China is one of the four ancient civilizations . It has a glorious history. In particular, the "Four Great Inventions" have had a profound impact on the world.
We all know that the "Four Great Inventions" are the compass, papermaking , printing, and gunpowder . The compass allows humans to explore further areas without getting lost, and papermaking and printing allow knowledge to be deepened. It was preserved and spread efficiently, but the invention of gunpowder brought disaster to the inventor.
In 1840, with the outbreak of the Opium War, Western powers used guns to blast open the country of the Great Qing . China thus began a painful history. And all this was precisely because of the invention of gunpowder that made war a thing of the past. The cold weapon age has entered the firearm age.
Firearms
It is a pity that while the Western powers were fully armed with long guns and cannons, the Qing Dynasty was still stuck in the era of cold weapons. As the inventor of gunpowder, why did he fail to maintain his leading position in firearms technology and was overtaken by the Western world instead?
The invention of gunpowder was actually very accidental. It was not a conscious creation of the ancients, but a by-product obtained by a group of alchemy Taoist priests when refining the so-called elixir of life, because the process of alchemy requires the use of fierce fire and high temperatures. For burning, alchemists usually mix sulfur, saltpeter and other substances to cause a violent burning reaction. Therefore, there have been frequent incidents of fires or even explosions in alchemy in history.
The famous doctor of the Tang DynastySun Simiao also studied the alchemy of his predecessors, so he recorded the formula of gunpowder. Then, military strategists continued to improve it on the basis of this formula, so that gunpowder could be used in weapons. superior.
Firearms
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, "fire attack" technology was already used in warfare. " Sun Tzu's Art of War" even elaborated on "fire attack" as a separate chapter. After the invention of gunpowder, the effect of fire attacks can be said to be even more powerful.
Before the advent of gunpowder, fire attacks usually involved tying some flammable substances such as grease on the arrows, lighting them and shooting them into the enemy's position. Sometimes they might go out, or they might not hit the flammable substances, and it would have no effect. The effect of fire attack.
But it is different with gunpowder. After the rocket hits the enemy's position, it will explode violently and can spread to a wider range. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, "engine flying fire" appeared on the battlefield. A new type of far beyond strike weapon.
In the Song Dynasty , tubular weapons that fired projectiles appeared again, commonly known as muskets, also called firecrackers. By the time of the Yuan Dynasty, fire tubes and rockets and other large-scale fire weapons were invented. Cannon;
Firearms
After entering the Ming Dynasty, firearms were continuously improved. From guns to cannons, they were fully used on the battlefield. During the war, soldiers holding pistols were divided into three rows, front, middle and back, and they took turns to shoot. This was the most powerful gun in the world at that time. Advanced armed tactics.
Ancient Chinese invented gunpowder, which was used on the battlefield as early as the Tang Dynasty. Firearms appeared in the Song Dynasty. Artillery appeared in the Ming Dynasty. Artillery. . Why was it that by the end of the Qing Dynasty, China’s firearms technology was far away from the West? Left behind?
In fact, the West's use and improvement of Chinese gunpowder has surpassed China's since the 16th century. The most famous example is a Portuguese artillery called "Flan Machine". In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese brought a new type of artillery to the coast of Guangdong. This artillery was divided into two parts: the mother cannon and the mother cannon. The mother cannon was the gun body and the sub-cannons were reloadable shells. Each mother cannon was equipped with There are three sub-cannons that can fire continuously and quickly.
Firearms
After the Ming army generals obtained this artillery, they called it "France artillery" and began to imitate it. Half a century later, a more powerful artillery from the Netherlands was introduced to China, and the Ming Dynasty firearms camp once again imitated it, calling it the "Hongyi Cannon".
Since then, whether it was the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, there was almost no independent innovation in firearms. They all followed the West and could only imitate or import. Why did China's firearms technology stagnate while the West Firearms technology is changing rapidly?
The most important reason for this is that there are two completely different ideas in the East and West. Easterners advocate the theory of the unity of nature and man, believing that everything can be obtained from nature and that man and nature coexist; while Westerners believe The world should be transformed by humans, so they will try their best to create things that do not exist in nature.
Some friends may say: Gunpowder is a Chinese invention. Isn’t this a creation? There is actually a big difference between the invention and creation mentioned here. For example: the gunpowder invented by the Chinese was a combination of substances that already existed in nature, such as sulfur, saltpeter, etc., and did not create new substances;
Firearms
After Westerners learned about the existence of gunpowder, they invented nitroglycerin based on the chemical engineering formula. Nitroglycerin is an organic compound with explosive power far exceeding that of gunpowder. This substance originally did not exist in nature. Because With the emergence of nitroglycerin, the power of Eastern and Western firearms was immediately separated by a large distance.
Secondly, the feudal dynasties in ancient China were afraid that lethal firearms would flow into the people and pose a threat to the court, so they imposed strict restrictions on gunpowder and firearms. In the Ming Dynasty, only those who could come into contact with the development of gunpowder and firearms could There are leaders and craftsmen of a few departments such as the Ordnance Bureau and Wang Gong Factory , but these people are so proud that they will never go to the frontline battlefield. The development of gunpowder and firearms has nothing to do with them, which also severely limits hot weapons. The possibility of development.
Under the dual background of restricted creativity and strict restrictions on gunpowder technology, the firearm technology of gunpowder inventors was surpassed by the West. This is something worthy of our reflection.
