Cathayan Arrows and Meteors: The Origins of Chinese Rocketry

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/22127453-12341243

Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 28-42 brill.com/jcmh

Cathayan Arrows and Meteors: The Origins of Chinese Rocketry

Stephen G. HawIndependent Scholar

[email protected]

AbstractAlthough it is now generally accepted that the rocket was invented in China, there is little agreement about exactly when this occurred. Various conflicting claims have been made, usually on the basis of dubious evidence. This article examines these claims and rejects all of them. It also discounts the hypothesis that the rocket developed from a kind of firework called a “fire-rat.” Instead, it suggests that the rocket very probably developed from Chinese fire-arrows, which carried charges of incendiary gunpowder. These became rocket-assisted arrows, fired from bows or, very often, arbalests. They achieved great ranges, of the order of two miles. They were used by the Mongols during their conquests in the mid-thirteenth century and may have formed part of the weaponry of the Chinese Song dynasty at an earlier period. The earliest reference to what were very probably true rockets, launched by their own propulsion, dates from 1272. It occurs in an account of events that took place during the siege of Xiangyang by Mongol forces. These rockets were used for signaling. There is no evidence that self-launching rockets were utilized as weapons in the mid-thirteenth century. Rockets as weapons are unlikely to have been developed any earlier than the late 1200s.

Keywordsrocket, rocket-assisted, fire-arrow, ground-rat, meteor, gunpowder, arbalest

It is now generally accepted that the rocket was a Chinese invention,1 but the early history of rockets in China remains obscure. Although many have argued that the rocket probably originated during the late twelfth century, there is only very slight evidence for this. In fact, no one has yet adduced very good evidence for the existence of rockets in China before the late fourteenth century.

1 Lorge 2008, 13.

S.G. Haw / Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 28-42 29

One claim that has gained wide currency is that made by Jixing Pan, that rockets were used by the Jin defenders of Kaifeng against Mongol attack in 1232. This has been accepted by Allsen,2 among others. Pan has made this claim in several publications, most prominently (for those unable to read Chinese) in an article originally published in T’oung Pao3 and later reprinted as part of a collection.4 The same argument also appears in works that Pan wrote in Chinese.5 His interpretation of the sources is, however, quite untenable. Lorge has already dismissed Pan’s assertions, but without much explanation.6 A closer analysis is needed to invalidate this claim beyond all doubt.

Pan’s thesis seems to be founded principally upon the name used for the weapons which he interprets as being rockets: feihuo qiang 飛火槍, “flying fire lances.”7 This, he believes, means that they were fire-lances that flew, or in other words rockets. However, as Needham has already pointed out, the name could also mean lances that projected “flying fire.”8 Indeed, the term fei huo occurs fairly frequently in Chinese texts, and it is quite clear that its usual meaning is “flying fire.” One example occurs in the Yuanshi in the section about the “Five Elements”: “On March 17, 1368, flying fire [ feihuo] came down from Mount Hua in Shaanxi, flowed into the camp of Zhang Liangbi 張良弼, and burned the weapons in the arsenal.”9 Clearly here, “flying fire” has nothing to do with rockets or gunpowder, but refers probably to some kind of natural phenomenon.

Pan gives English translations of texts relating to the feihuo qiang and huo-qiang used by the Jin armies in the 1230s. It is notable that although he claims that the original Chinese texts are not ambiguous,10 a fact with which I would not at all disagree, the translations of the same passages he gives in his various works differ significantly. Thus, in 1987 he translated a passage describing how the Jin huoqiang were used11 as follows: “When they faced the enemy they kin-dled their weapons and afterwards the flame shot out from the tube for more

2 Allsen 2002, 279. 3 Pan 1987A. 4 Lorge 2005, 221-34. 5 Pan 1987B; Pan 1991. 6 Lorge 2008, 34. 7 JS, ch. 113, 2497. 8 Needham 1986, 225. Needham rightly says that interpreting feihuo qiang as meaning rockets

“was a grave mistake.” 9 YS, ch. 51, 1101.10 Pan 1987B, 48.1 1 JS, ch. 116, 2548.

