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Heilongjiang Hand Cannon
The Heilongjiang hand cannon or hand-gun is a bronze hand cannon manufactured no later than 1288 and is the world's oldest confirmed surviving firearm. It weighs 3.55 kg (7.83 pounds) and is 34 centimeters (13.4 inches) long. The Heilongjiang hand cannon was excavated during the 1970s in Banlachengzi, a village in Acheng District, Heilongjiang province, China. It was found alongside other bronze artifacts made in the style of the Jurchen people, Jurchen Jurchen Jin, Jin list of Chinese dynasties, Dynasty (12th–13th century). The hand cannon was probably used in battles fought nearby in Banlachengzi in 1287 and 1288. The ''History of Yuan'' states that a Jurchen commander by the name of Li Ting led a group of soldiers equipped with hand cannons into a military camp in 1288, as part of an anti-rebellion campaign for the Yuan dynasty. The cannon currently resides at the Heilongjiang Provincial Museum in Harbin, China. Description The Heilongjiang hand cannon is long without ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Lance
The fire lance () was a gunpowder weapon and the ancestor of modern firearms. It first appeared in 10th–12th century China and was used to great effect during the Jin-Song Wars. It began as a small pyrotechnic device attached to a polearm weapon, used to gain a shock advantage at the start of a melee. As gunpowder improved, the explosive discharge was increased, and debris or pellets added, giving it some of the effects of a combination modern flamethrower and shotgun, but with a very short range (about ), and only one shot (some were designed for two shots). By the late 13th century, fire lance barrels had transitioned to metal material to better withstand the explosive blast, and the lance-point was discarded in favor of relying solely on the gunpowder blast. These became the first hand cannons. Design The first fire lances consisted of a tube, usually bamboo, containing gunpowder and a slow match, strapped to a spear or other polearm weapon. Once ignited, the gunpowder t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trebuchet
A trebuchet (french: trébuchet) is a type of catapult that uses a long arm to throw a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than that of a traditional catapult. There are two main types of trebuchet. The first is the traction trebuchet, or mangonel, which uses manpower to swing the arm. It first appeared in China in the 4th century BC. Carried westward by the Avars, the technology was adopted by the Byzantines in the late 6th century AD and by their neighbors in the following centuries. The later, and often larger and more powerful, counterweight trebuchet, also known as the counterpoise trebuchet, uses a counterweight to swing the arm. It appeared in both Christian and Muslim lands around the Mediterranean in the 12th century, and was carried back to China by the Mongols in the 13th century. Etymology and terminology It is uncer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chongqing
Chongqing ( or ; ; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Romanization, alternately romanized as Chungking (), is a Direct-administered municipalities of China, municipality in Southwest China. The official abbreviation of the city, "" (), was approved by the State Council of the People's Republic of China, State Council on 18 April 1997. This abbreviation is derived from the old name of a part of the Jialing River that runs through Chongqing and feeds into the Yangtze River. Administratively, it is one of the four municipalities under the direct administration of the Government of China, central government of the People's Republic of China (the other three are Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), and the only such municipality located deep inland. The municipality of Chongqing, roughly the size of Austria, includes the city of Chongqing as well as various discontiguous cities. Due to a classification technicality, Chongqing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dazu District
Dazu District () is a district of Chongqing, China, bordering Sichuan province to the northwest. It is where the famous Dazu Rock Carvings, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is located. Dazu Lotus Manor is a tourist attraction with many lotus plants, some bred from seeds sent to space. History In the late 19th century, Dazu was the site of major violence led by the Gelaohui against Chinese Christians who were accused of controlling the local coal market, and resented for the large church built between two major temples devoted to Lingguan Lingguan (, rendered Charmante in David Hawkes' translation) is the stage name of a fictional Chinese opera actress from the Chinese novel ''Dream of the Red Chamber''. She is one of the most strong-willed characters in the novel. Critics conside ... on the main market square. This church was destroyed multiple times in the 1880s and 1890s. The violence displaced thousands of people, with one incident, in 1890 leading to the deaths of 12 Christia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dazu Rock Carvings
