Evolution of Early Gunpowder Weaponry - from Ancient China to Europe
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2020
- Before they finally invented guns, the ancient Chinese had to come up with tons of bizarre gunpowder weaponry. Too bad Europe didn't get to play with them.
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Don't you just love cool toys that go boom? By. the way, visit linfamy's channel if you're into Japanese history. ua-cam.com/channels/BkqDNqao03ldC3u78-Pp8g.html
Hi author. There's a good video btw. I have a question, what centuries China dominated over the west in terms of gunpowder weapons. Since, i have found quite different information. Especially, i want to know about 14 century. What was the situation between China and Europe at that time. Which state was better?
very informative video. i do have one question, do you know what date the Divine Fire Arrow Shield was made or do you not have any information regarding that particular device
Highly unlikely that the Mongols brought gunpowder to Europe. Much more likely that some seafaring folks brought it in first.
Can you link sources?
The difference of walls:
In most case: you put archers, gunners, foot soldier to man the walls, with some siege engine in some place
In china: you could garrison the walls with anything, archers, foot soldiers, siege engine, cavalry / horseman, heck you can even ride a carriage up there and still got enough space
True lol
ive heard that the chinese built their walls like that so that they cannot be breached.
@@psykikninja yes, and it made the defenders easy to defend their city and make siege a lot harder for the attackers, just like a siege in ancient Greco-Roman time before the invention of siege weapons. Coupled with the fertile plains of china great for agriculture, with a good amount of grain stocked in granary, a siege could last for months or even years.. Enough to give the defender time to get reinforcement if they had any
I ruined your 69 likes
I am not sure if the wall building was much different after my knowledge there where European walls with 3 wall parts with 2 normal stone parts and in the midle used smaller stones!
And where every city wall in china that thick ?
I've heard a big reason to why China didn't developed effective muskets was due to muskets not being effect against China's main enemy the nomadic lose formation hit and run horse archers. but in Europe they fought against each other in similar pitch battle styles, which made guns in more effective thus leading to the development of better guns.
and China was a large peacefulish, unifedish nation with plenty of resources with not much need to go to war and expand while europe was many competing small nations all in an arms race against each other.
Another reason was European wars were usually siege wars that involved much much weaker walls than Chinese cities. Chinese walls were about 5 times thicker than the walls found in European cities (look at Xian for example). Cannons would be effective in the West but not in the East.
So this drove the development of cannons for siege warfare which lead to development of better fire arms.
Guns were also worse than bows as a weapon in the East due to better bow technology where as the West also lacked in bow technology. Chinese composite bows had about 30% more power than the Long bow
China abandoned pitch battle style since Zhou Dynasty because they found ambush usually works better
@@Gongolongo yeah, the development of better and thicker wall (star fortresses) in europe also led to annoyingly long siege. In which led up to european abandoning siege battle around 17th and 18th century, in favor of pitch and manuevering warfare. Who also led to rapid development of infantry tactics and musketeering technologies in europe.
China is peacefullish? 30 attempt of civil wars with something like 15 different dynasties are considered peaceful....
And European countries are tiny bitty small countries, even the larger ones are still small(except Russia and the Ottoman). The need to expand for these small countries is real.
@@limitlesssky3050 I was talking about the last few hundreds years of china and east Asia in general were peaceful until the Europeans came and started to stir things up.
I meant to write small not large.
I laugh every time people say Chinese only used gunpowder for fireworks. While making fireworks accidental explosions would inevitably occur, and the survivors would not need much brains to think how to kill other people with it.
Usually self hate Chinese would say that
Humans saw what stones can do and used it to kill lol
@@Gebri3l oh yeah, it's a miracle that cotton balls weren't used to attack the enemy
@@limitlesssky3050 so Hong kongers?
@@UnoriginallyOriginal …more like CCP dogs. They did more to harm Chinese history and culture more than anyone. Look up Cultural Revolution. Actually nvm, that “never happened”
I love your drawings of Song Dynasty soldiers with their large-brimmed hats, yes they indeed wore those hats back then and they were made from leather or felt, but I've always wondered how protective would they be on the battlefield.
Armor and costume of War back then not actually protect them and more into protect them from the environment. Like.. The scorching heat and the cold freezing winter.
It's so obvious that their armor won't protect them though. The proof is there are still lot of casualties of War.
So never talk about ancient n medieval armor again please. Be a use it's dumb. So obvious it won't protect them. Sword, lance, spear, arrow can pierce their armor.
