A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually disappeared as the use of heavy armour declined, but musket continued as the generic term for smoothbore long guns until the mid-19th century. In turn, this style of musket was retired in the 19th century when rifled muskets using the Minié ball became common. The development of breech-loading firearms using self-contained cartridges and the first reliable repeating rifles produced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1860 also led to their demise. By the time that repeating rifles became common, they were known as simply "rifles", ending the era of the musket.
The hand cannon, also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms, as well as the most mechanically simple form of metal barrel firearms. Unlike matchlock firearms it requires direct manual external ignition through a touch hole without any form of firing mechanism. It may also be considered a forerunner of the handgun. The hand cannon was widely used in China from the 13th century onward and later throughout Eurasia in the 14th century. In 15th century Europe, the hand cannon evolved to become the matchlock arquebus, which became the first firearm to have a trigger.
Singijeon or shinkichon was a type of Korean fire arrow rocket, used during the era of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897). Multiple singijeon could be launched by hwacha.
Fire arrows were one of the earliest forms of weaponized gunpowder, being used from the 9th century onward. Not to be confused with earlier incendiary arrow projectiles, the fire arrow was a gunpowder weapon which receives its name from the translated Chinese term huǒjiàn (火箭), which literally means fire arrow. In China a 'fire arrow' referred to a gunpowder projectile consisting of a bag of incendiary gunpowder attached to the shaft of an arrow. Fire arrows are the predecessors of fire lances, the first firearm.
The hwacha or hwach'a was a multiple rocket launcher and an organ gun of similar design which were developed in fifteenth century Korea. The former variant fired one or two hundred rocket-powered arrows while the latter fired several dozen iron-headed arrows or bolts out of gun barrels. The term was used to refer to other war wagons or other cart-based artillery in later periods, such as that developed by Byeon Yijung in the 1590s.
The Joseon Navy was the navy of the Korean dynasty of Joseon. While originally commissioned to protect merchant vessels and coastal towns from Japanese pirate raids, the Joseon navy is best known for defeating the Japanese naval forces during the Imjin War and is often credited with halting the Japanese invasion campaign and saving the dynasty from conquest.
Ch'oe Mu-sŏn was a medieval Korean chemist, inventor, and military general during the late Goryeo Dynasty and early Joseon Dynasty. He is best known for enabling Korea to domestically produce gunpowder by obtaining a recipe for the Chinese commodity from a Chinese merchant, as well as inventing various gunpowder-based weapons in an attempt to repel the wokou pirates that plundered coastal regions of the Korean Peninsula.
Huochong was the Chinese name for hand cannons. The oldest confirmed metal huochong, also the first cannon, is a bronze hand cannon bearing an inscription dating it to 1298.
A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long barreled gun which needs to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder. Handguns have shorter effective ranges compared to long guns, and are much harder to shoot accurately. While most early handguns are single-shot pistols, the two most common types of handguns used in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, although other handguns such as derringers and machine pistols also see infrequent usage.
The Huolongjing, also known as Huoqitu, is a Chinese military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen of the early Ming dynasty (1368–1683) during the 14th century. The Huolongjing is primarily based on the text known as Huolong Shenqi Tufa, which no longer exists.
Gunpowder is the first explosive to have been developed. Popularly listed as one of the "Four Great Inventions" of China, it was invented during the late Tang dynasty while the earliest recorded chemical formula for gunpowder dates to the Song dynasty. Knowledge of gunpowder spread rapidly throughout Asia and Europe, possibly as a result of the Mongol conquests during the 13th century, with written formulas for it appearing in the Middle East between 1240 and 1280 in a treatise by Hasan al-Rammah, and in Europe by 1267 in the Opus Majus by Roger Bacon. It was employed in warfare to some effect from at least the 10th century in weapons such as fire arrows, bombs, and the fire lance before the appearance of the gun in the 13th century. While the fire lance was eventually supplanted by the gun, other gunpowder weapons such as rockets and fire arrows continued to see use in China, Korea, India, and this eventually led to its use in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Bombs too never ceased to develop and continued to progress into the modern day as grenades, mines, and other explosive implements. Gunpowder has also been used for non-military purposes such as fireworks for entertainment, or in explosives for mining and tunneling.
A gun is a device designed to propel a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid, or gas. Solid projectiles may be free-flying or tethered. A large-caliber gun is also called a cannon.
The Chongtong was a term for military firearms of Goryeo and Joseon dynasty. The size of chongtong varies from small firearm to large cannon, and underwent upgrades, which can be separated in three generation type. The well-known "Cheonja", "Jija", "Hyeonja", and "Hwangja" were named after the first four characters of the Thousand Character Classic in decreasing size, thus making them equivalent to Cannons A, B, C, and D.
A bo-hiya was an early Japanese rocket launcher and development of the fire arrow.
This is a timeline of the history of gunpowder and related topics such as weapons, warfare, and industrial applications. The timeline covers the history of gunpowder from the first hints of its origin as a Taoist alchemical product in China until its replacement by smokeless powder in the late 19th century.
Cetbang were cannons produced and used by the Majapahit Empire (1293–1527) and other kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago. There are 2 main types of cetbang: the eastern-style cetbang which looks like a Chinese cannon and is loaded from the front, and the western-style cetbang which is shaped like a Turkish and Portuguese cannon, loaded from the back.
The Ming dynasty continued to improve on gunpowder weapons from the Yuan and Song dynasties as part of its military. During the early Ming period larger and more cannons were used in warfare. In the early 16th century Turkish and Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and matchlock firearms were incorporated into the Ming arsenal. In the 17th century Dutch culverin were incorporated as well and became known as hongyipao. At the very end of the Ming dynasty, around 1642, Chinese combined European cannon designs with indigenous casting methods to create composite metal cannons that exemplified the best attributes of both iron and bronze cannons. While firearms never completely displaced the bow and arrow, by the end of the 16th century more firearms than bows were being ordered for production by the government, and no crossbows were mentioned at all.
A Java arquebus is a long-barreled early firearm from the Nusantara archipelago, dating back to the early 16th century. The weapon was used by Javanese armies, albeit in low number compared to total fighting men, before the arrival of Iberian explorers in the 16th century. In historical records, the weapon may be classified as arquebus or musket.
Jiaozhi arquebus refers to several types of gunpowder firearms produced historically in Vietnam. This page also includes Vietnamese muskets — since the early definition of a musket is a "heavy arquebus". The term Jiaozhi arquebus comes from Chinese word Jiao Chong, a generalization of firearms originating from Dai Viet.
The Joseon Army was the army of the Korean dynasty of Joseon (1392–1897). The army defended the northern borders but seldom defended the southern regions. The army was best known for fending off the Jurchen raids and conquering the Korean Peninsula. However, Joseon's neo-Confucianism disavowed military development, causing them to be vulnerable to Japanese and Manchu invasions. Despite this, Joseon kept strengthening the army until the 19th century, when western powers and the Japanese forced them to open doors and modernize the army.
