Ah... but Singapore has no more night markets... at least not in the original sense. ;-)

But you're right. Singapore is a contradiction. The extremes are poles apart. On the one hand you have the traditional, on the other, the westernised. This dicotomy has been creating friction for decades now with the traditional loosing in the last few decades but seeing a resurgence lately. In a war, ie when push comes to shove, societies like Singapore, Malaysia etc. will split along racial lines, civilisational lines and religious lines.

I'll gladly discuss this on another thread.

Anyway, back to the topic. http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...esesiegewarfare

Nice website, but you're not going to recreate ALL those weapons are you? That's going to take a while.

Excellent work! It really is a worthwhile project.
You could well be making a niche for yourself there, as a bridge for information I mean.
Try and get some Chinese academia on board as there will be people there who share your enthusiasm. When such people meet hopefully they will be happy to share notes and pointers.

I'll probably eventually recreate everyone of them. I find it fun and relaxing to do woodwork.

Yeah, I'm trying to contact Yates at Cambridge as well as Ralph Sawyer as a start. Thanks to you, I might be able to start up a dialogue with Mr. Yang as well in Xian. At the moment, I'm pretty much just doing my thing and putting up everything I've found todate into these few articles I've been writing.

A couple of questions re the weapons..

#1 HuDun Pao
Many Islamic and Western counterweight trebuchet had the weight in a fixed box rather than hanging (slightly less efficient but you can build in much heavier weights), have you seen any of these in Asian sources (I've not but there are a lot of sources)?
Also most Islamic and European large trebucht were mounted on wheels, this allows the engine to move back slightly as the counterweight drops, this allows higher accelertion in the counterweight (a straight drop gives you the max) and thus higher throwing force (experiments suggest perhap 5% extra for wheeled units in the fixed box design, 2-3% for hinged counterweight). again I can't recall seeing wheeled units in Chinese sources?

#2 crossbows on carts
Is there any evidence of large crossbows or similar mounted on carts/chariots for mobile use ? (similar to the Roman Carroballistae http://cheiron.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~tra.../hi/1.12.h.jpg)

rgds.
Tom..

Hi Tom,

I assume you're talking about fixed hinges as opposed to rope hinges and not the shape of the box? The squarish fixed box did exist but fixed hinges were not used as far as I can determine. Every illustration I've found to date show rope "hinges".

Actually, most European and Islamic catapults were not wheel mounted. They were massive constructs what were immobile. Only the "lighter" catapults were wheel mounted.

Wheeled units did exist in chinese catapults but everything I've seen are traction catapults. Not sure if wheeled hinged counterweight catapults existed. There is very, very little info on hinged counterweight catapults, let alone those on wheels owing to the HCW being quickly superceeded by gunpowder weapons. The one common illustration you'll find is the HCW prepped for transit and at first glance, looks nothing like what you'll expect the HCW to look like. I have the picture in the "Brief History of the Catapult" if you want to see it. How it was deployed is still in the realm of speculation. It shows wheels but that could only because it is prepped for transit, though if they could make wheeled traction catapults, there could very well have been wheeled HCW catapults too. I'm still digging for info on this. This is a research boundary that no one's pushed beyond yet.



We have the description of the mohist siege catapults mounted on 2 or 3 axles. The warring states had these wheeled acruballista right up till the Qin dynasty.

I haven't seen anything in the later dynasties with wheels yet except for the stone reliefs at Angkor Thom showing 12th century Champa double bow acruballista which are on wheels. Presumeably this would not have been an indigenous invention but learnt from the Chinese as the double bow acruballista only appears suddenly and fully formed in the 12th century after chinese records show that a military engineer was sent down to Champa in the early part of the 12th century... but then again, no illustrations I've seen show chinese acruballista as mounted on wheels.

Thanks,
Useful.