Even the layered armor of Japanese samurai also not that strong. Even the full iron armor of Europe also.
I think the hat is more of a hat for marching and everyday thing but once battle is expected, they wore metal helmets. However for lighter troops, they might prefer the hat.
@@duhtoolazy6776 Records from the Southern Song have indeed shown that at least certain militia and light skirmishers participated in battles wearing such hats and as well as paper/leather/fabric armors.
@@DBT1007 Well, I believe that such hats indeed offered some protection, since they were made out of leather or felt. Japanese ashigaru infantry from a few centuries later also wore a similar type of military hat as the Song infantry.
Ah yes, the 范阳笠 帽子。The only thing I can compare between Lin Chong and Li Zicheng.
Also, if you pay attention to the stone craving in the Chinese temples, you will be able to see some of the divine guardians holding early form of hand cannon.
I watch many China historical movie and i see the wall seems always be the problem, so sometimes they'll do everythinh to lure the enemy out from the city and fight in open field. Now i really understand how thick it was...40m 😱
As a Mongolian, i also heard that earlier Mongols used to toss dead marmots over the Great wall to infect defenders.
Thick wall just required more dirty methods to get in. Btw, hunting marmot was outlawed in 90s to prevent bubonic plague.
@@Todsor That's one theory for how the Black Death started in Europe. Mongols were besieging Caffa in the Crimea and threw bodies of plague victims over the walls. Genoese ships then carried the plague from Caffa to Italy.
You got to give credit to the Ming Dynasty who made new great engineering of gunpowder weapons.
@Lion Heart the Manchu is open minded in their first few emperors, but they become close minded because of their paranoia of Christianity.
Their main trade mark was stone walls.Before ming it was mud walls.
@@limitlesssky3050 ming isn't manchus
to true, but one thing china and the west both still loved to use; sappers. Great video once again, thank you!.
Today, they were called combat engineers.
@@ReviveHF 12B 💪🏼
I didn’t know , ancient china fort’s wall were so thick before watching this video
opposite for me...i didn't know european walls were paper.
@@musAKulture It's not so simple just because they weren't as thick. If anything it drove the Europeans to develop more complex fortifications once castles and other traditional defenses were rendered obsolete by cannons. The bastion/star fort may not be as bulky as a Chinese fortress, but its layout was ingenious (certainly more efficient) and gave the defenders greater coverage with their own cannons and gunners. The Ming would collapse before they could create more than a few star forts and the Qing didn't even rely on them at all, but surely the Ming recognized how useful the design could be. In Koxinga's siege of a Dutch bastion fort on modern Taiwan, even though he was victorious in the end, Koxinga's army was unable to breach it directly despite their familiarity with Western cannons and arquebuses.
@@musAKulture They wherent!
At the last decade of 13th century Marco Polo went back home to Europe. He brought gun powder and a Chinese made hand gun to his home town. That Chinese made hand gun today is at the British Museum. Western European History will not tell you that.
"That Chinese made hand gun today is at the British Museum" and "Western European History will not tell you that". lol.
Lol, stop spreading bullshits and lies.
@@TheTokkie lmao, zero lying skill
@@hanhai8515 it's like accusing someone of stealing, then finding out he didn't steal and then saying "lMaO, zErO sTeALiNg sKiLl"
@@TheTokkie wat i was talking about Zen77 having zero lying skill
I love your channel. So much information packed into a short period of time.
Very informative and nicely explained.
Thank you for this great analysis!
Thank you for this video!
Wait, Chinese walls can't be easily knocked down? Total War: Three Kingdoms lied to me! My trebuchets melted those walls, didn't even need cannons...
One of the most effective sieging equipments/tactics in Ming and Qing Dynasty of China is a coffin filled with black powder buried under the wall. which needs a lot of earthworks.
@麻辣拌 It's a joke.
Three kingdoms is long before the invention of gun powder.
great video. the analysis and visualizations are spot on. usual videos on youtube just reiterate facts and call it a day. but, since you added an analysis on ottoman cannons to chinese walls, this video has a lot more value! the chinese hats are greatly correct. :)
It is interesting that bows were preferred in china still in the 18th century, despite being the inventors of gunpowder weapons.