30 S.G. Haw / Journal of Chinese Military History 2 (2013) 28-42

than ten paces.”12 In 1991, however, this became “When the soldiers faced the enemy they kindled the paper tubes, and afterwards flame shot forward from the tube for more than ten feet.”13 In fact, neither of these translations is cor-rect. The original text does not say that flames shot out, or forward, from the tube, nor is there any equivalent of the words “and afterwards” in the original. What it actually says is this: “When they were near the line of battle they lit them, and flames went out in front of the lances (qiangqian 槍前) to a distance of more than ten feet” [emphasis added]. The differences are crucial. The cor-rect translation makes it quite clear that as soon as the lances were lit, flames were projected out in front of them. In other words, these were fire-lances and not rockets. The flames from a rocket would, of course, go backwards, not for-wards. It is also significant that the fire-lances were lit “near the line of battle.” Fire-lances were front-line weapons and rockets were not; the latter would have been fired from a distance.

Another important passage Pan translates mentions feihuo qiang in the biography of Chizhan Hexi 赤盞合喜 in the Jinshi.14 There are only minor dif-ferences between his translations of this passage, so it is only necessary to quote one version:

[T]he Jin Tartars also had fei-huo-qiang 飛火槍 or flying fire lance as a weapon for defending their cities. It was attached with [sic] some [huo] yao 药 or gunpowder, and after igniting with fire it was launched away by flame which could burn forwards in an area of more than ten paces. None dare [sic] to approach it.15

This translation is far from accurate, however. It adds a great deal that is not in the original (which is a passage of only twenty-one Chinese characters). A bet-ter translation is: “[There were] also flying fire lances, and yao [gunpowder] was put into them. They were set off using fire and then flamed out in front for more than ten paces. So no one dared to come near.” Again, it is clear that the flames from these flying fire lances went forward. The critical character here is fa 發, which Pan translates “launched away,” while I take it to mean “set off.”16 Either meaning is arguably possible. However, Pan’s translation “it was launched away by flame which could burn forwards” is clearly nonsensical. If

12 Pan 1987B, 49.13 Pan 1991, 238.14 JS, ch. 113, 2497.15 Pan 1987B, 48.16 The translation “they were set off using fire” is more or less literal: it would be more elegant

simply to say “they were lit,” but this would tend to obscure my point.


the flame launched the flying fire lance, then it would have to burn backwards, not forwards. In fact, however, nowhere in the various passages relating to these weapons used at Kaifeng in 1232 is there any mention of flames going backwards. On the other hand, as already seen, flames are clearly said more than once to have gone out in front of them. This is characteristic of fire-lances, not rockets.

It should also be noted that there is only a single occurrence of the term feihuo qiang in the Jinshi. Otherwise, these weapons are simply called huo-qiang, “fire-lances,” or even, when they have already been mentioned, just qiang. The fire-lance was a well-known weapon by the early thirteenth century. It seems unlikely that its name would have been indiscriminately applied to rockets. Indeed, I know of no instance in which anything that might have been a rocket is called huoqiang. The usual terms for “rocket” are huojian 火箭 or liuxing 流星. The former also means “fire-arrow” and the latter “meteor’’ or “comet.”17

Nevertheless, it is very likely that there was a relationship between the fire-lance and the rocket. As I have pointed out elsewhere, “the ability to make fire-lances implies the ability to make rockets, too.”18 Surely, when fire-lances were used, the backward thrust (or recoil) from the flames projected forward from the tube would have been very noticeable. A fire-lance tube, separated from the shaft of the lance and lit (perhaps accidentally), might well have pro-pelled itself along the ground like a “ground-rat,” of which more below. Thus, the realization that a tube of incendiary gunpowder mixture could provide thrust would probably have followed quite soon after the development of the fire-lance. Since the fire-lance certainly existed by the year 1000,19 the early development of the rocket (and the ground-rat) might well have begun during the eleventh century.

