China's bamboo fire lance evolved into the first metal guns
A Buddhist mural at Dunhuang from around 950 shows a fire lance, a bamboo tube that spat flame and debris. Within two centuries bamboo gave way to cast iron, and the oldest surviving metal-barrelled handgun, dug up in Heilongjiang, dates to 1288.
Military technology covers equipment that is distinctly martial, usually because it has no lawful or practical civilian use or is dangerous without training, though inventions cross that line in both directions. Large quantitative studies of pre-industrial societies point to population growth, links between regions and enabling technologies such as iron and cavalry as key drivers of military innovation.
Metallurgy set early milestones. Iron weapons were first made in quantity in Asia Minor in roughly the 14th century BCE, spreading to Central Europe about three hundred years later. The Assyrians are credited with fielding horse cavalry and widespread iron weapons by 1100 BCE, and with the first iron-tipped arrows. Sub-Saharan Africa developed ironworking independently.
Song dynasty China, pressed by northern rivals, poured effort into weapons. Around 1043 Emperor Renzong ordered the compilation of the Wujing Zongyao, a manual of strategy, training and armament. Flamethrowers had begun with Byzantine Greek fire by the 7th century; a Chinese record of 919 describes a siphon pump spraying fierce fire oil, and the Chinese later used double-piston bellows to produce a continuous jet. In 975, Southern Tang forces on the Yangtze turned flamethrowers on the Song fleet, only for strong winds to blow the fire back onto their own ships.
Fire lances were widespread by the early 12th century, first firing sand, pellets and shards and later gunpowder-driven arrows. Once iron replaced bamboo the name shifted from fire spear to fire tube. A sculpture from a Sichuan cave dated 1128 is the earliest known depiction of a gun, showing a vase-shaped bombard. By the 13th century the Chinese had a bronze or iron tube loaded with about 100 lead balls, an ancestor of the cannon.
Source: Military technology