Firearms long time Was not so effective.Like when Prussian Army make Trial in18 centhury .Soldiers shooting to Barn And halft of Them Missing .Also When Enemy Charging on you .hands start shaking .They are many historical Evidence for that.Lots of Times Cavalry massacring Shooters .See Battle of Somosierra for example .Weapon is secondary factor .Who is using this weapon and how he is trained Matters.But Lances long time were much more Deadly than Guns look For Winged Hussars and Polish Ulans( if Used by Someone who long trained) .Many Western Historians Have Gun Fetish.
Hard to reload after the first shot whereas arrows can be quickly fired in succession.
Winged Hussars and most of Polish cavalry using bows to 18 centhury.Bow and spear were advised to skirmishers as fastest weapons.some Nobles more like guns But many bows .Like future polish king Sobieski.Who in Battle of Cudnow as was written not waste any arrow.Nobility train using bow from childchood and they have game with shooting to cap ASLAP
@@alicjacaban4581 Because firearms are not effective against nomadic cavalry, the main enemy of china.
Matter how Used .My country(Poland) also Have lot of Wars with Nomads .Fireaarms are Wery effective becouse Tatars have horses not used to them .Pistols give opportunity for devastating Charge (you can see movie from san rhomain history on UA-cam about Winged Hussars)
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks
But the Fire Dragon from 1298 dont work !
Very nice. Especially the part about the walls. 💯
The Chinese basically built walls that can compete with 16-17th century European forts... albeit the European designs are more tailored to defending against cannons.
I think the 16-17th century European Forts give more active defence!
I think you will build a whole fort before one of these thick chinese walls has all the dirt hauled in to provide said thickness
There is a mobile version of the MLRS (Multi Launch Rocket System) in the Ming before the Koreas had the Hwacha, it was also a better version because it can be reloaded easier.
The common design we think of Hwacha is a variation designed by Munjong (5th king). For that, tt is also known as Munjong Hwacha.
It is really MLRS, with modular system for convert and easy reload.
There also in japan too
To destroy a Chinese style fortified walls in the most efficient way is to use modern large caliber High Explosive rounds with TNT or RDX fillers, one of the dedicated warhead is the HESH(high explosive squash head). However, these modern rounds are all requires 20th centuries tech.
just one silly flaw. the defenders just giving up and letting the enemies in.
Mind blown when I saw wall crumbles from catapult attack in Total War Three Kingdoms.
And then they invented mortars. Why attack the walls when you can just attack the city behind it?
@@aaronmaynard6019
wut? catapult and trebuchet already used for that purpose thousands of years before.
Imagine harming the besieged populace so hard they refuse to enact their plot to open the gates to their supposedly liberating foes
Siege assaults are gonna be costly whether there are gonna be turncoats or none with all the preparations a garrisoned commanding officer could do
great video
I would've mentioned *why* Chinese walls are so thick. IIRC, it's because they also serve as roads.
Hope you do something on the older bronze and iron weapons (spears, swords, crossbows, compound bows, ge, etc.). Also ritual bronzes and bells I would find interesting.
He would never speak about summer and akkaad
the china city wall standup until the invention of high explosive cannon shell. because the old type cannon just a high power kinetic cannon
I remember the Mythbusters testing the effectiveness of some of these weapons.
I gotta say, that was pretty epic
I want...more. Early firearms seem to be so wacky and interesting. Also it'd be nice for your take on why firearms seemed to have fallen out of favor for traditional bows and arrows in Asia despite the success in the Imjin war.
Traditional bows were not in favor in Asia after the Imjin war. That is a misconception as the Qing,Koreans and japanese and even Thai and Vietnamese and Zhungars(Mongols) were using mostly early muskets and bows were only used when guns were not available.
"Firearms became popular during the Kangxi reign (1662-1722) and played an important role in subsequent wars."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenjiying#:~:text=Firearms%20equipped%20included%20the%20fire,of%20protecting%20the%20Forbidden%20City.
Zhungars(Mongols) 1600s-1700
"Dzungar weaponry included a fair amount of gunpowder weaponry. In 1762, the Qing army discovered four large Dzungar bronze cannons, eight "soaring" cannons, and muskeets"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_Khanate
Japanese after the Imjin war-
Used mostly tanegashima guns and Swords and bows were just side arms and dispite what you see in movies they really did not fight with swords and bows in fact both the imperialist and shogunate factions used guns.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_of_Japan#Sengoku_Period
The reason why the west surpassed the east is because they innovated their guns while in east asia gun designs hardly changed making them obsolete when warring with the west.