Have you read Paul Chevedden's papers (eg. http://www.doaks.org/DOP54/DP54ch4.pdf and it's illustrations http://www.doaks.org/DOP54/DP54ch4pl.pdf - which don't show wheels ) ? The wheels issue is a recent one, several medieval illustrations (on reflection some not most) clearly show massive trebuchets mounted on wheels, it was originally assumed that this was a mistake on the part of the artists, but experiments proved the benefit. Obviously the technique ony works on counterweight trebuchets and they had a relatively brief histoty, still interesting though. It's worth noting the the rope hinge version also makes the counterweight fall straighter than a pivot hinge.

keep up the good work though...

rgds.
Tom..

Hey Tom,

Yes I've read Chevedden's papers. Pretty much required reading on the evolution of European catapults.

I was thinking about all the little snippets on information on arcu-ballistas during Han & East ZHou and this converstion 6 months back bought something to my mind...from John Piscopo;
I now presume this is based partially on both Osprey & Needham, but can not know for sure.

I had then asked;
IS the winch loaded device this early correct in your opinion.?
Yes. (he said)
......Did the Han dynasty Chinese then have them?
Yes. (he said)
&.......Is there any physical evidence you have heard of like a huge bronze cast mechanism, bronze winch or overly large arrow bronze points/dart heads for such a weapon?
No, not that can be proved. They probably exist but would easily be mistaken for spearheads by any finders or ignorant middlemen. Any that could definitely identified would be grabbed by Hong Kong collectors before they hit the marketplace. (he said)



Now I saw these items about 18 months ago and I was told the larger nasty point (>10CM long, on the bottom right) was from a lance for killing horses. I thought I would look at this picture again and now I wonder why there are no other Chinese spears I have ever seen with barbs like this. In a battle you dont actually want to lose your weapon inside the first person you prod with it...so it is an unusual item. I regret not buying it, although I bought a number of other pieces in the photo.
That 'lance' point is however much like a swallow tail point from an ordinary arrow. Note the small swallow tail point from arrows on the same table too.
Even 2 size of different triangular cross section arrows in there on the right show a large and medium size point, and the larger one is in the size range of a small spear and yet the form is for a arrow of east Zhou. Have a look at the image full size, as the picture is large.
I actually asked...all that while back...about Chinese ballistas and described the Roman one. I was told then the Chinese didnt have them.
Well there is enough evidence to suggest otherwise now, but the precise range form, performance and time period is still a little unclear.

If either of the 2 larger points here are from missile weapons then the larger swallow tailed point could well be off a device like in the Mozi text Jieming includes on his website above.
It notes there it was fired with a rope attached for retrieval, and I dont think the Qin bolt heads of a bed crossbow are nessecarily the same device as Mozi describes. The shaft of some of them were 10 feet long, while the QIn is around 6 feet. This weapon here would have a suitable heavy shaft.
A heavy point like seen here may well be the kind of thing fired in seiges...even into rammed earth walls for scaling.
Just a thought!
I checked the Osprey book about the Han era siege crossbow mentioned on the Rome 'versus' thread and here is the quote from J Peers text;


Now, I dont believe everything I read and this book has no references at the end. It could well be the Mozi device as well...but I doubt the Chinese used 'strong men' for this (140kilo draw weight!) when even the earlier times had winches for such loads. I think is where John Piscopo got description he gave me...a rationale of the Osprey & the winch loaded Needham machine.
I beieve the Chinese had winch loaded siege crossbows certainly in East ZHou.
I have seen well made iron gears from some sort of machine in the Qin pits where the giant bolt heads come from too. It is a shame nowhere yet is there an explanation of either object!

and Anthrophobia supplied this tid-bit.



All in all the final picture emerging is the device existed...but are undefined and the basis of all these statements that I and others have quoted remains fustratingly unclear. We need some physical remains, or a basis for the figures and statistics bounced about...and clarification about Han weapons.
I note the Mozi mentioned the firing mechanism was bronze on the giant device.
Something like that will be another interesting find, and confirmation of giant crossbows of this scale.

Hey Kenneth,

I'm pretty convinced they existed. On problem is, so few records exists that no one knows how they looked like leading to the possibility of mislabelling as you've mentioned above.

