[Yufeng]

Jiao Yu (Traditional and Simplified Chinese: 焦玉, Wade-Giles: Chiao Yü, Hanyu Pinyin: Jiāo Yù) was a Chinese military officer loyal to Zhu Yuanzhang (1328-1398 AD), the founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD). He was entrusted by Emperor Hongwu (洪武) as a leading artillery officer for the rebel army that overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and established the Ming Dynasty.[1] As a senior advisor and general, he was later appointed to the venerable and noble status of the Count of Dongning.[2] He edited and wrote a famous military treatise that outlined the use of Chinese military technology during the mid 14th century, as far back as his military campaign of 1355 AD.[1] However, descriptions of advanced gunpowder weapons in his treatise extended back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) in battles against the Khitans, Jurchens and Mongols. In his Huolongjing, he described the fire arrow, fire lance, the early grenade, firearm, matchlocks, bombard, cannon, exploding cannonballs, land mine, naval mine, rocket, rocket launcher, two-stage rockets, and use of various gunpowder solutions that included poisonous concoctions.



Life and career
In his youth, Jiao was an aspiring Confucian scholar, although his studies would not secure a great political future, since the ruling Mongols had restricted the amount of Chinese accepted into their governmental administration. Before Jiao Yu took up the cause against the ruling Mongols over China, he had met an adept Daoist intellect living in the Tiantai Mountains known as Chichi Daoren (the "Knowing-when-to-stop Daoist").[3] Like Jiao Yu, Daoren accepted the Confucian teachings of Confucius and Mencius, but in military affairs Jiao was convinced that he had inherited the skill of the ancient Sun Tzu.[3] After Jiao Yu became his protege, Daoren urged Yu to join the cause of Zhu Yuanzhang's rebellion.[4] Daoren had also shared with him various literatary works on 'fire-weapons' and their recorded uses in battle.[4] After joining his ranks, Jiao Yu became one of Zhu Yuanzhang's trusted confidants in the Red Turban Rebellion against the ruling Mongols of Yuan Dynasty China. Zhu was impressed with Jiao's designs of firearms, the knowledge of which he had earlier acquired from Daoren, yet Zhu wanted to test their abilities. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered his officer Xu Da to provide a demonstration of their destructive capability, and after the display Zhu Yuanzhang was most impressed with their power.[4]

With the aid of Jiao's 'fire-weapons', Zhu's army (once stationed in Hezhou amongst a plethora of different rebel groups in surrounding towns) conquered Jingzhou and Xiangzhou in one expedition, in the second expedition the provinces of Jiang and Zhe, and in the third campaign the entire province of Fujian was taken, including its surrounding waterways.[2] After this, Zhu's army captured the whole of the Shandong province in one campaign, strengthening his base while the authority of the Mongol regime at Beijing was collapsing all around.[2] Zhu Yuanzhang finally drove the Mongols north in 1367, establishing a new capital at Nanjing soon after (while Beijing remained the secondary capital).

After the successful rebellion and establishment of Zhu as China's new Hongwu Emperor, Jiao was put in charge of manufacturing firearms for the government.[4] Jiao was eventually appointed as the head officer in charge of the enormous Shen Zhi Ying Armory, where multitudes of manufactured guns and artillery were deposited for storage and safekeeping.[4] Proper maintenance and safety measures for gunpowder arsenals were taken very seriously by the Chinese during Jiao's time. This was due to the fact that previous disasters occurred during the Song Dynasty, with Prime Minister Zhao Nanchong's personal arsenal catching fire and exploding in 1260 AD,[5] alongside the monumental disaster of the enormous Weiyang arsenal accidentally catching fire in 1280 AD and killing more than 100 people.[6] With Zhu Yuanzhang in power over the government, he established various manufactories in the capital at Nanjing for the manufacture of gunpowder and fire-weapons, stored in various arsenals throughout the country.[4] The Hongwu Emperor even established a new Gunpowder Department in the central administration of the capital.[2] Indeed, Jiao Yu placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of these fire-weapons, as he once wrote in a preface to his book, "the very existence or destruction of the Empire, and the lives of the whole armed forces depend on the exact timing of these weapons. This is what fire-weapons are all about."[3]

Along with the scholar, general, and court advisor Liu Ji (1311-1375), Jiao Yu was the main editor of the 14th century military treatise known as the Huolongjing (Fire Drake Manual), which would include quotations from both editors.[7] The Nanyang publication of the book, known as the Huolongjing Quanzhi (Fire Drake Manual in One Complete Volume) featured a preface written by Jiao Yu much later in 1412 AD. Both publications falsely attributed the earliest passages of the book to the ancient Chinese Prime Minister Zhuge Liang (181-234 AD) of the Shu Kingdom,[7] even though gunpowder warfare did not exist in China until the advent of the gunpowder-fuse-ignited flamethrower (Pen Huo Qi) in the 10th century.[8] In any case, the oldest passages found in the Huolongjing were made no earlier than circa 1270 AD.[9]