@@teovu5557 There were also not a lot of region wide military rivalry to spur the type of innovations in killing machines in the East. The Song dynasty period was perfect because there were three fairly even factions at the time so they one up each other in designs and uses of weapons. The other wars were mainly pacification campaigns. The Imjin war was the notable exception. In Europe, there were always numerous interacting factions fighting each other and then there was the large scramble to colonize the world that spurred a lot of competition to one up each other.
What do you mean fallen out of favor?
The Chinese keep improving its firearms, they later adapted large siege cannons, and arquebuses as well. In fact the Chinese composite metal cannon was so good that the Portuguese imported them from the Chinese
The siege cannon really became popular in the west due to the European tendency to build castles and fortresses, not so much walls. While cities often had walls the key to winning a war was to take out those Norman stone built castles (A castle has a lord, while a fortress is a military institution who just holds troops, go to Shadiversity if you want to know more).
China didn't really had the same feudal system where feudal lords and ladies in castles controlled the landscape. The second place where Europeans used large cannons were in ships and that also comes down to how the ships of the time were built, Chinese ships were not really built like large cannon platforms so their naval warfare were different.
As usual, people designed their weapons and armors depending on their need. The Chinese walls didn't really stop the mongols anyways but I think they were built at least as much to keep the population at bay and to stop smaller raids as to stop an army. There were just too large areas to keep enough manpower at the entire Chinese wall to stop an army, but it would make any band of brigands from raiding villages and it certainly showed the people who lived near them who was the boss.
The Chinese focused on repelling enemies not attacking outside territories. European nations are expansionist and aggressive, going on all out attacks on foreign lands, colonising and looting their resources. That's the difference between Asia and Europe.
@@eb94499 The history of China starts out with a bunch of independent kingdoms that basically play game of thrones until China is founded a long time later. Since that China have expanded many times until it's current size.
The real difference in expansion didn't start until the 16th century when China started to focus inward to control it's massive Empire while the tiny European countries got access to technology (ships and guns) that allowed them to expand as well.
So I would say that the Chinese expansion was just done earlier. Look on maps how China got united and expanded during history, it was a pretty slow but steady expansion for a long time.
China's aggression were more local then the European that started to expand to other continents
China was basically Qin from the start which had a tiny percentage of modern day China and it gained it's territories with war just like the European nations.
But Europe and China have had periods of war and expansion but also of stagnation and defensive tactics and what you say is certainly true for 19th century China but hardly if you look on China's entire history.
All older nations have had periods of expansion and stagnation. China have also gone through periods with great innovation and with very little new things going on. It's history is just as advanced and complicated as Europe's.
And there is still a lot we don't know about China's early history, every year we find a lot new archaeological finds from the Chinese bronze age and earlier which start to paint a picture of things we couldn't even imagine.
You can say the same thing about India who also have a very complicated early history and made a lot of innovation,
Here though, most of China's expansion were already done by the time gunpowder became a thing even if it was a Chinese invention that took 200 years to reach Europe. It was however ship technology that lead Europe to the age of exploration and which made the Europeans improve their cannons.
History as always is complicated and I don't mean to say that China's history is less complicated or interesting then Europe's.
@@loke6664 keep in mind area outside Chinese proper is cold dessert hostile steppe like Mongolian and Plateau with mountainous terrains like Tibet. And Naval military expedition is expensive better made tribute system.
Very interesting!
Sweet Jesus your criminally underrated
Agreed!
"guns, the world's most efficient instruments of death."
atomic bombs - am I a joke to you?
Such a fascinating subject! I'm always fascinated by the mystery of firearms. Cool beans repping lynfamy
Gunpowder usage for military spread from Song china to Liao dynasty, Jurchens, Tangut, Dali and Vietnam kingdoms before it reached anywhere else in the world through the mongol empire.
Yes, but we know china gunpowder tech not really effective and better than traditional Weapon like Crossbow, its become superior after the birth of Arquebus and later is Matchlock, Flintlock and finally is Rifle, explain why Ming and Asia nation have to adap the west Technology.
Wow CJ I learned something new about Chinese History today. I did not know that about the difference in walls. They did not write that in the textbooks when I studied it! Western Schooling lol.
The thick walls remind me of the bombardment of the tibetan palace by the PlA. The tibetan palace had thick walls with often liquid metal poured between rocks as cement. There are accounts that the palace withstood the bombardment with minimal damage
Whereas Europeans wouldn't build that style of wall until after gunpowder started coming into its own. Star forts and elaborate earthworks were built in response to more powerful cannons, a kind of natural evolution of the arms race. But if the Chinese were already building that sort of thing before it was needed to fend off the most powerful pre-20th century weaponry, I can see how that would lead to different mentalities. Although, the Ming dynasty did see the invention of land mines, so my question is did they use that technology in sieges?