We now have the Qin acruballista bolts to show but still no excavated large trigger or winch as yet which is why stuff like that "macehead-gear-looking-thingy" Gary posted on DragonSeed is intriguing to me. I understand your point on it probably being a macehead but really, it does look like a gear of sorts, especially if gearing into a larger gear with broader teeth. That's what's been bothering me when I mentioned that it reminds me of something in my earlier mail to you. But of course, sometimes the simplest answer is the right one... a macehead.

***********************************
Tom, how's your book coming along?

Good post Kenneth, two questions for you

1) Can you tell me when is the date on those arrowheads you posted?

2) Who's John Piscopo?

Byzantines, Avars and the Introduction of the Trebuchet

Nice article about if and how the Byzantines took over the trebuchet from the Avars and why they did so. The author argues that the Byzantines eagerly copied the traction catapult not because it was as such superior to their own torsion catapults, in fact at least then it wasn't, but because they came to appreciate some of its features.

So, while the Avar traction catapult didn't seem to be up to the Byzantine torsion catapults in terms of its accuracy and range (he is less clear about the latter), it possessed a bigger rate of fire. More importantly, the simplier lever principle promised more potential in terms of raw power than the torsion versions, a potential which, the author suspects, had not been fulfilled by the Avars yet. Also, the simplicity of the design made reproduction and maintenance easier than the more elaborate Roman catapults.

Later, going by linguistic evidence, the Arabs took over the trebuchet from the Byzantine, and not the Persians. Finally, the author concludes his article by saying that the trebuchet apparently didn't have the impact on Middle East siege warfare for centuries as some people might have thought.

All in all, I'd recommend the article. I appreciated that the writer gave detailed his sources.

Nice article. The article's author did state that the inaccuracy and lack of range may be due to the Byzantine's adoption of a new weapon and inexperienced pullers, as well as bad construction(because it's a new weapon). MAY, however, is the keyword(which is everywhere in the article). The whole article(meaningthe author's opinion) is more a bunch of theories then stating facts(yes, there are facts), almost as if it's asking the reader themselves to piece together the statistics given. An article like that is hard to find.

Good article.

It is most definitely easier to use a traction catapult than a torsion ballista. Accuracy is a matter of training and while the traction catapult is easier to use, expert accuracy was harder to achieve but that doesn't mean certain empires never achieved the accuracy mentioned in the Arab descriptions.

The Ballista was also limited by the sinews. There was an upper limit after while you don't get significant increases in power. This contrasted with the traction catapult which theoretically could go as high as you had the power to pull, and the strength of your throwarm, evidenced by the great counterweight catapults of later centuries. Is is possible the Byzantines realised and saw this potential. No one knows for sure.

No, the author says the Avars traction catapults had been regarded by eye-witnesses as less accurate than the Byzantine catapults.

The adoption of the early traction trebuchet is an interesting example of technology transfer.[6] Our main source for its introduction comes from the Miracles of St Demetrios where they describe the Avar siege of Thessalonica. The bishop who penned the miracles, John, compares the inaccurate rope-pulled devices of the Avars with the accuracy of the Byzantine torsion artillery.

...

Bishop John is very clear in his contrast of the accuracy of the two types of artillery. Why would the Byzantines copy something that was less accurate than the equipment they already possessed? The Avars had not been able to approach Diocletianopolis because the city’s mural artillery was good enough to keep them away from the walls.[21] Therefore if the bishop’s observation about the superiority of the Byzantine equipment was probably true, why should the empire copy inferior enemy weapons?

Both in terms of accuray and range, the Avars traction catapult was described as inferior to the Byzantine torsion catapult.

-----------------------

I liked the article because the author is very careful about giving the reader explanations at how he arrived at certain conclusions. That's the way to make a good scientific article: Give all the facts & figures you have, but separate them carefully from your own conclusions, so the reader can come to his own if he likes. It helps to make easy assumptions about 800m Ballista Wunderweapons less likely.

