassination of one man, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914.  By the end of the war in late 1918, fifteen-million people had been killed, making the war one of the deadliest in history. 

Does the world want that in Asia?  America’s Military Industrial Media Empire might, but China clearly doesn’t—evidence that war is the last thing China wants.

Discover more about China and North Korea

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Mao Zedong, the Poet

July 27, 2010

Many outside China think of Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976) as a brutal dictator. Yet, he was fifty-six when he became the ruler of China and seventy-two at the beginning of The Cultural Revolution.

In fact, while commanding the Red Army during The Long March (1934-1935), we see a man who respected China’s peasants proving he was more of a nationalist than a Communist. Then there was the move away from Communist Russia after Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, when Mao said, “Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn’t approve of this.”

In 1935, Mao’s poem, “The Long March”, reveals an awareness of the sacrifice and the willingness to suffer to accomplish great things.

The Red Army fears not the trials of the March,
Holding light ten thousand crags and torrents.
The Five Ridges wind like gentle ripples
And the majestic Wumeng roll by, globules of clay.
Warm the steep cliffs lapped by the waters of Golden Sand,
Cold the iron chains spanning the Tatu River.
Minshan’s thousand li of snow joyously crossed,
The three Armies march on, each face glowing.

Mao was a complex man, and it wasn’t until after the failure of the The Great Leap Forward (1958 – 1961) that the fatal attraction and power of leadership corrupted him leading to the horrors of The Cultural Revolution (1966 – 1976), which Mao’s critics in the West use to define him.

Anyone who follows all of Mao’s life instead of relying on his last decade would understand that he cared deeply about the common people while punishing the landowners and wealthy, who abused them.  On the other hand, his foe, Chiang Kai-shek, supported the landowners and wealthy while crushing the peasants and workers.

There is a post on About China.info that says, “Mao’s poetry exhibits a spirit of boldness and power, weaving together history, reality and commitment… Bold transformation of myth and literary quotations are a distinct feature of Mao’s poetry.”

At Mao Zedong Poems, Two Birds” A Dialogue (1965), reveals what Mao may have been thinking about as President Johnson increased America’s involvement in Vietnam. Was Mao also warning us of what he was about to do in 1966, when he launched The Cultural Revolution?

Two Birds: A Dialogue (1965)

The roc wings fanwise,
Soaring ninety thousand li
And rousing a raging cyclone.
The blue sky on his back, he looks down
To survey Man’s world with its towns and cities.
Gunfire licks the heavens,
Shells pit the earth.
A sparrow in his bush is scared stiff..
“This is one hell of a mess!
O I want to flit and fly away.”
“Where, may I ask?”
The sparrow replies,
“To a jewelled palace in elfland’s hills.
Don’t you know a triple pact was signed
Under the bright autumn moon two years ago?
There’ll be plenty to eat,
Potatoes piping hot,
Beef-filled goulash.”
“Stop your windy nonsense!
Look, the world is being turned upside down.”

Through Mao’s poetry, we learn more about the man—not the modern emperor.

Discover China’s Privately Passionate Poetry

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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