They used land mines during the Siege of Pyongyang in the Imjin War via sappers in conjunction with cannon barrages to bring down sections of the city wall.
@@YuuSHiiiN thank you
One other siege tactics is to dig a tunnel stop right under the enemy wall and put a coffin filled with black powder there.
@@ViscountNo7 Basically what I was asking, whether or not China used sappers and gunpowder.
@@terrorcop101 its insane who china was ahead of everyone before western rising powers
Mongols: we dont need seige. we'll just go around the wall
My that sounds like Maginot
@@tonkinthehanoian1843 It is!
I remember watching ripleys believe it or not show where they showed first manned rocket chair launched by attaching rockets to a chair and a man would sit and launched himself into air! I haven’t done research on it but it would be interesting what this was all about.
Some people: "The Chinese used gunpowder only for fireworks."
Me: "Have you ever seen the Disney movie Mulan?"
Awesome
Very glad I found your channel! You’ve done a marvellous job; such fun animation with witty, well paced commentary. I’ve recommended your videos to my parents/friends, and they are equally impressed. I also love reading the comment section...laughing at all the anti China and Chinese comments...green with envy and national insecurity. 🤣 Keep up the good work!
The Fire Dragon dont Work!
I wonder if Yue Fei ever used gunpowder.
Hmm. I knew how the walls were built but didn’t even consider the comparison to modern armor developement. Which started trickling in in the 1930 in naval armor and late 30s for mechanized weapons
Mate its to different periods of history and two different types of warfare.
iron bombs can easily kills japanese cavalry that are raiding in formations
Italians: Okay okay so... we invented a type of fortified earthwork with cannonbal impact inmutiny because of the energy absortion of the design. This will change all wars in Europe
Chinese: Oh yes... we call that a wall.
(best chanel bro. Saludos desde México)
True xD...I mean for Europe, a high wall can counter ladder rush but it doesn't work well against cannons.
The Italian fortified earthwork gave more active defence i think!
After each cool video, I often wonder how you knew so much in a wide variety of topics of history.
it's not that hard if you speak 3-4 languages. cj might know even more.
@@musAKulture I suspect he not only speaks but reads few languages
Fun fact: they didnt actually blow through Constantinople some dumb guard left the back gate unlocked lol in a fing war too like BRUHHHHH
2:21 me n the boys talkin about theoretical physics and futurism
The classic hat of the Song dynasty; the Haohan hat
There are people *cough* westerners/americans *cough* who actually think China didn’t invent any of these.
Conclusion : use resources wisely and build stamped earth wall, not wasting precious stones.
cool bro.
There is evidence that Andalusians used some type of cannon against the spanish in the late 13th century and that Morocco and spain were another route where europe learned about gunpowder and its military uses
This helps for my 6th Century Mod. Yes I know Gunpowder was is 9th Century and I'm honoured it's 9, but my Mod is Catastrophic for Minecraftia.
Isn't that reference by Wei Boyang considered as a bit murky?
Fire lance, modern day Glock on a great sword
Parry this filthy casual
Can you make a video about Tang Sai’er and the White Lotus?
In due time. Once I get to Ming Dynasty.
Isn't the white lotus from avatar the last airbender
@@jorgenajar9407 It is actually based on a real life cult, and there are more than one groups that called themselves White Lotus.
임진왜란때 딱 한번 쓰고 다시는 안씀. 활을 쏘는거보다 총이 훨씬 효율적임.
소소총통에 철판을 넣고 산탄처럼 발사함. 조준이 힘들면 조준 안하면 됨. 화약의 힘으로 탄환 5~6개 날림.
총이 있는데 저런 무기 궂이 안씀.
Tonio Andrade might be on to something, but there is one problem then, if his theory is true, how come the walls of Xiangyang fell to Counterweight Trebuchets within a matter of days during Kublai's invasion? Would they not have been just as resistant to cannons being one of the major fortresses of the time? And therefore counterweight Trebuchets?
It's implied that cannons are useless against such walls. However, what the Mongols did wasn't to destroy the walls but starve them out. You also don't need to destroy walls when besieging cities. You just need siege towers and siege ladders to climb up the walls and fight your way through the men manning the walls and open the gates. Armies using trebuchets to destroy city walls is just Hollywood candy. Sieges usually happened when armies climbed on top of walls, open the gates and allow the sieging army to rush in. If you wanted to destroy walls in the era before cannons and gunpowder, what you did was employ sappers that destroyed the foundation of the walls so it caves in.