I'm a little skeptical when comparing a flat trajectory weapon with an arc trajectory weapon and saying one is more accurate than the other. I don't dispute the accuracy of Byzantine ballistas but comparing them with levered principled catapults just isn't comparing like with like.

These are byzantine accounts. They would probably only be from one singular vantage point, watching the rocks flying in their direction! Two points come to mind.
1. they won't know what the Avars are aiming at in the first place so making an assumption that they were inaccurate is already questionable.
2. They are only used to seeing flat trajectory accuracy. They are not expert witnesses to seeing arc trajectory weaponry. With flat trajectory accuracy, hitting a vertical structure like a wall or a door is obvious. With an arc trajectory weapon, it is close to impossible to hit a vertical structure since the footprint of the target from the air as the projectile descends is small compared to the footprint of the same target presented to a flat trajectory projectile.

However, if you bring in onagers as a comparison, then the argument changes. Onagers can be flat or arc trajectory weapons depending on the release pin angle. But Onagers are highly inaccurate catapults. There is no way to restrain the throw arm sufficiently with just the torsioned sinew, ie. the projectile sling is not guided sufficiently. Just doing tests on my model show that the position that the onager's arm hitting the restraining crossbar is never the same every single shot. No consistent accuracy except for range in a slight radial arc circle from the onager.

So we need to compare these with caution.

But all in all, still a good article, well researched.

Being in a different tomezone I missed all this..

Some thoughts..

On accuracy...
Large crossbows and torsion ballistae fire the dart or stone along a trough and are very accurate lateraly (ie very little deviation to the side). You adjust range primaraly by changing the elevation. Counterweight catapults are similar but adjust the range by changing the drop weight or the weight of the missile. Rope pulled engines are rathe rless accurate. As the ropes are not all pulled straight down, some of the forces are lateral. This is minimalised by pulling both sides of the firing line but still induces errors. The light 'whirlwind' catapults would be particuarly prone to this but any problems were likely far less important than their portability (eg from 1204 onwards all larger Mongol empire units include artillery, only whirlwind or small triple bow units would be able to travel with the all cavalry units).

On the picture.
I would be very surprised if the large barbed head was for an artillery dart. Virtually every design known is small cross section heavy penetrating head (most are square cross section). the wide cutting edge of the item in the image and thin socket edge suggest a weapon for use against unarmoured foes, possibly a short heavy javelin/dart. It's a bit short to be a 'kontos' head ('kontos' - Greek for barge pole - being a term used for long heavt two handed spears used by fully armoured cavaly in many regions). The heavy trilobed item in the top right is a better possability, though a tanged attachment seems unlikely, inless it's a cane/reed/bamboo shaft.

On transmission.
We should also remember that it's not necessary for any of these engines to have been 'invented' in one place then copied in others. It's possible (indeed in many cases probable) that very similar machines were developed independantly in several places.

rgds.

Tom..

"However the Byzantines may have realised that it required trained teams of pullers to make the machines into accurate catapults, and possibly better construction technique, particularly around the fulcrum. Had the Byzantines realised the greater power of the trebuchet which would potentially be of use in trying to batter down defences, a task which their standard torsion artillery does not really appear to have been used for? The possible increase in power that could come from building larger versions of the machine may have been appreciated. There are few examples of very large torsion weapons, probably owing to the size of the springs and frames, and they are only mentioned in a defensive capacity. Larger defensive weapons mounted on walls may have created too much recoil when fired. Was there really any use for such large mural pieces anyway, when smaller items seem to have been capable of beating back enemy siege engines? On campaign, they may have been too awkward to take apart and transport. This was a gap the trebuchet could fill. Powerful shots which led to collateral damage were almost certainly the main advantages that the trebuchet possessed over the standard Byzantine artillery of the time and that is why it was copied."

There to defend my post.

