YO BOIZ...!!!! Guest what i found!!!

"  Gunpowder is somewhat like Nukes in these days- those who have it don't want to teach it to other nations."

Far from it, early gunpowder is far from anything decisive, armies without gunpowder constantly triumph over those that does.

"This is, in fact, the earliest reference to true gunpowder, because even if a crude powder was invented during the Sung, the first reference to true gunpowder in China dates to the Yuan period. Whether or not it was a parallell invention we'll never now, but it doesn't matter since the issue was firearms - I just wanted to provide some background. "

The WuJinZhongYao did mention these ingredients.

The earliest excavation of handgun is a Yuan ynasty metal barreled gun dating to 1271 and 34.6cm long, with a calibre of 2.6cm,

"Then, for probably the first time in history, European technology travelled to China and not the other way around, mostly through Jesuits cooperating with Chinese scientists. The Portuguese introduced firearms in Japan in the mid 16th century, where it was quickly adopted - the Japanese soon made their own weapons, of top notch quality. "

Actually, when the Jesuit came the technology of China travelled to Europe at a pace never seen before. The technology travelled both ways. Jesuits wrote many articles about Chinese technology to Europe. Many of which regarding to agricultural methods, perhaps the seed drill and certain plows are traveled to Europe in which part of the agricultural revolution of Europe had its origin from. The Jesuits letters is clear from one quote "Its not just enough to spread our knowledge to the Chinese, but even more importantly, what they have to offer us." Other physical technology also traveled to europe such as paddle wheel boats. Then there is intellectual writing such as the Chinese administration and bureucracy as well as its system of meristocracy.

That's exactly what I meant, and your logic is still flawed.  Your point was this: that one wouldn't give / sell / exchange / teach military secrets such as how to make guns.  The Europeans did sell military secrets for a number of reasons, as you noted.  Hence this logic fails as a general rule.

Are you saying that the Indians got a bunch of rifles but never used them the way they were intended to?

Actually how to make nukes are taught, they are just not allowed to actually make them......

Gun powder formular from WuJinZhongYao:

For Canon

�ʦ{�����Q�|��B�۶��C��]�笰�������@�ء^�B�K�v�G��b�B�¯� �@��B�����@��B�w���@��B����@��B�����@��B�����b��B�M�o �@���B��o�b��B�Q�פ@�Q�|��B�@�o�@���C

For Spiked Canon balls

�����@��|��B�K�v�G��b�B�]�P�ʡ^��������B�w�C�G��b�B���� �G��b�B�˯��@��@���B�¯��@��@���B��o�G��b�B�p�o�G��b�B ���G��b�����@��@���C

For Poison gas Canon balls

�����@�Q����B�K�v�@��Q�|��B��Q�Y����B�ݨ�����B�T�r���� �B��o�G��b�B�p�o�G��b�B�쬴������B�w�M�G��b�B�����G��B �����@��B�˯��@��@���B�¯��@��@���C

Hmm.... 2 teaspoon of this one table spoon of that, I am getting hungry...

By the way, looking at the formulas, the saltpeter contain percentage is not the ideal mix for today's canon bullets.  This results in the Canon ball did not make strong explosions, rather it made large sound and burn.

This is probably due to the canon was not as well made as later European improvements.  Therefore canon ball pakced with strong explosive could often result in exploding in the barrel, causing more damage to the user.

Therefore poison gas is used instead.

A interesting thing is the use of Asphalt in the canon ball.  Burning asphalt does produce pretty poisoness gas.

To Styrbiorn:

   "The answer of the two first is quite surely the Chinese, the third is a bit harder though. The earliest Chinese gun is indeed the Yuan piece from 1332, while the earliest European is the Loshult gun from the same period. There are older references to metallic guns in Europe though, dating from the period before 1300. However it's quite impossible to tell who were the first - but whatever the answer is, it was surely a parallell invention anyway. "

    I said"Let's consider...", so, I 'm not making a conclusion.In fact, I tend to agree with your viewpoint about the third "first" if the record you presented were trustworthy. Europeans were bright guys at that time,I especially admire their good appetite in the following history.

    As for the Edition of WuJinZhongYao, I don't know what the edition will prove.On my bookcase,the edition of most Chinese classic works,such as The Record of Histroy(ShiJi by Si Ma Qian of Han Dynasty), Zhuo Zhuan(History of Spring and Autum period),etc.  were during 1990s. But this does not mean that the content were changed by Chinese guys in 1990s.

Hey demon,

Are you saying that you have seen documentations saying that the Chinese dynastic states made an effort to keep formulas of guns and gunpowder a secret, or are you just guessing that the Chinese government rationally wouldn't do that?  If it's the former, I'd be interested to see your documents. 

If it's the latter, then you're still missing my point: the point is that you're imagining ancient Chinese government to operate like the Pentagon -- you're employing the problematic logic of hindsight.  Fact is that the knowledge of both guns and gunpowder could have been well known among craftsman (the legend, I believe, was that gunpowder was first discovered by Taoist priests accidentally stumbling upon it when they were trying to make the medicine of immortality.  It was not a state funded project.)  It's insane for the Chinese government to leak that info, but greedy Chinese merchants wouldn't have cared about "national" security.

Peace,

Michael

12-12-2004