Huolongjing The Huolongjing ( ; Wade - Giles : Huo Lung Ching ; rendered by its translator into English as Fire Drake Manual ; in modern English , Fire Dragon Manual ) is a 14th - century military treatise that was compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Ji of the early Ming Dynasty ( 1368 – 1644 AD ) in China . It outlined the use of various ' fire – weapons ' involving the use of gunpowder . The " Huolongjing " provided information for various gunpowder compositions , including ' magic gunpowder ' , ' poison gunpowder ' , or ' blinding and burning gunpowder ' . It had descriptions of the Chinese hollow cast iron grenade bomb , shrapnel bombs , and bombs with poisonous concoctions . The book had descriptions of the 10th - century Chinese fire arrow , a simple wooden arrow with a spherical soft casing attached to the arrow and filled with gunpowder , ignited by a fuse so that it was propelled forward ( and provided a light explosion upon impact ) . However , the book explained how this simple ' fire arrow ' evolved into the metal - tube launched rocket . The book provided descriptions of various rocket launcher s that launched tons of rockets at a time , the advent of the two stage rocket having a booster rocket igniting a swarm of smaller ones that were shot from the mouth of a missile shaped like a dragon , and even fin – mounted winged rockets . The book described the use of explosive land mines and descriptions of explosive naval mines at sea and on the river ; this incorporated the use of a complex trigger mechanism of falling weights , pins , and a steel wheel lock to ignite the train of fuses . The book described various proto – gun s including the fire lance ( a short - burst flame - thrower that emitted a charge of shrapnel ) , multiple metal barrel handgun s ( with up to ten barrels ) , and descriptions of handguns with possible serpentine locks , used as components in matchlock firearms . The book provided descriptions of the early bombard and cannon , including the use of hollow gunpowder – packed exploding cannonball s , cannon barrels filled with metal balls containing poisonous gunpowder solutions , and cannons that were mounted on wheeled carriages so that they could be rotated in all directions . Although Jiao Yu did not provide the book ' s preface until the Nanyang publication of 1412 AD , the book was previously published in the 14th century ( written before Liu Ji died on May 16 , 1375 ) , and was a compilation of material written since the late 13th century . From his own personal accounts Jiao Yu also described gunpowder weapons that were used since 1355 AD , with his involvement in the Red Turban Rebellion and revolt against Yuan Dynasty Mongol rule . By the 15th century , European innovations in firearms , cannons , and other gunpowder weapons began to surpass Chinese innovation that was made in the 14th century . This included the European breech – loading gun and culverin , the wheellock musket , and then the flintlock musket of the mid 17th century . By the late 16th century , the Chinese adopted Western - style muskets while employing Ottoman Turkish style firing positions . Gunpowder warfare and weapons . Firearms and flamethrowers . The military treatise of Jiao Yu and Liu Ji went into a great amount of detail on the gunpowder weapons of their time . The fire lance and fire tube ( i . e . a combination of a firearm and flamethrower ) came in many different versions and were styled with many different names by the time Jiao Yu edited the " Huolongjing " . The earliest of these were made of bamboo tubes , although the earliest transition to metal was made in the 12th century . Others , according to description and illustrated pictures of the " Huolongjing " , emitted arrows called the ' lotus bunch ' accompanied by a fiery blast . Some of these low – nitrate gunpowder flamethrowers used poisonous mixtures , including arsenious oxide , and would blast a spray of porcelain bits as shrapnel . The earliest depiction of a fire lance is dated c . 950 AD , a Chinese painting on a silk banner found at the Buddhist site of Dunhuang . Furthermore , the oldest existent bronze handgun is from the Heilongjiang archeological excavation , dated to 1288 AD . For that year , the " Yuan Shi " historical text describes the rebellion of the Christian Mongol prince Nayan and the Jurchen - born military commander Li Ting who , along with a Korean brigade conscripted by Kublai Khan , suppressed Nayan ' s rebellion by using foot soldiers armed with handguns and portable bombard s . The earliest metal barrel guns were not designed for high – nitrate gunpowder and a bore – filling projectile ; rather , they were designed for the low – nitrate flamethrower fire lance that shot small co – viative missiles . This was called the ' bandit – striking penetrating gun ' ( ji zei bian chong ) , and was illustrated in a drawing of the " Huolongjing " . In the Islamic world the fire lance first appears in a book of 1280 , written by Hasan al – Rammah , and again appears in a manuscript of 1320 . In Europe the first representation of the fire lance is of a horse – mounted knight wielding the weapon in a Latin manuscript illustration dated to 1396 , and also appeared in an illustration of Taccola ' s " De Mechinis " ( 1449 ) . The " Huolongjing " also described and illustrated metal – barrel handguns as well , including guns with three barrels , five barrels , six barrels , and even up to ten barrels . Furthermore , it described the use of a ' match – holding lance gun ' ( chi huo – sheng qiang ) , it described its arrangement as a match brought down to the touch hole of three gun barrels one after the other . During the reign of the Yongle Emperor ( 1402 – 1424 AD ) , the Shenji Brigade was formed , with cavalry horses that were said to have tubes filled with flammable materials holstered to their sides , along with troops with firearms and light artillery on carriages . In addition to firearms and fire lances , the Huolongjing also illustrated the tall vertical mobile shield to hide and protect infantry gunmen , known as the ' mysteriously moving phalanx – breaking fierce – flame sword – shield ' . This large rectangular shield would have been mounted on wheels , with five rows of six circular holes each where the gun barrels could be placed , and the shield itself would have been accompanied by swordsmen on either side to protect the gunmen . Bombards and cannons . In China , the first cannon – barrel design portrayed in artwork was a stone sculpture dated to 1128 AD , found in Sichuan province , although the oldest archeological discovery of a cannon is a bronze cannon of China inscribed with the date " 2nd year of the Dade era , Yuan Dynasty " ( 1298 AD ) . The prototype to the metal barrel was of course one made of bamboo , which was recorded in use by a Chinese garrison commander at Anlu , Hubei province , in the year 1132 . One of the earliest references to the destructive force of a cannon in China was made by Zhang Xian in 1341 , with his verse known as " The Iron Cannon Affair " . Zhang wrote that its cannonball could " pierce the heart or belly when it strikes a man or horse , and can even transfix several persons at once . " Jiao Yu wrote that the cannon , called the ' eruptor ' , was cast in bronze , and had an average length of 4 ft and 5 in . He wrote that some cannons were simply filled with 100 or so lead balls , but others had large rounds that produced a bursting charge upon impact , called the ' flying – cloud thunderclap eruptor ' ( 飞云霹雳炮 ; feiyun pili pao ) . He wrote of how the Chinese in his day had figured out how to pack hollow cast iron shells of cannonball s with gunpowder to create an explosive effect upon contact with enemy targets . In perspective , exploding cannonball rounds were not discovered in Europe until the 16th century . Furthermore , he noted the use of the ' poison – fog magic smoke eruptor ' , where ' blinding gunpowder ' and ' poisonous gunpowder ' were packed into the hollow cannonball shells , and were effective in burning the faces and eyes of enemies , along with choking them with a formidable spray of poisonous smoke . He wrote that cannons were mounted on frames or on wheeled carriage s , so that they could be rotated in all directions . Land mines and naval mines . The first recorded use of a land mine stated that the officer Lou Qianxia of the late Song Dynasty created them in order to kill invading Mongol troops in 1277 AD . Jiao Yu wrote that land mines were spherical in shape , made of cast iron , and their fuses ignited by the enemy movement disturbing a trigger mechanism . Although his book did not elaborate on the trigger mechanism , a late Ming Dynasty book of 1606 AD revealed that a complex system of a pin release , dropping weights , and chords and axles worked to rotate a spinning ' steel wheel ' that acted as a flint to provide sparks that ignited the mines ' fuses underground . For the use of naval mines , he wrote of slowly burning joss stick s that were disguised and timed to explode against enemy ships floating nearby : In the later " Tiangong Kaiwu " ( ' The Exploitation of the Works of Nature ' ) treatise , written by Song Yingxing in 1637 AD , the ox bladder described by Jiao Yu is replaced with a lacquer bag instead , along with a cord pulled from a hidden ambusher located on the nearby shore , which would release a flint steel – wheel firing mechanism to ignite the fuse of the naval mine . Gunpowder and explosives . There were several gunpowder compositions proposed by Jiao Yu , with additions to the standard formula of saltpetre , sulphur , and charcoal by adapting gunpowder weapons to early chemical warfare . He described the suitable uses of ' magic gunpowder ' , ' poison gunpowder ' , or ' blinding and burning gunpowder ' in warfare , which displays the various amounts of compositions used in his time . For the making of poisonous gunpowder in hand – lobbed or catapult – launched grenade bombs , he advised that a mixture of tung oil , urine , sal ammoniac , feces , and scallion juice be heated and then coated upon dozens of tiny iron pellets and bits of broken porcelain . For this , Jiao Yu wrote " even birds flying in the air cannot escape the effects of the explosion " . His book also outlined the use of the ' flying – sand magic bomb releasing ten thousand fires ' . This included the use of a tube of gunpowder put into an earthenware pot that was previously filled with quicklime , resin , and alcoholic extracts of poisonous plants , which would be released in the explosion . It is important to note that during the 14th century , Chinese gunpowder solutions had reached their maximum explosive potential , with levels of nitrate ranging from 12 % to 91 % and at least 6 formulas in use by the Chinese that were considered to have maximum explosive force . This also came about due to the enrichment of sulfur from pyrite extracts during the earlier Song Dynasty period , while Chinese gunpowder formulas by the late 12th century and at least by 1230 AD were potential enough for explosive detonations and bursting cast iron shells . The root of all this was the Chinese military handbook written in 1044 AD , the " Wujing Zongyao " ; it outlined the earliest use of formulas for gunpowder , employed in bombs hurled by catapults . Later , Wei Xing ( d . 