Pan’s claim that the bomb (pili pao 霹雳炮) used by Song forces at the battle of Caishi 采石 in 1161 was a kind of rocket20 is even less sustainable. His highly imaginative illustration of what the bomb would have looked like shows a weapon that would almost certainly have been worse than useless.21 There were no means to control the aim of his “rocket-bomb”: it might have flown in any direction and would have been as likely to harm those using it as their

1 7 See Needham 1986, 472, 512.18 Haw (forthcoming).19 Haw (forthcoming).20 Pan 1987B, 51-57.21 Pan 1987B, 56.


enemy. In fact, there is absolutely nothing in the original description of the bomb that in any way suggests it might have been a rocket. Almost certainly, the bomb was thrown from a catapult.22

Descriptions of weapons in Chinese sources are quite often rather vague, so it is difficult to be very sure of what exactly they were like. Attempts have some-times been made to read a great deal into the significance of single Chinese characters.23 This is rarely justified, however. It is clearly untrue, for example, that the character she 射 was used to refer to firing from a bow or crossbow, while the characters fa 發 or fang 放 implied that no bow was involved (and, in the case of what might have been rockets, therefore, that they were self-launched). These assumptions probably derive from modern usage of these characters. As already noted above, the character fa has a range of meanings. The most basic are probably “to start,” “to send forth,” or “to shoot.”24 The Jinshi includes a use of fa that clearly refers to an arrow fired from a bow,25 and the same work and the Jiu Wudaishi both contain uses of fangjian, “shoot arrows,” where nothing suggests that they were anything other than arrows shot from bows or crossbows.26 The usage in the Jiu Wudaishi relates to the year 932. It is very unlikely that rockets existed in China at such an early date.

What has often been taken to be the earliest evidence of rockets in China occurs in Zhou Mi’s description of Hangzhou, the Wulin jiushi.27 He records the various kinds of fireworks that were sold at the West Lake during festivals around 1180, including “meteors” (liuxing).28 In view of the later usage, it seems quite likely that these “meteors” were rockets. There are problems with this evidence, however. First, Zhou Mi gives no description of the “meteors.” There can therefore be no absolute certainty that they were really rockets. More seri-ously, Zhou Mi wrote about a century after the events he describes, and his sources are unknown. It would have been all too easy for him unthinkingly to have slipped a reference to “meteors” into what is little more than a list of fire-works when in fact, at the time, they were not really there. Needham consid-ered that although he “was writing a hundred years later, [Z]hou Mi would have been quite well informed of what went on. . . .”29 It seems to me, however,

22 This bomb, used at the battle of Caishi, is discussed in Haw (forthcoming).23 See the discussion in Xu 1986, 55-57.24 Karlgren 1964, 86 [character no. 275c]; Schuessler 2007, 228.25 JS, ch. 73, 1680.26 JS, ch. 113, 2495; JWDS, ch. 43, 591.27 Needham 1986, 133, 512; Xu 1986, 58-59.28 WJS, ch. 3, 723.29 Needham 1986, 512.


that while this is reasonably good evidence that Zhou Mi was familiar with rockets at the time he wrote the Wulin jiushi (about 1270), it is very weak evidence for their existence a century earlier, before Zhou Mi had even been born.

This then leaves the beginnings of rocketry in China in almost total obscu-rity. As Needham has noted, “the problem of the rocket . . . is a peculiarly diffi-cult one.” He correctly suggests that the origins of the device must be sought at some time during the three centuries from the 1040s to the mid-fourteenth century. He also puts forward the hypothesis that the rocket probably devel-oped from a device called a “ground-rat” (di laoshu 地老鼠), a kind of firework that darted around on the ground, probably very randomly.30 There is, how-ever, another possible line of development, one that perhaps makes better sense. As already noted above, a common name for rockets in China was huojian. This name originally meant “fire-arrow.” Since the device changed but the name remained the same, it would seem very likely that the rocket devel-oped gradually from the fire-arrow.