I think that you are spot on. Chevedden (and other Byzantine scholars) see the Byzantines adopting traction catapults fairly quickly, and then (300 years later!!!) suddenly everyone is using counterweight catapults. The irritating thing is that no historian or chronicaller anywhere bothered to record who invented/copied/introduced them.

rgds.
Tom..

There's an interesting article written by Michael Farnworth and posted in thehurl.org on the evolution of the European treb that you might be interested in.

http://www.thehurl.org/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=66

A;
The largest swallow tailed 'lance' point or whatever I cant say as I havent seen another like it, but for arrow heads this swept back style was being improved into a triangular cross sectioned arrow by mid-East Zhou. There is some evidence in musuem collections that they may have continued later even after other forms came into being..that swallow tails could be found during the Warring States period also.
If it IS an anti-horse lance it could be as late as West Han since bronze had not replaced iron. If it is an arcuballista bolt then that form would be good for firing into rammed earth walls or city gates and may not relate to the form/timespan of regular arrow evolution at all. Most bronzes about tend to be around Zhou since the bronze casting technology has spread much further afield and iron was not of comparible quality untill sometime after 200bc. Yang Hong in 'Weapons of ancient China' notes bronze weapons were still widespread in (early) West Han, and C J Peers in 'Ancient Chinese armies' also says that iron of the Warrign States was not of a quality to replace bronze due to the poor smelting techniques. PS(This is much the same answer to what I asked about in Shaanxi, as to why Chinese had iron for swords from centuries earlier but still used bronze. This had always been an enigma, but it seems to suggest even heat decarburised iron is not still of great standard, and the great long swords that occur may have more to due with an abundance of iron than a superiority over bronze at that time)
But I digress, I will ask the dealers opinion who had them when I talk to him next what he thinks the dating is, or if he has other examples in reference books.
The slightly larger than normal triangular sectioned and barbed arrow head, with a smaller proportioned one right beside it is certainly East Zhou as I have examples of them in texts on weapons. That at least is certainly an arrow head, and twice as large in proportion to the one beside it. It is actually the one that caused me to ask about ballista at that time.

B;
John Piscopo was a collector of ancient and modern bladed weapons and swords from almost any culture you could think of, with a good knowledge of all the items in his collection. He started and promoted a number of forums on a dozen different cultures and time periods and posted bibliographies and information for people researching ancient weapons.
His diverse collection I would doubt could have many parelells in private hands...and he was vocal on ethical and legal issues to do with ancient artefacts....making submissions to commisions of enquiries and speaking up for responsible collectors, of which he was certainly one.
He passed away not long ago, but had always been helpful. I simply clicked that the photo I took long ago looks quite unlike any spear I have seen (note; there are 2 spears in there on the left) and he had said people might not even recognise the physical parts of arcu-ballistas, and this dealer who had these didnt even think the Chinese had such weapons. There certainly are some wierd weapons from those times, and rare ones, so it may be a lance point after all.
I do however think one of the true triangular arrow points in there also shows that some were twice as large as others.
I only posted this as an example of what he may have meant, but not something I have made any conclusion on as such.
TAdamson, the Chinese ballista is a siege weapon exclusively, and so the appearance of a Roman anti-infantry point may not have much bearing. The QIn arcu-ballista points are certainly just larger versions of the anti-Infantry weapons, however with a cord for retrieval...or a device for attaching scaling equipment...and a machine as described in the Mozi, a large version of what is essentially an arrow point cant be ruled out since the well formed short triangular cross-sectioned bolt dates from late-Warring States anyway.
I may come accross a spear or lance like this yet,but if that barbed point got stuck inside someone it wont be being reused, and the weapon would be lost.
A peculiar weapon whatever it is, and really doesnt make much sense as a spear either...but as a weapon with a rope for retreival fired into a city gate or something, well. The barbs are made for it to stay inside something big. A horse?
Again, just a few thoughts.

Oh yeah, Jieming..the Yang Hong book has some pictures similar to yours on catapults and Song devices....it has a list of about 8 or 9 types of giant crossbows IIRC and the size of the crew of each and the type of arrow it fired. Do you have such info already or should I post it here later?
It even gives the sources for the figues and names too, which is good.