1164 ) of the Song Dynasty was said to have created a gunpowder formula of saltpetre , sulphur , and willow charcoal for his projectile carriages launching ' fire – stones ' up to 400 yards . Although its destructive force was widely recognized even by the 11th century , the Chinese had earlier termed gunpowder as a ' fire – drug ' ( huo yao ) , due to Chinese beliefs in its pharmaceutical properties . Its valuable use in festival entertainment could be seen in fireworks displays , such as the martial demonstration in 1110 AD to entertain the court of Emperor Huizong , with dancers in strange costumes moving through clouds of colored smoke . Leading up to its 10th century use with Fire Arrows and in fuses for igniting flamethrowers shooting Greek Fire , Daoist alchemist s had experimented with various black - powder solutions in the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty . After the " Wujing Zongyao " of 1044 had explicitly stated formulas for gunpowder , the Chinese government became frightened that its use could fall into the hands of surrounding enemies at the borders , and in 1076 enacted a strict governmental monopoly over the production and distribution of sulfur . Although saltpetre was a central component of the ' fire – drug ' and a flavor enhancer for food during the Tang and Song periods , in 1067 the Song government banned the people of modern Shanxi and Hebei provinces to sell foreigners both sulfur and saltpetre in any form . While engaged in a war with the Mongols , in the year 1259 the official Li Zengbo wrote in his " Ko Zhai Za Gao , Xu Gao Hou " that the city of Qingzhou was manufacturing one to two thousand strong iron - cased bomb shells a month , dispatching to Xiangyang and Yingzhou about ten to twenty thousand such bombs at a time . Fire arrows and rockets . For the earliest fire arrows launched from bows ( not rocket launchers ) , Jiao Yu had termed these " fiery pomegranate shot from a bow " . The term pomegranate stemmed from the fact that the lump of gunpowder – filled paper wrapped round the arrow just below the metal arrow – head resembled the shape of a pomegranate . ( This is also the origin of the English term for the modern equivalent , named after the French word for pomegranate : " grenade " . ) Jiao Yu advised that a piece of hemp cloth should be used to strengthen the wad of paper , and then sealed fast with molten pine resin . Although he described the fire arrow in great detail , it was mentioned by the much earlier Xia Shaozeng , when 20000 fire arrows were handed over to the Jurchen conquerors of Kaifeng City in 1126 AD . An even earlier Chinese text of the " Wujing Zongyao " ( 武经总要 , " Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques " ) , written in 1044 AD by the Song scholars Zeng Gongliang and Yang Weide , described the use of three spring or triple bow arcuballista that fired arrow bolts holding gunpowder . Although written much later in 1630 ( second edition in 1664 ) , the " Wulixiaoshi " of Fang Yizhi asserted that fire arrows were presented to Emperor Taizu of Song in 960 AD . Even after the rocket was invented in China the fire arrow continued in use ; this could be seen in the Second Opium War , where Chinese used fire arrows against the French in 1860 . By the time of Jiao Yu , the term ' fire arrow ' had taken on a whole new meaning and incorporated what were the earliest rockets found in China . The simple transition of this was to use a hollow tube ( of bamboo or metal ) instead of a bow or ballista firing gunpowder – impregnated fire arrows . The historian Joseph Needham asserts that this fundamental discovery came sometime before Jiao Yu , however , during the late Southern Song Dynasty ( 1127 – 1279 AD ) . From the section of the oldest passages in the " Huolongjing " , the text reads : In the late 14th century , the Chinese had figured out how to combine the rocket launching tube with the fire lance . This involved three tubes attached to the same staff , and as the first rocket tube was fired , a charge was ignited in the leading tube which expelled a blinding lachrymator y powder at the enemy , and finally the second rocket was fired . A depicted illustration of this was featured in the publication of the " Huolongjing " , where it described the effectiveness of this weapon to confuse the enemy of where the rockets were fired from . Apart from these hand – held rocket launchers , the " Huolongjing " also provided description and illustration for two different kinds of mounted rocket launchers that featured the firing