It is not easy to trace this development because of the serious lack of rele-vant source material. There seem to have been a large number of texts about weaponry in existence during the period of the Song dynasty, but very few still survive. Among many others, there were a Book of Artillery (Paojing 礮經) and the Complete Techniques of Strong Crossbows (Qiangnu beishu 强弩備術),31 but neither of these texts is extant today. The bibliographical section of the Songshi lists no less than 347 military works (bingshu 兵書) in 1,956 chapters ( juan 卷).32 Only a small minority have survived to the present. It is indeed fortunate that the very important General Essentials of Military Texts (Wujing zongyao)33 has been preserved. Dating from the early 1040s, it contains a mass of invaluable information. It has already been said that it “almost certainly” contains no description of a rocket.34 I would state this unambiguously: No rocket of any kind figures anywhere in the work. By the time Chinese texts with good descriptions of weapons again become available, roughly from the mid-fourteenth century onwards, rockets commonly appear in them.35 Somewhere during this period of three centuries, fire-arrows developed into rocket-assisted

30 Needham 1986, 472-73.31 SS, ch. 207, 5279, 5286.32 SS, ch. 207, 5288; these works are from all periods, up to and including Song.33 WJZY.34 Needham 1986, 472.35 Needham 1986, 472.


arrows and then became true self-contained rockets propelled solely by the gunpowder they carried.

Needham argues that the development of the rocket required four separate inventions:

First, there was the basic idea of applying a ground-rat tube to a projectile, and sec-ondly the balancing of the whole to give the arrow an adequate range. Thirdly there was the drilling of an internal cavity to promote equal areas of combustion surface, and fourthly the addition of a waist, throat or choke, . . . to accelerate the flow-velocity of the discharged gases . . .36

But if the rocket developed gradually from the fire-arrow, then the first two of these stages were bypassed completely, and the other two could have been worked out over time. The ground-rat was irrelevant to the fire-arrow, and fire-arrows always needed to be balanced to achieve maximum range. What might well have happened was that the incendiary charge carried by fire-arrows dis-charged from bows and crossbows, and perhaps especially from the Chinese great crossbows or arbalests, gradually came to have some propulsive action. This would have increased the range of the fire-arrow, clearly a useful military attribute. As they were shot from bows, rocket-assisted arrows would not have needed to produce sufficient thrust to launch themselves from a standing start. The propulsion provided by the rocket element of the arrow could have gradu-ally increased as Needham’s third and fourth inventions were developed.

Bamboo is commonly available in China. A length of bamboo is more or less a ready-made container for a charge of gunpowder, whether explosive or incendiary. Bamboo tubes were certainly used for making fire-lances.37 It is easy to imagine that they must sometimes have been used to carry the incendi-ary charges attached to fire-arrows. Tubes rolled from coarse paper, which were also utilized when making fire-lances,38 might well have been used for fire-arrows, too. If the gunpowder happened to ignite before the arrow reached its target, and if the flame burst out in the right direction (i.e. backwards), then the fire-arrow would have become a proto-rocket. Its main source of propul-sion would have been the bow from which it was fired, but the incendiary gun-powder mixture burning in the bamboo or paper tube would have given it some additional thrust. It would surely soon have been observed that this gave

36 Needham 1986, 484.37 For example, SS, ch. 197, 4923.38 For example, JS, ch. 116, 2548.


it greater range. Even if the flame did not burn backwards but pushed the arrow off course, the propulsive effect might well have been noticed and investigated. The knowledge of the backward thrust developed by fire-lances might also have inspired experiments in using tubes filled with gunpowder for propul-sion. Further development would then have followed, with the two latter inventions listed by Needham being worked out gradually, giving commensu-rate increases in the range of the rocket-assisted arrow.

