'' of 1044 AD. ), excavated from the Takashima shipwreck, October 2011, dated to the
Mongol invasions of Japan (1274–1281 AD)
China '' The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century during the
Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the
Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue () in 808, and then about 50 years later in a
Daoist text known as the
Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe (). The
Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue mentions a formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part
birthwort herb. According to the
Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe, "Some have heated together sulfur,
realgar and saltpeter with
honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down." Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the
elixir of life. This
experimental medicine origin is reflected in its Chinese name
huoyao (), which means "fire medicine".
Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of
Sichuan,
Shanxi, and
Shandong. There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various
medicinal combinations. A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200. The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th-century
Song dynasty text
Wujing Zongyao (
Complete Essentials from the Military Classics), written by
Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044. The
Wujing Zongyao provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame-throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book contain at most 50% not enough to create an explosion, they produce an
incendiary instead. The
Essentials was written by a
Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of its use in the chronicles of the wars against the
Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However, it had already been used for
fire arrows since at least the 10th century. Its first recorded military application dates its use to 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles. In the following centuries the Chinese recognised gunpowder for its military applications and gunpowder was weaponised in the form of
bombs,
fire lances and
hand cannons in China. Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan. dated to 1288, an example of an early Chinese hand cannon that included a
touch hole and a gunpowder chamber By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons. Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the
Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the
Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the
Jin. In the early 13th century the Jin used iron-casing bombs. Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then finally, the barrels were made out of metal to better withstand the explosive pressure of gunpowder. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets. In the late 13th century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the
hand cannon, which included a metal barrel,
touch hole and gunpowder chamber.
Middle East According to Iqtidar Alam Khan, the
Mongols introduced gunpowder in their
invasion of Persia and Mesopotamia. The
Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder sometime between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian
Hasan al-Rammah had written recipes, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" ( ''''), fireworks as "Chinese flowers", and rockets as "Chinese arrows", that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China. However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers",
Ahmad Y. al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth". Two iron sheets were fastened together and tightened using felt. The flattened, pear-shaped vessel was filled with gunpowder, metal filings, "good mixtures", two rods, and a large rocket for propulsion. Judging by the illustration, it was supposed to glide across the water. Fire lances were used in battles between the Muslims and Mongols in 1299 and 1303. Al-Hassan claims that in the
Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the
Mamluk Sultanate used "the first cannon in history" against the Mongols, utilizing a formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder. Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period, as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder,
naft, that they used for an earlier incendiary,
naphtha. The earliest surviving documentary evidence for cannons in the Islamic world is from an Arabic manuscript dated to the early 14th century. The author's name is uncertain but may have been Shams al-Din Muhammad, who died in 1350. According to J. Lavin, cannons were used by
Moors at the siege of
Algeciras in 1343. Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas al-Qalqashandi described a metal cannon firing an iron ball between 1365 and 1376. The
musket appeared in the
Ottoman Empire by 1465. In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets. The Chinese military work
Wubei Zhi (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a
rack and pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time. The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early
supply chains to obtain nitre, sulphur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in
Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th centuries. It was not until later in the 19th century that the systemic production of Turkish gunpowder was reduced considerably, coinciding with the decline of its military might.
Europe , 1326. The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher
Roger Bacon in 1267 called and
Opus Tertium. The oldest written recipes in continental Europe were recorded under the name Marcus Graecus or Mark the Greek between 1280 and 1300 in the
Liber Ignium, or
Book of Fires. Some sources mention possible gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the
Battle of Mohi in 1241. Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry. However, there is no clear route of transmission, and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China." May also states, "however [, ...] the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan." The
English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641. In late 14th century Europe, gunpowder was improved by
corning, the practice of drying it into small clumps to improve combustion and consistency. During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing
potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood,
alum, and slices of
turnip to clarify the solution. During the Renaissance, two European schools of
pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. In Italy,
Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild
Fraternita di Santa Barbara but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled
De la pirotechnia, written in vernacular. It was published posthumously in 1540, with nine editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by
MIT Press in 1966. By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens. With the publication of
Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science." In 1774
Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at the age of 20. After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer
Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby. Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the
droit de fouille or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners. This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected. Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the
droit de fouille, researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works. Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the
American Revolution. By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at
Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive. Two British physicists,
Andrew Noble and
Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of gunpowder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for
internal ballistics. The introduction of
smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of
World War I, the majority of the British gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited", and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited, and in 1926 became a founding member of
Imperial Chemical Industries. The
Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of "Permitted Explosives". Shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former
Curtis & Harvey's
Glynneath gunpowder factory at
Pontneddfechan in
Wales closed down. The factory was demolished by fire in 1932. The last remaining gunpowder mill at the
Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German
parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened. This was followed by the closure and demolition of the gunpowder section at the
Royal Ordnance Factory,
ROF Chorley, at the end of
World War II, and of
ICI Nobel's
Roslin gunpowder factory which closed in 1954. This left ICI Nobel's
Ardeer site in
Scotland, which included a gunpowder factory, as the only factory in
Great Britain producing gunpowder. The gunpowder area of the Ardeer site closed in October 1976.
India began to
annex the territories of the
Sultanate of Mysore, during the
Second Anglo-Mysore War. The British battalion was defeated during the
Battle of Guntur, by the forces of
Hyder Ali, who effectively used
Mysorean rockets and
rocket artillery against the closely massed British forces. Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons were transmitted to India through the
Mongol invasions of India. It was written in the
Tarikh-i Firishta (1606–1607) that
Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler
Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in
Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any
Mongol attempt similar to the
Siege of Baghdad (1258). Firearms known as
top-o-tufak also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366. From then on the employment of
gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of
Belgaum" in 1473 by
Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani. The shipwrecked Ottoman
Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of
matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the
Portuguese during the
Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in
Tanjore,
Dacca,
Bijapur, and
Murshidabad. Guns made of bronze were recovered from
Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the
Zamorins
Shah Jahan, hunting deer using a
matchlock The Mughal emperor
Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the
Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading
Rajput commander during the
Siege of Chittorgarh. The
Mughals began to use
bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ
sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges. The Mughal Emperor
Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the
British and other
Europeans in his province of
Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century.
Bengal and
Mālwa participated in saltpeter production.
Southeast Asia . Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when
Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese
sought to invade Java in 1293.
History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese:
炮—Pào) against Daha forces. Cannons were used by the
Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1352 during its invasion of the
Khmer Empire. Within a decade large quantities of gunpowder could be found in the
Khmer Empire. By the end of the century firearms were also used by the
Trần dynasty. Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapons was known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the
pole gun (
bedil tombak), is recorded as being used by Java in 1413, the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of the 15th century. It was brought by the
Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the
Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460. Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the
Java arquebus. Portuguese influence to local weaponry after the
capture of Malacca (1511) resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the
istinggar. When the
Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to the breech-loading swivel gun as
berço, while the
Spaniards call it
verso. By the early 16th century, the Javanese already locally producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180- and 260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3 and 8 tons, length of them between 3 and 6 m. Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation. Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial
Dutch occupiers. According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir
Thomas Stamford Raffles',
The History of Java (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from
a crater from a mountain near the straits of
Bali.
Historiography ,
Vietnam On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian
Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China." Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China due to the large body of evidence that documents the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and explosive, and the evolution of the gun from the
fire lance to a metal gun, whereas similar records do not exist elsewhere. As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology." However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler. Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on
artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the
Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder. It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where
semantic change occurred. For instance, the Arabic word
naft transitioned from denoting
naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word
pào changed in meaning from
trebuchet to a
cannon. This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets." Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate. It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China. == Components ==