Although Jiao Yu's biography does not appear in the official Ming historical text of the Ming Shi (1739), Yu was mentioned in Zhao Shizhen's book Shenqipu (1598 AD), He Rubin's book Binglu (1606 AD), and Jiao Xu's book Zekelu (1643 AD).[4] His text of the Huolongjing was also reprinted in the 19th century, during the late Qing Dynasty.[7]



The Huolongjing

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) era matchlock firearms featuring serpentine levers.The Huolongjing (Simplified Chinese: 火龙神器阵法), compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Zhi, outlined the use of many different gunpowder weapons found in China during the 14th century. It provided information for:

Various gunpowder compositions[10]
Descriptions of the Chinese hollow cast iron grenade bomb[11]
Descriptions of the Chinese fire arrow.[12]
The Fire Arrow is a projectile weapon that uses black powder. Many variations of this weapon were used in Asia, though it originated in China. The earliest reference to its use comes in the Collection of the Most Important Military Techniques written in 1044. It was first reported to be used by the Southern Wu in 904 during the siege of Yuzhang[1] and by the Song and Jin dynasties in:

March 1, 1126, the Thunderbolt Thrower, used by the Song general Li Gang during the siege of Kaifeng,[2] and again in 1161 by General Yu Yunwen at Caishi, near present day Ma'anshan, Anhui, during a Jin maritime incursion.[3]
1221, the Thundercrash Bombs, used by the Jin invaders during the attack of Qizhou, which were exploding grenades filled with black powder rather than incendiary bombs filled with molten material, and lastly in 1232 when the Jin repelled the Mongolians in the battle of Kaifeng. They also used in this battle the Flying Firelances, which were bamboo tubes stuffed with black powder; the tube was ignited and used as a flamethrower.[4]
The Fire Arrow was the first rocket in mechanism and design.[5] It was made in a variety of forms and launched in diverse manners, but the first design consisted of a pouch of black powder with a stick attached; the arrows were launched from a stand of bamboo sticks. Like the fins on a modern rocket, the long stick on a fire arrow increases stability and accuracy.

Gunpowder and knowledge of rocketry were later introduced to Korea, and evolved into the singijeon. Ironically, the Mongols, against whom the Chinese had primarily used the weapon, also made use of the fire arrow during their campaigns in Japan.[citation needed] As a result of the Mongolian campaigns the fire arrow later spread into the Middle East.


Descriptions of explosive land mines.[13]
Explosive landmines were being used in 1277 AD by the Song Dynasty Chinese against an assault of the Mongols, who were besieging a city in southern China. The invention of this detonated "enormous bomb" was accredited to one Lou Qianxia of the 13th century.[4] The famous 14th century Chinese text of the Huolongjing, which was the first to describe hollow cast iron cannonball shells filled with gunpowder,[5] was also the first to describe the invention of the landmine in greater detail than references found in texts written beforehand.[4] This mid 14th century work during the late Yuan Dynasty stated that mines were made of cast iron and were spherical in shape, filled with either 'magic gunpowder', 'poison gunpowder', or 'blinding and burning gunpowder', any one of these compositions being suitable for use.[6] The wad of the mine was made of hard wood, carrying three different fuses in case of defective connection to the touch hole.[6] In those days, the Chinese relied upon command signals and carefully timed calculation of enemy movements into the minefield, since a long fuse had to be ignited by hand from the ambushers in a somewhat far-off location lying in wait.[7] However, the Huolongjing also describes landmines that were set off by enemy movement, called the 'ground-thunder explosive camp', one of the 'self-trespassing' (zifan) types, as the text says:

These mines are mostly installed at frontier gates and passes. Pieces of bamboo are sawn into sections nine feet in length, all septa in the bamboo being removed, save only the last; and it is then bandaged round with fresh cow-hide tape. Boiling oil is next poured into (the tube) and left there for some time before being removed. The fuse starts from the bottom (of the tube), and (black powder) is compressed into it to form an explosive mine. The gunpowder fills up eight-tenths of the tube, while lead or iron pellets take up the rest of the space; then the open end is sealed with wax. A trench five feet in depth is dug (for the mines to be concealed). The fuse is connected to a firing device which ignites them when disturbed.[7]

The Huolongjing describes the trigger device used for this as a 'steel wheel', which directed sparks of flame onto the connection of fuses running to the multiple-laid land mines underneath the carefully-hidden trap.[8] However, further description of how this flint device operated was not made until a Chinese text of 1606 AD revealed that a weight drive (common in medieval clockworks) had been used to work the 'steel wheel'.[8] The way in which the Chinese land mine trigger worked was a system of two steel wheels rotated by a falling weight, the chord of which was wound around their axle, and when the enemy stepped onto the disguised boards they released the pins that dropped the weights.[9] In terms of global significance, the first wheellock musket in Europe was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci around 1500 AD, although no use of metal flint for gunpowder weapons were known before that point in Europe.[8]