Some of this development can be discerned. “Cathayan arrows” or “arrows of China”39 are described and even depicted in early Arabic treatises relating to gunpowder and gunpowder weapons. The earliest is apparently that of Hasan al-Rammah Najm al-Din al-Ahdab, dating from about 1280.40 They also appear in the St. Petersburg Rzevuski manuscript,41 which has been tentatively dated to about 1350. It has often been believed that these were rockets.42 In fact, how-ever, it seems more likely that they were rocket-assisted arrows fired from arbalests. They probably delivered an incendiary or explosive charge and were likely a direct development from Chinese fire-arrows.

When Mongol forces under Hülegü attacked the Assassins’ castle of Maimun-Diz in 1256, they used a weapon which Juvaini calls a kaman-i-gav, or “ox’s-bow.”43 He specifically states that it was made by “Khitayan [Chinese] craftsmen”. He also makes reference to the “meteoric shafts” it fired. This is very possibly because he had in mind the Chinese use of “meteor” to refer to rockets (and rocket-assisted arrows): I have already noted that Juvaini seems to have been familiar with Chinese terminology and to have used approximate translations from Chinese.44 He gives the range of this “ox’s-bow,” a Chinese arbalest, as 2,500 paces. J. M. Smith has questioned this figure, but with a pro-viso that “rocket assistance should also be considered.”45 Indeed, rocket assis-tance should certainly be considered because Mustaufi, describing the same events, specifically says that the crossbows fired “Khitan” (Cathayan) arrows – and he says they fired from “a range of half a parsang.”46 This is perhaps a little less than Juvaini’s figure, but it is of the same order, something close to two miles (or about three kilometers). Such a range would not be incredible if it

39 Needham 1986, 472.40 Bonaparte and Favé 1862, 27; Needham 1986, 41; al-Hassan n.d.41 Bonaparte and Favé 1862, 40; Needham 1986, 43; al-Hassan n.d.42 For example, Needham 1986, 41.43 Juvaini, vol. 2, 631.44 Haw (forthcoming).45 Smith 2006, 126-27.46 Ward 1983, 44.


resulted from a combination of the energy imparted by the very powerful Chi-nese arbalests with thrust from a rocket tube attached to the arrow. No doubt the fuse would have been adjusted so that the rocket fired when the arrow was already well on its way to the target, so that the propulsion of the rocket main-tained the arrow’s speed as the initial thrust from the arbalest began to fade. There must surely have been a fuse enabling the rocket-tube to ignite after the arrow had been fired. This would have prevented the rocket exhaust burning the arbalest. In fact, the illustrations of “Cathayan arrows” in Arabic texts clearly show a fuse.47 This was what the “Cathayan arrows” of these texts really were: not independent rockets, but rocket-assisted arrows.

There were distinct advantages to firing rocket-arrows from bows rather than using self-launching rockets. The most important was probably that this significantly reduced one of the greatest drawbacks of rockets as weapons: their lack of accuracy. It has often been noted that rockets used as artillery were generally extremely inaccurate at least until well into the nineteenth century.48 A major reason for this is that a rocket fired from a standing start takes a brief but appreciable time to accelerate to high speed. During the instant immediately after launch, when the rocket is still traveling slowly, even a small movement of the air is sufficient to deflect it from its intended course.49 Clearly, a rocket-arrow fired from a bow, and therefore given an immediate impulse of speed, suffers much less from this problem. The use of a bow to launch the arrow also allows more effective use of the energy of the gunpowder fuel: A great deal of energy is needed to accelerate a rocket from standstill to its maximum speed. A rocket-arrow already traveling at speed when the rocket fires will travel further on the same amount of fuel than a rocket launched from a standing start. Because it has two sources of impulse, the bow and the gun-powder, a rocket-arrow will, of course, travel significantly further than a pure rocket of similar size or indeed an arrow that is not rocket-assisted.