@@Incubator859 Not that I disagree how they were used, but on sources (or maybe it was misquoted on wiki) that the walls specifically fell in days.
That's because not all walls are built the same.
The English supposedly managed to breech a section of a Chinese wall that was about ~6m wide with naval guns that were sent with these soldiers in the 19th Century.
Chinese Walls clearly suck then?
Well, Then you have an account where Pre-WWII Japanese artillery were bombarding a section of the Nanjing wall and it took them pretty much a whole week to make a singular breech.
"We fought our way to Nanking and joined in the attack on the enemy capital in December. It was our unit which stormed the Chunghua Gate. We attacked continuously for about a week, battering the brick and earth walls with artillery, but they never collapsed. The night of December 11, men in my unit breached the wall. The morning came with most of our unit still behind us, but we were beyond the wall. Behind the gate great heaps of sandbags were piled up. We 'cleared them away, removed the lock, and opened the gates, with a great creaking noise. We'd done it! We'd opened the fortress! All the enemy ran away, so we didn't take any fire. The residents too were gone. When we passed beyond the fortress wall we thought we had occupied this city." -Nohara Teishin, on the Japanese capture of Nanjing in 1937
I don't know how thick those walls were, but I have the feeling they were very substantial.
2:37🤣
3:32 The Chinese accent, forming the basis of juvenile humor since the 15th century 😂
Sappers!
Fire arrows!
But sadly, Mongolian first and Manchurian again, the clever and advanced nation lost.
manchurian are made up with most han chinese
Because their government were corrupted as hell before mongols and Manchurians attacked
Ok now why europeans didn't build thicker walls?
❤️❤️❤️
We copy our body
However, one thing always bugged me about ancient chinese guns: why did the barrels remain so short, compared to those that would later be developed in the west?
Chinese empires didn't invest in the metallurgy technology which longer barreled cannons required and which was extremely expensive when most warfare of that time period of China would have been versus enemies which longer barreled cannons would not be cost effective to use against such as mobile steppes tribes or against extremely thick walled cities of China which cannons of that time couldn't breach. The main use would have been naval warfare but the internal politics of China resulted in the navy being destroyed in 1470s and naval power neglected after Zheng He's expeditions due to the pro-naval power faction of Chinese politics losing favor and the ruling class wanting to destroy their accomplishments.
First China lacks copper, so copper cannons are more cost-effective than copper muskets.
Second, this is related to the invention of black gunpowder. The invention of black gunpowder is because Taoist priests make elixir, so ancient China always hoped to make more powerful weapons by adding other substances to black gunpowder, not by studying the formula of black gunpowder. (Charcoal, Sulphur, Saltpeter) composition and ratio increase the damage of Black Powder. Therefore, when black powder arrived in Europe, it was natural to study the composition ratio and chemical principle of black powder. Some professors in China believe that it is precisely because of Europe's demand for increased power of gunpowder in the long wars of the Middle Ages that the study of the location of the shell and the study of the principle of combustion led to the emergence of physics and chemistry.
The third point, I am not very sure, the power of the walls of the European castles and the muskets were upgraded at the same time. The walls of the castles were first made of wood, then stone, and then bastions, which were later found to be useless. Therefore, the power of black gunpowder in Europe is gradually escalating, while in China, black gunpowder faced a city wall with a thickness that allows horses and carts to gallop freely.
The fourth point, I am not sure, the nomads in the north have always been a nightmare in China. Small cavalry teams of dozens of people looting villages happen every year. Therefore, having the Great Wall as a guard station can allow the Chinese cavalry who guard the entire northern border to facilitate patrols to quickly outflank. Because the enemy that China faces is highly mobile and the target is not fixed, the early black powder gun has low range, low hit rate, low rate of fire, easy to explode and misfire (before the invention of fixed-load gunpowder, the amount of gunpowder depends on Gunner's own estimation), has always been used as a backup solution compared to the crossbow.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Bet they were like:
Flowers in the sky, so cool, so magnificent. What if I turn it on you?
informative video. but the reason why china lacked behind in cannon tech was because china had thick walls?
I know this is an old comment but I hope I explain this well.
In Min dynasty, cannon technology was really advanced, they had the world's first flint lock gun, albeit a bit large by size.
