Hand cannons

The hand cannon (Chinese: 手 銃 ''shŏuchòng'', or 火 銃 ''huŏchòng''), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mechanically simple form of metal barrel firearms. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a touch hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun. The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. In 15th century Europe, the hand cannon evolved to become the matchlock arquebus, which became the first firearm to have a trigger.

History

China

The earliest artistic depiction of what might be a hand cannon — a rock sculpture found among the Dazu Rock Carvings — is dated to 1128, much earlier than any recorded or precisely dated archaeological samples, so it is possible that the concept of a cannon-like firearm has existed since the 12th century. This has been challenged by others such as Liu Xu, Cheng Dong, and Benjamin Avichai Katz Sinvany. According to Liu, the weight of the cannon would have been too much for one person to hold, especially with just one arm, and points out that fire lances were being used a decade later at the Siege of De'an. Cheng Dong believes that the figure depicted is actually a wind spirit letting air out of a bag rather than a cannon emitting a blast. Stephen Haw also considered the possibility that the item in question was a bag of air but concludes that it is a cannon because it was grouped with other weapon-wielding sculptures. Sinvany concurred with the wind bag interpretation and that the cannonball indentation was added later on.

The first cannons were likely an evolution of the fire lance. In 1259 a type of "fire-emitting lance" (''tūhuǒqiãng'' 突火槍) made an appearance. According to the ''History of Song'': "It is made from a large bamboo tube, and inside is stuffed a pellet wad (''zǐkē'' 子窠). Once the fire goes off it completely spews the rear pellet wad forth, and the sound is like a bomb that can be heard for five hundred or more paces." The pellet wad mentioned is possibly the first true bullet in recorded history depending on how bullet is defined, as it did occlude the barrel, unlike previous co-viatives (non-occluding shrapnel) used in the fire lance. Fire lances transformed from the "bamboo- (or wood- or paper-) barreled firearm to the metal-barreled firearm" to better withstand the explosive pressure of gunpowder. From there it branched off into several different gunpowder weapons known as "eruptors" in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, with different functions such as the "filling-the-sky erupting tube" which spewed out poisonous gas and porcelain shards, the "hole-boring flying sand magic mist tube" (''zuànxuéfēishāshénwùtǒng'' 鑽穴飛砂神霧筒) which spewed forth sand and poisonous chemicals into orifices, and the more conventional "phalanx-charging fire gourd" which shot out lead pellets.

Hand cannons first saw widespread usage in China sometime during the 13th century and spread from there to the rest of the world. In 1287 Yuan Jurchen troops deployed hand cannons in putting down a rebellion by the Mongol prince Nayan. The ''History of Yuan'' reports that the cannons of Li Ting's soldiers "caused great damage" and created "such confusion that the enemy soldiers attacked and killed each other." The hand cannons were used again in the beginning of 1288. Li Ting's "gun-soldiers" or ''chòngzú'' () were able to carry the hand cannons "on their backs". The passage on the 1288 battle is also the first to coin the name ''chòng'' () with the metal radical ''jīn'' () for metal-barrel firearms. ''Chòng'' was used instead of the earlier and more ambiguous term ''huǒtǒng'' (fire tube; ), which may refer to the tubes of fire lances, proto-cannons, or signal flares. Hand cannons may have also been used in the Mongol invasions of Japan. Japanese descriptions of the invasions talk of iron and bamboo ''pào'' causing "light and fire" and emitting 2–3,000 iron bullets. The ''Nihon Kokujokushi'', written around 1300, mentions ''huǒtǒng'' (fire tubes) at the Battle of Tsushima in 1274 and the second coastal assault led by Holdon in 1281. The ''Hachiman Gudoukun'' of 1360 mentions iron ''pào'' "which caused a flash of light and a loud noise when fired." The ''Taiheki'' of 1370 mentions "iron ''pào'' shaped like a bell." Mongol troops of Yuan dynasty carried Chinese cannons to Java during their 1293 invasion.

The oldest extant hand cannon bearing a date of production is the Xanadu Gun, which contains an era date corresponding to 1298. The Heilongjiang hand cannon is dated a decade earlier to 1288, corresponding to the military conflict involving Li Ting, but the dating method is based on contextual evidence; the gun bears no inscription or era date. Another cannon bears an era date that could correspond with the year 1271 in the Gregorian Calendar, but contains an irregular character in the reign name. Other specimens also likely predate the Xanadu and Heilongjiang guns and have been traced as far back as the late Western Xia period (1214–1227), but these too lack inscriptions and era dates (see Wuwei bronze cannon).

Spread

The earliest reliable evidence of cannons in Europe appeared in 1326 and evidence of their production can be dated as early as 1327. The first recorded use of gunpowder weapons in Europe was in 1331 when two mounted German knights attacked Cividale del Friuli with gunpowder weapons of some sort. By 1338 hand cannons were in widespread use in France. One of the oldest surviving weapons of this type is the "Loshult gun", a 10 kg Swedish example from the mid-14th century. In 1999 a group of British and Danish researchers made a replica of the gun and tested it using four period-accurate mixes of gunpowder, firing both 1.8 kg arrows and 184-gram lead balls with 50-gram charges of gunpowder. The velocities of the arrows varied from 63 m/s to 87 m/s with max ranges of 205 to 360 meters, while the balls achieve velocities of between 110 m/s to 142 m/s with an average range of 630 meters. The first English source about handheld firearm (hand cannon) was written in 1473.

Although evidence of cannons appears later in the Middle East than Europe, fire lances were described earlier by Hasan al-Rammah between 1240–1280, and appeared in battles between Muslims and Mongols in 1299 and 1303. Hand cannons may have been used in the early 14th century. An Arabic text dating to 1320–1350 describes a type of gunpowder weapon called a ''midfa'' which uses gunpowder to shoot projectiles out of a tube at the end of a stock. Some scholars consider this a hand cannon while others dispute this claim. The Nasrid army besieging Elche

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