The Dazu Rock Carvings () are a series of Chinese religious sculptures and carvings and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Dazu District, Chongqing, China. The carvings date back as far as the 7th century AD, depicting and influenced by Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist beliefs. Some are in rock-cut cave shrines, in the usual Chinese Buddhist style, but many others are rock reliefs carved into the open rock faces. Listed as a World Heritage Site in 1999, the Dazu Rock Carvings are made up of 75 protected sites containing some 50,000 statues, with over 100,000 Chinese characters forming inscriptions and epigraphs. The sites are located in Chongqing Municipality within the steep hillsides throughout Dazu District, located about 165 kilometers west of the urban area of Chongqing. The highlights of the rock grotto are found on Mount Baoding and Mount Beishan. Description The Dazu Rock Carvings comprise 5 locations in Chongqing Municipality: Beishan, Baodingshan, Nanshan, Shizhuansha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Round Shot
A round shot (also called solid shot or simply ball) is a solid spherical projectile without explosive charge, launched from a gun. Its diameter is slightly less than the bore of the barrel from which it is shot. A round shot fired from a large-caliber gun is also called a cannonball. The cast iron cannonball was introduced by a French artillery engineer Samuel J. Besh after 1450; it had the capacity to reduce traditional English castle wall fortifications to rubble. French armories would cast a tubular cannon body in a single piece, and cannonballs took the shape of a sphere initially made from stone material. Advances in gunpowder manufacturing soon led the replacement of stone cannonballs with cast iron ones. Round shot was made in early times from dressed stone, referred to as gunstone (Middle English: ''gunneston''), but by the 17th century, from iron. It was used as the most accurate projectile that could be fired by a smoothbore cannon, used to batter the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia (), officially the Great Xia (), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as ''Mi-nyak''Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led Buddhist imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over the modern-day northwestern Chinese provinces of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, northern Shaanxi, northeastern Xinjiang, and southwest Inner Mongolia, and southernmost Outer Mongolia, measuring about . Its capital was Xingqing (modern Yinchuan), until its destruction by the Mongols in 1227. Most of its written records and architecture were destroyed, so the founders and history of the empire remained obscure until 20th-century research in China and the West. The Western Xia occupied the area around the Hexi Corridor, a stretch of the Silk Road, the most important trade route between northern China and Central Asia. They made significant achievements in literature, art, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuwei, Gansu
Wuwei () is a prefecture-level city in northwest central Gansu province. In the north it borders Inner Mongolia, in the southwest, Qinghai. Its central location between three western capitals, Lanzhou, Xining, and Yinchuan makes it an important business and transportation hub for the area. Because of its position along the Hexi Corridor, historically the only route from central China to western China and the rest of Central Asia, many major railroads and national highways pass through Wuwei. History In ancient times, Wuwei was called Liangzhou (—the name retained by today's Wuwei's central urban district) and is the eastern terminus of the Hexi Corridor. People began settling here about 5,000 years ago. It was a key link for the Northern Silk Road, and a number of important archaeological finds were uncovered from Wuwei, including ancient copper carts with stone animals. The motifs and types of objects in the Wuwei graves, as well as their earthenware, lacquer, and bronze co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuwei Bronze Cannon
The Wuwei Bronze Cannon (武威銅火炮 — Wǔwēi tóng huǒpào) or Xi Xia Bronze cannon (西夏铜火炮 — Xīxià tóng huǒpào)Kelly DeVries, John France, Clifford J. Rogers (October 2015). Journal of Medieval Military History'. 13: 251. was discovered in 1980 and is probably the oldest and largest cannon dated to the 13th century. This 100 centimeter long, 108 kilogram bronze cannon was discovered in a cellar in Wuwei, Gansu Province. It bears no inscription, but has been dated by historians to the late Western Xia period between 1214 and 1227 through contextual evidence. The gun contained an iron ball about nine centimeters in diameter, which is smaller than the muzzle diameter at twelve centimeters, and 0.1 kilograms of gunpowder in it when discovered, meaning that the projectile might have been another co-viative. Ben Sinvany and Dang Shoushan believe that the ball used to be much larger prior to its highly corroded state at the time of discovery. While large in siz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jin Dynasty (1115–1234)
The Jin dynasty (, ; ) or Jin State (; Jurchen: Anchun Gurun), officially known as the Great Jin (), was an imperial dynasty of China that existed between 1115 and 1234. Its name is sometimes written as Kin, Jurchen Jin, Jinn, or Chin in English to differentiate it from an earlier Jìn dynasty whose name is rendered identically in Hanyu Pinyin without the tone marking. It is also sometimes called the "Jurchen dynasty" or the "Jurchen Jin", because members of the ruling Wanyan clan were of Jurchen descent. The Jin emerged from Wanyan Aguda's rebellion against the Liao dynasty (916–1125), which held sway over northern China until the nascent Jin drove the Liao to the Western Regions, where they became known in historiography as the Western Liao. After vanquishing the Liao, the Jin launched a century-long campaign against the Han-led Song dynasty (960–1279), which was based in southern China. Over the course of their rule, the ethnic Jurchen emperors of the Jin dynas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