However, China was conquered by Manchurian nomads around 1640 and technological advancement had stalled since then.
Manchurians did not see the advantage of flintlock weapons and often suppress these weapons in case of revolt. Basically, the imperial court forbade their civilians from inventing/holding new technology in the pretext of civil stability. This had happened in many different places where the minority group took control of a bigger populace.
That's how minigun work
How do you know that it was just a coincidence?
When did Europeans start playing with rockets?
THE GREAT ASIAN RACE...
But WHY did the Chinese build such massive walls? I mean those walls are much more labour intensive to build? What do you need such massive walls for to withstand?
Time.
@@allenchiu7523 ^^
And yet the temple were made of wood...
@@phelyxz No one attack Temples. They were sacred grounds in Asia. Also temples are mortar clay and bricks. Are you getting your Asians mix up. Maybe not to the Westerners who came and stole many Buddhas back in the day. If you are think about the Shaolin temple that were burn they had furniture and partly wooden structures.
In 1647 AD, a disloyal insider and many Ching loyal troops destroyed the original in Henan. Those who stayed to resist were annihilated. Many fled to the Fukien to continue their resistance. These continuous resistances led to the destruction of the other and scriptures. Manchurians aren't Chinese they did that to demoralize the Chinese people and held back education for over 300 years. Limiting the general populace to classics and agriculture only. Manchurian's occupy and controlled China just like the British Empire controlled India or the Spanish Empire with the Philippines.
@@allenchiu7523 so what do foreigners now have to do with time? plus, the temples were often destroyed by fires over the centuries. my point being: a wall is designed to withstand INVASIONS and/or people. time is less of importance? with temples on he other hand one would assume that they are there to withstand time.
@@phelyxz But WHY did the Chinese build such massive walls? I mean those walls are much more labour intensive to build? What do you need such massive walls for to withstand? The answer is Time since the Chinese at the time won't know if the future Chinese can maintain the wall so they make one that can last the time.. To last all the invasion even when the future is bleak or lacking resources. You suddenly said what about temples? Why are temples made out of wood. Trying to be clever? Well they are made out of mortar and bricks. Not sure whats going on at home, but I wish you well.
Yea we basically handed the seeds of our own destruction and subsequent future wars to Europe 😗🎶 spent so much time fighting fellow asians we didn't spend time to invent new weaponry, just merely improved upon existing techniques/weapons
Can we buy a nest of bees on amazon?
Basically it's just a multi barrel ap rocket in a box, you can easily make one by attaching fire works and spears
That's makes Bruce Lee
Can we get a collaboration with you guys and Linfamy? You're both fuckin awesome, so two times the awesomeness is a no-brainer.
Its a shame you didn't talk about the three Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans of Turkey, Safavids of Persia and Mughals of India. India, in particular, had very advanced gunpowder and cannon technology with British seeing 18th century Mysorean Rocket technology being far superior to the British technology. Indian forts, especially those in Northern Karnataka, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh states having very advanced anti- gunpowder fortifications.
All of the 3 empires u mentioned were already lagging behind western europe by the 1700s
7:49 God the very first version of rocket launchers
That's the medieval version of katyusha
How did I win yo skin
2:23 that's korean army josen
Song dynasty soldiers at least in Southern Song period wear the floppy-type hats + lamellar armor
stop bs, KOREAN COPY CHINESE ARMOR
I thought the movie Xanadu (1980) was just a made up name
This is product of Ho Nguyen Trung at 1407 king Ho Quy Ly Vietnamese, not china
#doneclaiming
I don't know about that fact European walls aren't that thick. I've seen really heavily enforced thick walls in Europe. Much like their castles. Another source I've seen said that it was because Europe had such dense populations residing in wall entrenched cities that they relied heavily on Cannons and hand guns more for sieges to break through it. That was one theory of why Europeans outpaced China in Gun innovations so quickly, because demand and terrain called for it more.
Thicker, sloped walls in europe were mostly built after the advent of cannons.
@@CoolHistoryBros just FYI:
ua-cam.com/video/FE57Fukbcm4/v-deo.html
@@CoolHistoryBros and built slightly differently because they also served the additional function of keeping people from getting to close to the wall and into range of the walls machoculations
Been watching Shad? Lol.
@@lordkent8143 Thanks for the video. There is nothing controversial about the claims.
By the way, this is not an exhaustive list, but here is a comparison of the thickness of some famous walls around the world: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_wall#Dimensions_of_famous_city_walls
You don't need to break through the earthen walls with cannons. You just pound untill you make a slope you can walk onto, then push with infantry
Most likely !