The range of the Chinese arbalests when shooting ordinary arrows without rocket assistance was already considerable. The Wujing zongyao, completed in 1043, describes several arbalests and gives their ranges from about 120 to 300 paces.50 There were five Chinese feet (chi 尺) in a Song-period pace (bu 步).51 It must be noted that a shorter bu of only two feet never existed, contrary to what

47 Bonaparte and Favé 1862, 27, fig. 20; Reinaud and Favé 1845, Pl. 1, figs. 8 and 10.48 See, for example, Needham 1986, 520, and Jacobi 1838, 135-36.49 Jacobi 1838, 136.50 WJZY, ch. 13, 667-69, 675-81.51 SS, ch. 149, 3493.


has sometimes been asserted.52 The Song chi was a variable measure, but was generally not very different from a modern foot (about 30 cm).53 This would yield ranges of more than a quarter of a mile (about 450 meters), and this was probably a conservative figure; perhaps the Wujing zongyao was already out of date when it was completed. Other Song sources, after all, record significantly greater ranges for arbalests at an earlier date. For example, during the reign of the first emperor of the Song dynasty (which ended in 975), it is recorded that “In the past, arbalests fired to no more than seven hundred paces, but Wei Pi 魏丕 was ordered to increase this to one thousand paces.” Wei Pi died in 999, at the age of about 81.54 Perhaps experiments with rocket-assisted arrows were already taking place in the late 900s, although it is possible that powerful arbal-ests might have achieved ranges of up to one thousand paces (just under a mile, or about 1,500 meters) without such help. The composite bow used by Türk mounted archers and the Mongols has been reported to have achieved ranges in excess of 1,000 yards (900 meters).55 The Chinese arbalests must have been capable of firing to even greater distances. Eighteenth-century Indian rockets usually had a range of about 1,000 yards, but sometimes up to about a mile and a half.56 Thus, it is not at all improbable that the range of the “ox’s-bow,” firing “Cathayan arrows,” might have attained the figures given by Juvaini and Mustaufi.

There were continuing efforts to improve weaponry during the Song dynasty. Another very interesting record says that in 1049, “Guo Zi 郭諮, the prefect of Xinzhou 忻州 [Zaozhuang 枣莊 in Shandong province], presented to the emperor a single-shaft, assault, invincible, meteor crossbow (duyuan chong-zhen wudi liuxing nu 獨轅衝陣無敵流星弩). Zi was clever and often made military machines himself. They were all practical and useful.”57 Unfortunately, there is no description of this crossbow, so what it was like is entirely uncer-tain, but the use of the term “meteor” here is highly suggestive. It is quite likely that a “meteor crossbow” fired “meteor” arrows, that is, rocket-assisted arrows. The weapon was apparently tested and found to be serviceable; a few years later, in 1052, it was reported that it was suitable for military use. At least five hundred were manufactured according to Guo Zi’s design.58 Needham thought

52 Franke 1974, 166; Smith 2006, 127.53 Qiu Guangming et al. 2001, 353-62.54 SS, ch. 270, 9277.55 Ostrowski 2010, 513-14, 520-21.56 Needham 1986, 518.57 XCB, ch. 166, 3991.58 XCB, ch. 172, 4140.


this weapon might have been a kind of fire-lance that shot out arrows along with its flames, but this seems unlikely at this early date. He did note that “it may have been a real crossbow with flaming incendiary bolts.”59

The arbalests of the kind used at Maimun-Diz also underwent development. In 1081, it was reported that defensive works at Weizhou 渭州 (Pingliang 平凉 in Gansu province) had been completed and various weapons prepared, including “three-bowed eight-oxen frame crossbows” like those described in the Wujing zongyao, that could have been used as both defensive and offensive weapons. Two years later, an official of the Board of Works reported on the comparative merits of various kinds of large crossbows, including a “nine-oxen crossbow” that was said to be particularly light and convenient to use.60

