The History Channel usually makes me chuckle when it comes to historical accuracy, but they got the land mine down fairly well in the program I watched today, mentioning the Ming Dynasty's Huolongjing (火龍經 Fire Drake Manual) and at least saying it was compiled around 1380 (even though the co-editor Liu Ji died in 1375 ).

Moreover, they showed how the trip mechanism with a weight, chord, spinning axle, spinning steel wheels, and flint would be used to spark the fuses of the cast iron land mines described in the Huolongjing.

Oh, by the way, I got the Huolongjing article at Wikipedia up to good article status.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing

Eric (En Rui)

I just had a look at the article, good job!

Thanks!

I knew there is always something good at Wiki

I haven't seen the program on the history channel, but I will keep a look out for it.

Very nice article on wiki!

Eric, nicely done on the Wiki article. I've just received the DVD from the producers on that episode and yes, it did come out very nicely as did the exploding of the ancient Chinese seamine in another episode.

Jieming

They had the naval mine too? Nice. I'd like to see that episode.

Eric (En Rui)