Cool video, although the assumption that the Chinese did not prefect the cannon due to their superior wall building I don't find much credibility in. Furthermore just because there were some walls that were 40m wide, does not mean most of them were. A more probable reason why the west built superior cannons, arquebuses, rifles etc. was likely because there was a greater need for such. Imagine Europe were every bit of land is another country with their own traditions and language, also imagine that these being in a constant state of war (well more or less). The Chinese on the other hand, with their large dynasties experienced more like periods of unrest, and very rarely with anyone outside their sphere of influence.
Also btw, I'm not too sure a wall is superior, if it is scalable without the need for specialist equipment, why destroy a wall when you can just go over it?
Chinese walls are all very thick, 10 meters at least. Also, you can place defenders on a wall, which would make the walls quite unscalable.
The walls are also sloped, and if you are ever wondering why do tanks have sloped armour? Same reason.
The wall theory mentioned in this video is relatively recent but likely has a point - while it's always preferrable to go around defenses instead of breaking through them, at the end of the day you need some sort of plan to break through them if all else fails. In this case, cannons wouldn't have been high on the list since their destructive potential would not have been sufficient in the Medieval/early Modern period even when you look at European/Islamic ones. You also fail to notice that the Chinese were also involved in plenty of wars with neighboring factions in the Middle Ages - these were not nearly as fractured as in Europe, but they most certainly exhibited parallels in the cultural and lingual differences (the "actual" Chinese themselves did not consider these other kingdoms to be Chinese any more than an Englishman would consider a Frenchman to be the same as himself.) Really, the differences between the squabbles of European kingdoms and the Chinese conflict with various Mongolian, Turkic, or Tunguistic peoples are overstated imo.
Instead, I think it's more plausible that their stagnation with gunpowder was due to the nature of these other peoples they warred with. Their main concern was always the various northern peoples who were very proficient with mounted warfare (and happened to control most of the prime grazing land that limited the Chinese' own horse breeding.) While the early Western style of gunpowder warfare was very effective against their older armies of infantry and heavy cavalry, it was not as effective against horse archers or lighter cavalry. This can be seen with the Europeans still taking a long time to quash the remnant Tatar states, the trend towards lighter cavalry in their own armies, the effectiveness of Ming cavalry against the Western style Japanese army in Korea, and ironically the effectiveness of Qing cavalry agains the Ming's own more gunpowder and infantry heavy army.
First
why did you not put in someone using the bamboo firecracker? Why a field on fire?
WTF IS THAT AVATAR
guns probably developed faster in Europe due to competing gunsmiths actively trying to outdo each other with better "products"
Add to the independent smiths the constant warfare of medieval europe and it makes sense they had such a literal arms race going on.
i'll admit, I know little about medieval china, but wasn't it a centralized command economy type state?
presumably the same technological setbacks China had, the Byzantines also had, and probably all the "medieval losers" had as well.
9:33 that made in gogurweo
Yes everything made in Korea lol
#doneclaiming
The first canon were invented in vietnam during the ming after the war.the ming took our prince to china he have too show the ming how it were made.his name was Ho Nguyen trung .he is also the father of vietnamese cannon.
You might need to update your information.
The Song actually suffered with their castle designs compared to the European and Muslim at the time of the Mongol invasion.
The twin Song cities of Fancheng and Xiangyang held back the Mongols for years until the Mongols bought in Persian engineers. They made 20 counter-weight trebuchet that could batter down the Song's walls from a range beyond the Song's siege engines. With a month of bombardment, the Song surrendered due to the destruction of their towers and etc.
Also, the Ottomans never actually took down the walls of the Constantinople. Due to their sizes, the Ottoman huge bombards had a slow rate of fire, as such the Christain defenders were able to repair any damages done to the walls before it could be destroy. Instead, depending on the two accounts, the Ottomans either found a gate left open by sallying defenders or they had a spy open a gate for them to charged in.
Moreover, the Mongols suffered against European stone castles despite having Chinese gunpower weapons. In their first invasion of Hungary, the Mongols failed to take any of the Hungarian stone castles, though they did succeed in taking cities defend by wooden walls amd earthramps. The Hungarians learned from the first invasion and so they constructed more stone castles. These castles along with other improvements allowed the Hungarians to successfully defend against the second Mongol invasion while suffering far fewer losses.
0:45 so you didn't show us how bamboo pops