of multiple rockets . There was a cylindrical basket – work rocket launcher called the ' Mr . Facing – both – ways rocket arrow firing basket ' , as well as an oblong – section rectangular box rocket launcher known as the ' magical rocket – arrow block ' . Rockets described in the " Huolongjing " weren ' t all in the shape of standard fire arrows , however , as there were some that had artificial wings attached . An illustration of this was provided , showing that fins were clearly used to increase aerodynamic stability for the flight path of the rocket , which according to Jiao Yu could rise hundreds of feet before landing at the designated enemy target . From an illustration and description in the " Huolongjing " is the oldest known multistage rocket ; this was the ' fire – dragon issuing from the water ' ( huo long chu shui ) , used mostly by the Chinese navy . It was a two – stage rocket that had carrier or booster rocket s that would eventually burn out , yet before they did they automatically ignited a number of smaller rocket arrows that were shot out of the front end of the missile , which was shaped like a dragon ' s head with an open mouth . This multistage rocket may be considered the ancestor to the modern cluster munitions . Needham points out that the written material and depicted illustration of this rocket come from the oldest stratum of the " Huolongjing " , which can be dated roughly 1300 – 1350 AD ( from the book ' s part 1 , chapter 3 , page 23 ) . Historical perspective . Gunpowder warfare found its birthplace in medieval China , yet its technological and methodical perfection would occur outside of it . Although the inventions and written work of Jiao Yu and the Chinese ' fire – weapons ' of his time revolutionized warfare in China , there wasn ' t an incredible amount of Chinese innovation in gunpowder weapons ( i . e . firearms , cannons , etc . ) during the 15th century onwards . With no significant enemies to combat , there was no need to advance gunpowder weaponry ; this is in stark contrast to the competitive European environment , in which failing to adopt and improve gunpowder technology meant conquest by your neighbors . When the Portuguese arrived in China during the early 16th century , they were mostly not very impressed with Chinese firearms in comparison to their own . With the continual progression of the earliest European arquebus , to the matchlock , to the wheellock , and then the advent of the flintlock musket of the 17th century , they surpassed the level of earlier Chinese innovation . The Chinese of the late Ming Dynasty would even adopt the Ottoman Turkish matchlockman ' s kneeling position , while purchasing European firearms for their infantry musketeers . Illustrations of Ottoman and European riflemen with detailed illustrations of their weapons appeared in Zhao Shizhen ' s book " Shenqipu " of 1598 AD . Although not perfected until the 19th century with the cartridge of Samuel Johannes Pauly in 1809 , Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse ' s ' Needle Gun ' in 1836 , and the steel – cast Krupp cannon in the 1850s , the history of the European breech – loading gun spans back to the late 14th century , the earliest models found in Burgundy . Before the improvements by those mentioned above , these early breech loading rifles and cannons were somewhat unsatisfactory due to serious loss of gas when firing , resulting in the decreased force of the propellant . Nevertheless , the 16th century breech – loading model entered China around the time that the Portuguese embassy of Fernão Pires de Andrade came to China in 1517 and was eventually rejected ; Portuguese and Chinese ships battled near Tuen Mun in 1521 and the Portuguese were repelled by the Ming Dynasty navy . These hostilities began when the Malacca Sultanate ( a tributary vassal loyal to the Ming ) was defeated and conquered by the Portuguese under Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511 , and in the process slaughtered a large community of Chinese merchants living there . In 1523 the Chinese navy captured two Western ships with Portuguese breech – loading culverin s aboard , which the Chinese called a " folangji " ( 佛郎機 ; meaning either a Frank or Frankish culverin ) . According to the " Ming Shi " , these cannons were soon presented to the Jiajing Emperor by Wang Hong , and their design was copied in 1529 AD . The Frankish culverin was first illustrated in China in a drawing of a Chinese book published in 1562 . However , earlier Ming records indicate that it was actually the War Ministry official He Ru who first acquired these guns in 1522 , while copies of them were made by two Westernized Chinese at Beijing , Yang San ( Pedro Yang ) and Dai Ming . In an even earlier account of Wang Yangming ( 1472 – 1529 ) , the philosopher and governor of Jiangxi , he intended to use " folangji " cannons in suppressing the rebellion of Prince Zhu Chenhao in 1519 AD . In any case , the arrival of the breech loading rifle and cannon into China signified the beginning of continual European influence upon Chinese firearms and artillery . However , in describing different metals used for cannons , it was Song Yingxing who wrote in his encyclopedia of 1637 that both foreign and uniquely native gunpowder weapons were employed :