A work presented to the Song emperor in 1205 recommending ways to wage war on the Jin empire lists methods for attacking walled towns: “meteors (liu xing), catapult projectiles, mining, flooding, . . .”61 Here “meteors” most likely refers to rocket-assisted arrows carrying incendiary or explosive charges and fired from arbalests, as at Maimun-Diz. This is the earliest reasonably certain reference to the use of rocket-assisted arrows I have so far been able to find. Their development may perhaps have begun in the mid-eleventh century, but there is little trace of them until the thirteenth. Their use does not seem to have continued for very long. No doubt the Chinese arbalests fell into disuse once true guns were developed.62

This still leaves no good evidence of independent rockets before the four-teenth century (except that, as has already been seen, Zhou Mi may well have been familiar with them in about 1270). The idea that rockets developed from the ground-rat should, I think, be discarded. More likely, the ground-rat and the rocket, which are in fact very similar devices, developed more or less simul-taneously. Once rocket-assisted arrows were producing enough thrust from their propellant charges, both these devices must soon have been created. It is easy to imagine that a rocket-tube from a rocket-assisted arrow, if separated from the arrow, lit, and dropped, might have shot off erratically along the ground: it would, in fact, have been a ground-rat. Similarly, all that was needed for a rocket-assisted arrow to become a true rocket was for it to have sufficient thrust to launch itself without the need of a bow. The earliest record of a ground-rat appears to be that found in the Qi dong ye yu 齊東野語, another of

59 Needham 1986, 514.60 QSKS, houji, ch. 43, 705.61 BZL, ch. 1, 581.62 On early Chinese guns, see Haw (forthcoming).


Zhou Mi’s works.63 It describes how, during an imperial firework display, a ground-rat shot under the throne of the dowager empress, alarming and anger-ing her. Needham dates the event to 1264,64 but he is certainly wrong. The Song emperor Lizong 理宗 did not “retire” in 1264, as Needham says, but died in November of that year.65 The “Empress-Mother Kung Shêng,” Lizong’s adop-tive mother, whose full title was Gongsheng Renlie Huanghou 恭聖仁烈皇后, died early in 1233,66 so she could not possibly have been present at a firework display in 1264. The correct date for Zhou Mi’s ground-rat is the early years of Lizong’s reign, which began in 1224.

The same work contains what is likely the earliest record of true rockets. Zhou Mi recounts that when the twin towns of Xiangyang 襄陽 and Fancheng 樊城 were besieged by Mongol forces from 1267 onwards, a supply route from Yingzhou 郢州 (Zhongxiang 鐘祥 in Hubei province) was at first kept open. As the siege tightened the Mongols cut this route, so the Song formulated a plan to carry supplies in boats along the Han River. Three thousand soldiers were selected to man the boats, under the command of Zhang Shun 張順 and Zhang Gui 張貴. The attempt was successful, and the boats got through to Xiangyang with much-needed supplies. Zhang Shun was killed in this opera-tion. Later Zhang Gui attempted to break back out, with the intention of return-ing with more supplies. Two good swimmers were sent out first to carry a message to Song forces outside the Mongol siege lines so that they would be ready to give such assistance as they could. These men succeeded in getting through and returning. At the appointed time, during the night, Zhang Gui’s boats set off. His men had almost reached a place where they expected to meet with Song forces from beyond the siege lines. They saw the masts and pennants of ships in the distance. Believing these to be Song warships, Zhang Gui’s men rejoiced. “They sent up meteor fires [liuxing huo 流星火] to signal. When the ships saw the fires, they all advanced to meet Zhang’s boats.” Unfortunately, it turned out that the ships were on the Mongol side, and Zhang Gui’s force was completely destroyed. He himself was wounded several times and finally killed. This happened during the night of November 28, 1272. The Mongols captured four of his soldiers alive and sent them back to Xiangyang with his body so that the defenders would have no doubt that they had been completely cut off from all further supplies. A few months later, first Fancheng and then Xiangyang sur-