Besides the use of steel wheels providing sparks for the fuses, there were other methods used as well, such as the 'underground sky-soaring thunder'.[10] The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) text of the Wu Bei Zhi (Treatise on Armament Technology), written by Mao Yuanyi in 1628, outlined the use of land mines that were triggered by the heat of a slow-burning incandescent material in an underground bowl placed directly above the train of fuses leading to the mines buried 3 ft beneath.[11] The booby trap of this mine system had a mound where weapons of halberds, pikes, and lances were dug in, meant to entice the enemy to walk up the small mound and claim their stolen prize of war booty.[10] When the weapons were removed from the mound, this movement disturbed the bowl beneath them where the butt ends of the staffs were, which in turn ignited the fuses.[11] According to the Wubei Huolongjing volume of the 17th century, the formula for this slow-burning incandescent material allowed it to burn continuously for 20 to 30 days without going out.[11] This formula included 1 lb of white sandal wood powder, 3 oz of iron rust (ferric oxide), 5 oz of 'white' charcoal powder (from quicklime), 2 oz of willow charcoal powder, 6 oz of dried, ground, and powdered red dates, and 3 oz of bran.[11]

The Chinese also employed the use of the naval mine at sea and on the rivers of China and elsewhere in maritime battles.


Descriptions of explosive naval mines.[14]
The first recorded use of naval mines was by the early Ming Dynasty Chinese artillery officer Jiao Yu, in his 14th century military treatise known as the Huolongjing.[1] Chinese records tell of the first practical naval mines in the 16th century, used to fight against Japanese pirates Wokou. This kind of naval mine was loaded in a wooden box, sealed by putty. General Qi Jiguang made several timed explosive drifting mine to destroy Japanese pirate ships.[2] However, in the Tian Gong Kai Wu ('The Exploitation of the Works of Nature') treatise, written by Song Yingxing in 1637 AD, it describes naval mines with a rip cord pulled from a hidden ambusher located on the nearby shore, which would in turn rotate a steel wheellock flint mechanism to produce sparks and ignite the fuse of the naval mine.[3] Although Yingxing's writing represents the rotating steel wheellock's first use with naval mines, Jiao Yu had actually described their use for land mines back in the 14th century.[4]


Descriptions of fire lances and proto-guns.[15]
The earliest fire lances were spear-like weapons combining a tube containing gunpowder and projectiles tied to a Chinese spear. Upon firing, the charge ejected a small projectile or poison dart along with the flame. These fire lance had a range of only a few feet. Being a weapon that combines with a spear, it was initially used as a hand-to-hand weapon with the gunpowder shot designed to give the wielder an edge in close-quarter combat.

Inventors soon saw the merit in the gunpowder/tube design and fire lances then appeared independent of the spear.

Diagrams, illustrations and books from the 10th century show the fire lance being used in battle, but it saw the most prolific usage during early to mid Song Dynasty, when various northern peoples encroached on Chinese soil. These short-ranged, one-shot, disposable weapons were often held in racks on city walls and gave Chinese defenders a tremendous tactical and psychological advantage when fired in volleys. They were ideal for dealing with enemies trying to scale city walls, or for holding the enemy at bay behind a breached gate.


[edit] History
The first fire-lances were seen in China during the 10th century, but by about 1260 they had developed into a variety of forms and although normally associated with peasant rebels, regular Sung troops also used them, their use by cavalry being described at the siege of Yangchow in 1276. They were cheap and popular for several centuries sometimes being used in racks to defend cities and remained in use until well after the Ming period. The development of gunpowder in the fire lance to have enough force to hurl a killing projectile was a key step along the development of the first true guns.

This weapon paved the way for further improvements to gunpowder weapons and is the direct ancestor of the modern-day firearm and artillery.


Descriptions of bombards and cannons.[16]
Ctesibius of Alexandria invented a primitive form of a cannon, operated by compressed air, before 200 BC. [3]

"Fire lances", gunpowder-propelled arrows, were used in China from at least 1132 AD. The first documented record of artillery with gunpowder propellant used on the battlefield is Huochong used in 1132 to capture a city in Fujian, and by 1161 the Song Dynasty navy on the Yangtze River employed trebuchet catapults to launch gunpowder bombs.[4] Around 1249, the Song Dynasty began to load early gunpowder in the middle of thick bamboo as a projection firearm, firing clay pellets like a shotgun. During the Song Dynasty, portable firearms were introduced in the form of bronze tubes that fired iron balls. Eventually, perishable bamboo was replaced with hollow tubes of cast iron, and so too did the terminology of this new weapon change, from 'fire-spear' ('huo qiang') to 'fire-tube' ('huo tong').[5] Furthermore, by the mid 14th century, the Chinese had discovered how to create explosive cannonballs, by packing their hollow shells with gunpowder.[6] This was described in the medieval Chinese military treatise of the Huolongjing.

