, presumably brought there by the
Mongol invasion of Java in 1293 or a Javanese version of it.
China bronze hand cannon, 1351
Dazu Rock Carvings 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.
Evolution 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.
First guns Hand cannons first saw widespread use 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 in a register of the municipality of Florence 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 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 arrows and lead balls with charges of gunpowder. The velocities of the arrows varied from to with max ranges of to , while the balls achieve velocities of between to with an average range of . 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 and 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 in 1331 made use of "iron pellets shot with fire." According to Paul E. J. Hammer, the
Mamluks certainly used cannons by 1342. 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. Cannons are attested to in India starting from 1366. The
Joseon kingdom in
Korea acquired knowledge of gunpowder from China by 1372 and started producing cannons by 1377. In
Southeast Asia Đại Việt soldiers were using hand cannons at the very latest by 1390 when they employed them in killing
Champa king Che Bong Nga. A Chinese observer recorded the
Javanese use of hand cannon for marriage ceremony in 1413 during
Zheng He's voyage. Japan was already aware of gunpowder warfare due to the
Mongol invasions during the 13th century, but did not acquire a cannon until a monk took one back to Japan from China in 1510, and firearms were not produced until 1543, when the Portuguese introduced
matchlocks which were known as
tanegashima to the Japanese. The art of firing the Japanese hand cannon known as
ōdzutsu (大筒) has remained as a
Ko-budō martial arts form.
Middle East The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon in the Islamic world are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century. The historian
Ahmad Y. al-Hassan argues that several 14th-century Arabic manuscripts, one of which was written by
Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Ansari al-Dimashqi (1256–1327), report the use of hand cannons by Mamluk-Egyptian forces against the Mongols at the
Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. However, Hassan's claim contradicts other historians who claim hand cannons did not appear in the
Middle East until the 14th century. Iqtidar Alam Khan argues that it was the
Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world, and believes cannons only reached
Mamluk Egypt in the 1370s. According to Joseph Needham, fire lances or proto-guns were known to Muslims by the late 13th century and early 14th century. However the term
midfa, dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365. Needham also concludes that in its original form the term
midfa refers to the tube or cylinder of a
naphtha projector (
flamethrower), then after the invention of gunpowder it meant the tube of fire lances, and eventually it applied to the cylinder of hand-gun and cannon. Similarly,
Tonio Andrade dates the textual appearance of cannon in Middle-Eastern sources to the 1360s. David Ayalon and Gabor Ágoston believe the Mamluks had certainly used siege cannon by the 1360s, but earlier uses of cannon in the
Islamic World are vague with a possible appearance in the
Emirate of Granada by the 1320s, however evidence is inconclusive. Khan claims that it was invading
Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world and cites
Mamluk antagonism towards early riflemen in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East. Similarly, the refusal of their
Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the
Safavid rout at
Chaldiran in 1514.
Arquebus Early European hand cannons, such as the
socket-handgonne, were relatively easy to produce; smiths often used brass or bronze when making these early
gonnes. The production of early hand cannons was not uniform; this resulted in complications when loading or using the gunpowder in the hand cannon. Improvements in hand cannon and gunpowder technology—
corned powder, shot ammunition, and development of the flash pan—led to the invention of the
arquebus in late 15th-century Europe. ==Design and features==