63 QDYY, ch. 3, 2205.64 Needham 1986, 135.65 SS, ch. 45, 888.66 SS, ch. 41, 797.


rendered. Zhou Mi records that he personally obtained his information from old soldiers who had been involved in this campaign and that although accounts differed slightly in detail, they were all in general agreement.67

Although these “meteor fires” are not described in detail, it seems very prob-able that they were rockets. This is almost certainly the earliest record from anywhere in the world of rockets used for signaling. Much the same story also occurs in the Songshi, and there too the use of “meteor fires” is mentioned.68 Incidentally, this account throws further light on the reasons for the eventual surrender of Xiangyang and Fancheng. It has commonly been believed that the great counter-weighted trebuchets, built under the direction of Near Eastern artillerists, brought into use at the siege were the decisive factor,69 but from this account it would appear that the besieged were probably close to the limit of their endurance anyway. The huge stones hurled by the trebuchets were simply the last straw for a defending force, cut off from all possibility of resup-ply and short of basic necessities, that had endured more than five years of siege.

Thus, ground-rats are first recorded in about 1225 and rockets very probably in 1272. This fits well with the idea that they were roughly simultaneous devel-opments. It is surely significant that these first rockets were not used as weap-ons but for signaling. Accuracy would not have mattered very much for such a use. Negative evidence that rockets were unimportant as weapons in the mid-thirteenth century is found in the list of “fire weapons” (gunpowder weapons) made and repaired at Jiankang 建康 (modern Nanjing) in 1259-61. The great majority of weapons manufactured, some 35,000 out of 38,000, were iron bomb-casings for exploding bombs. Such bombs were usually thrown by catapults. Fire-arrows, for both bows and crossbows, numbered in the thousands. There were also grenades, fire-lances, and what may possibly have been guns.70 At least some of the fire-arrows might have been rocket-assisted. There are abso-lutely no items listed, however, that could have been independent rockets.

The evidence, then, suggests that rockets developed from fire-arrows and that this development may have begun as early as the mid-eleventh century. There is good evidence for the existence and use of rocket-assisted arrows, fired from arbalests, in the mid-thirteenth century and quite possibly as early

67 QDYY, ch. 18, 2321-23.68 SS, ch. 450, 13248-49.69 See, for example, Rossabi 1989, 86.70 JJZ, 1981; Haw (forthcoming) discusses all these gunpowder weapons.


as 1205. Only very slight evidence suggests that independent rockets, launched by their own propulsive fuel, may have existed before 1200. More probably, they were not produced until about 1250. It seems unlikely that they were used as weapons in the mid-thirteenth century. The rocket as a weapon was very probably a later development occurring no earlier than the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries.

References

Traditional works

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JJZ Zhou Yinghe 周應合. Jingding jiankang zhi 景定建康志. In Song Yuan fangzhi congkan 宋元方志叢刊, vol. 2. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990. [Originally completed in c. 1264.]

JS Tuotuo 脱脱 and Ouyang Xuan 歐陽玄. Jinshi 金史. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. [Originally completed c. 1345.]

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WJS Zhou Mi 周密. Wulin jiushi 武林舊事. In Biji xiaoshuo daguan 28 bian 筆記小説大觀28 編, vol. 2: 663-932. Taibei: Xinxing shuju, 1979. [Originally completed c. 1270.]

WJZY Zeng Gongliang 曾公亮, Ding Du 丁度 et al. Wujing zongyao 武經總要. In Zhongguo bingshu jicheng 中國兵書集成, vols. 3-5. Beijing: Jiefangjun chubanshe, 1988. [Origi-nally completed in 1043.]

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Cathayan Arrows and Meteors: The Origins of Chinese Rocketry

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