Mortars with bronze tubes or bronze first appeared when the Song Dynasty fought the Mongols,[7][8] taking up the use of "true" gunpowder instead of the slower-burning older mixture - which made the early Huochong cannon more reliable and powerful. The Chinese mounted more than 3,000 bronze and iron casted cannons on the Great Wall of China in defence against the Mongols. The weapon was taken up by the Mongol conquerors later, and was also used in Korea.


Descriptions of hollow, gunpowder-packed exploding cannonballs[17]

Descriptions of handguns with possible serpentines used as components in matchlocks.[18]
The Matchlock was the first mechanism or "lock" invented to facilitate the firing of a hand-held firearm. This design removed the need to lower a lighted match into the flash pan by hand and made it possible to have both hands free to keep a firm grip on the weapon at the moment of firing, and more importantly to keep both eyes on the target.

The classic European matchlock gun held a burning slow match in a clamp at the end of a small curved lever known as the serpentine. Upon pulling a second lever (or in later models a trigger) protruding from the bottom of the gun and connected to the serpentine, the clamp dropped down, lowering the burning match into the flash pan and igniting the priming powder. The flash from the primer travelled through the touch hole igniting the main charge of propellant in the gun barrel. On releasing the lever or trigger, the serpentine would move in reverse, and bring the match out of the pan.

Earlier models only had a serpentine pinned to the stock either behind or in front of the flash pan (the so-called "serpentine lock"), one end of which was manipulated to bring the match into the pan.

A variety of matchlock was also developed called the snapping matchlock, in which the serpentine was strongly spring-loaded, and released by pressing a button, pulling a trigger, or pulling a short string passing into the mechanism. As the match was often extinguished after its relatively violent collision with the flash pan, this type fell out of favour with soldiers, but was often used in fine target weapons.


Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) Chinese matchlock firearms.An inherent weakness of the matchlock was the necessity of keeping the match constantly lit. Being the sole source of ignition for the powder, if the match was not lit when the gun needed to be fired, the mechanism was useless, and the weapon became little more than an expensive club. This was chiefly a problem in wet weather, when damp match cord was difficult to light and to keep burning. Another drawback was the burning match itself. At night, the match would glow in the darkness, potentially giving away the carrier's position. The distinctive smell of burning match-cord was also a give away of a musketeer's position (this was used as a plot device by Akira Kurosawa in his movie Seven Samurai). It was also quite dangerous when soldier were carelessly handling large quantities of gunpowder(for example, while refilling their powder horns) with lighted matches present. This was one reason why soldiers in charge of transporting and guarding ammunition were amongst the first to be issued self-igniting guns like the wheellock and snaphance.

The matchlock was invented in Europe some time in the mid 1400s, although the idea of the serpentine appears some 40 years previously in an Austrian manuscript. The first dated illustration of a matchlock mechanism dates to 1475, and by the 1500s they were universally used. The technology was transported to India, China and Japan (in 1543) by the Portuguese


Description of rocket launchers[19] and two stage rockets.[20]
Rocket technology first became known to Europeans following their use by the Mongols Genghis Khan and Ögedei Khan when they conquered parts of Russia, Eastern, and Central Europe. The Mongolians had stolen the Chinese technology by conquest of the northern part of China and also by the subsequent employment of Chinese rocketry experts as mercenaries for the Mongol military. Reports of the Battle of Sejo in the year 1241 describe the use of rocket-like weapons by the Mongols against the Magyars.[4] Rocket technology was also spread to Korea, with the 15th century wheeled hwacha that would launch singijeon rockets.

Additionally, the spread of rockets into Europe was also influenced by the Ottomans at the siege of Constantinople in 1453, although it is very likely that the Ottomans themselves were influenced by the Mongol invasions of the previous few centuries. They appear in literature describing the capture of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongols.[4]


Descriptions of winged rockets with fins attached for better aerodynamic stability[21]


For more, see the article on the Huolongjing.

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Yufeng Notes
1.One can imagine how almighty Zheng He fleets are when he sailed to the Seven Seas. The sheer firepower of the Ming arms and cannons are able to overrun any kingdom. Even the Japanese Shogun and the Emperor wished to obtain the Seal of the Ming Dynasty for peace and trade.

2. Liu Ji who aided Zhu Yuanzhang to defeat the Mongol was named the greatest military genius of the Ming Dynasty ever, after Zhang Liang of old.