The gunpowder weapons of the Song Dynasty can be roughly divided into three categories: inflammable, explosive and tubular firearms. Among them, the first two types need to be combined with projectile crossbows or stone throwers, and use them to project or directly burn or explode the enemy. The tube-shaped firearms, such as the conventionally invented flamethrower and later flaming guns, were directly held by soldiers to attack the enemy. So as to be closer to modern firearms.
One, inflammable firearm. The so-called incendiary firearms are first to apply gunpowder directly to the arrow head, and then fire with crossbows and whip arrows, such as rockets, gunpowder and whip arrows, etc.; the second is to make a bullet-type fireball, and then use a crossbow or a stone thrower. Launch, such as artillery, trigger cannon, iron-mouthed fire, bamboo fire parrot, smoke ball, poison smoke ball, etc.
Among several types of firearms, combustible firearms appeared the earliest. Xu Dong said: “The flying firearms refer to artillery and rockets.” Song Shi’s so-called “artillery”, of course not Modern tubular artillery uses manpower rappels to project various firelighters. "Rocket, apply gunpowder to the head of the arrow, the crossbow is universal." Gunpowder whip and arrow, "After five or two clusters of gunpowder, they are broadcasted." The so-called "fire bow and arrow" and "fire crossbow arrow" are fired with a bow and a crossbow respectively.
Second, explosive firearms mainly include thunderbolt fireball and tribulus fireball. Because the explosive power of black powder is not great, the explosive firearms of the Song Dynasty cannot directly wound people with the power of explosion like modern yellow powder. Although this type of weapon also uses the explosive power of black powder, the explosion itself has no lethal effect. , But use explosive force to diffuse smoke, lime or toxic gas. For example, according to the first volume 11 and 12 of the "Wu Jing Zong Yao", the thunderbolt fireball uses three or four catties of gunpowder, which is specially used to cast in the tunnel. "Use the fire cone to burn the ball, and the sound is like a thunderbolt, with a bamboo fan To wink its smoke and flames to burn the enemy." Xianli fireball also uses gunpowder, "with three sticks and six iron blades", "with eight Tie Xianli", and throws it with a cannon, "the iron cone is burnt through when it is released, and the flames will come out", and Tie Xian burst out with the explosive force. The killing of the enemy by Li and others can be regarded as an explosive weapon in the true sense. The iron shell of the iron artillery is filled with gunpowder, and when it explodes, it bursts with iron pieces, killing and injuring the enemy, which is close to the artillery shells of later generations.
Third, the prototype of a tubular firearm. The advent of tube-shaped firearms was a great progress, and later generations of guns evolved from tube-shaped firearms. The first tube-shaped firearm recorded in historical records was the long bamboo firearm used by Chen Guishou Dean (now Anlu, Hubei) in the second year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1132). It used bamboo as a tube and contained gunpowder. One", ignited immediately, sprayed flames, and burned the enemy's siege equipment "Flyover".
This is the earliest tube-shaped jet firearm, which can make the ignited gunpowder jet the flame in a directional concentration. This technology has developed in the future. In the fifth year of Shaoding in the Southern Song Dynasty, when the Mongolian army attacked Jinnan, the flying musket used by the defending golden army tied the paper gunpowder to the spear handle. In close combat, it could not only injure people, but also stabbed in combat. Although it is a "flying fire", the gunpowder is also mixed with iron and magnetic powder, and it is ejected at the same time as the flame, which can also have a certain killing effect. In the first year of Emperor Lizong’s Kaiqing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1259), Shouchun Mansion further created the earliest tube-shaped firearm—the bulging gun. It “takes rectangular bamboo as the tube and puts the case inside. , Like the sound of a gun, more than a hundred and fifty steps away." This is the first successful attempt by mankind to launch projectiles with chemical energy after more than a century of long-term exploration. This weapon is also very dangerous to the user itself, so it was not favored at the time. But this is also an important step in the development history of early firearms, and solved a major technical problem for the further invention of metal tubular firearms.
Reference material
【1】宋史
