Early Military Use of Gunpowder

Timeline

1. 808–900Alchemical studios in Jiangnan and the Central Plains · ChinaStandard gunpowder histories treat the 808 Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue and the Zhenyuan Miaodao Yaolüe of about fifty years later as the earliest confirmable gunpowder-related records. The latter warns that refining saltpeter, sulfur, realgar, and honey together can cause fire and injury. This stage belongs to alchemical 'fire methods' and was not yet a standardized weapon.
2. c. 904–969Around Yuzhang (present-day Nanchang) · JiangxiIn 904, during the Southern Wu siege of Yuzhang (present-day Nanchang), Yang Xingmi's subordinate Zheng Fan ordered troops to 'trigger machines and release flying fire' to burn Longsha Gate; later interpreters take flying fire to mean incendiaries such as fire arrows. Song Shi records that in 969 Yue Yifang and Feng Jisheng presented a fire-arrow method, but Joseph Needham and others hold that the Wujing Zongyao formula was not yet suitable as a rocket propellant, so it should not be called a mature rocket.
3. 1000–1044The two capitals and frontier towns · ChinaBy the early 11th century, records of Song incendiary weapons such as fire balls and fire arrows increased. The Wujing Zongyao, completed in 1044, records gunpowder formulas and is the earliest surviving compilation of military formulas (the 1044 first edition is lost; the extant text is a Ming printing). At this stage gunpowder had not yet changed the basic shape of the battlefield.