PS, below are the up-scaled Qin bed-crossbow bolts. The picture doesnt really do justice but they are heavy and large, about 3 times as heavy as the others.

Thanks for the info. Sad he passed away .

Oh goody goody. Please, please post!

From Yang Hong; 'Weapons in Ancient China'. Song bed-crossbows and such.
...from "Wu Jing Zong Yao" from 1044ad;
Double bow crossbow
Name #crew arrow name bow shot (bu)
douzi/winter-crow 4 small chisel edge 150
small double cicada 7 large chisel edge 140
large double ciciada 7 large chisel/iron wing 150
bed crossbow/2 bows 7 large chisel/iron wing 150


Triple crossbow
triple bow douzi ? douzi/winter crow 200
hand operated (triple) 20 stepping peg arrow 250
super triple crossbow1 30 stepping peg arrow 200
super triple crossbow2 70 one spear & 3 swords 300

The book is excellent, and has sources for almost anything in it. A very nice touch, and one that so many others fail to do. When I have digested the book sufficiently I will paraphrase (rather than plagarise)some of his points..including those on siege weapons. To just copy whole sections would be a little unfair.
The images are much the same as your own, including the early trebuchet.
I can see why John, Richard & Gary all mention this book as it just what is needed! As a Chinese he does use the primary sources as well as analysis of items themselves. Ideal really.
He gives ranges of ancient crossbows of different types also...in paces, and a period list that shows in Tang that an Imperial army of 12,500 had 20% of the men armed with crossbows, 20% with swords...but enough spears and bows to give every man one each...i.e 12,500 units. The proportion of troops with armour is rather low too. Curiously the army is equipped with armour piercing and target arrows, so this might explain the wierd blunt arrows of the Qin buried army. I seem to recall being told that was what the blunt arrows were for anyway...(as shown under the images of ancient weapons thread)

PS; what does 'Bu' as a range translate too? A how would I break down 'paces' from perioid documents into yards or metres?

Thanks Kenneth, I just checked Borders and Amazon. There's only 1 copy left. Might pop down to the local Borders and get them to order it for me.

I've also updated the overall look and feel as well as added more information into the articles on the site based on new info from you guys! Thanks!

(BTW, Gary's trying to e-mail you on DragonSeed in reply to one of your posts there. He's got a picture of a very nice fake Ge he want me to post. Your e-mail is bouncing again?)

PS; what does 'Bu' as a range translate too? And how would I break down 'paces' from period documents into yards or metres?

(Could put an end to some of the dodgy website ranges for ancient weapons if we could just interpret those from the mouths of people contemporary to them.)

Here's the conversion.

1 li (市里) = 15 yin = 150 zhang
(this li is not the small li below, which has a different character and tone)
1 yin (引) = 10 zhang
1 zhang (市丈) = 2 bu
1 bu (步) = 5 chi
1 chi (市尺) = 10 cun
1 cun (市寸) = 10 fen
1 fen (市分) = 10 li
1 li (市厘) = 10 hao
1 hao (毫) = 10 si
1 si （丝）= 10 hu
1 hu （忽）

hahaha oops.

Western equivalent
1 li = 500 metres
1 zhang = 3.3333 metres
1 chi = 33.3333 centimetres
1 cun = 3.3333 centimetres

Oh ya. These are modern units. Need to get Yun in here to give you the Han dynasty equivalent.

In the Qin dynasty, 1 chi was 23.1 cm.

Following this, I have to make an assumption:

that 1 bu was 5 chi in the Qin.

This would make 1 bu = 115.5 cm = 1.155m

But if anyone has evidence that 1 bu was not equal to 5 chi in the Qin or Han, please do let us know here.

Unfortunately, I also do not have the Han standard for a chi right now, because the converter site that I once relied on has been shut down...

I think the fantastic figures for crossbows given on other threads come from the same texts I am reading and then placed on poor quality websites where the Chinese 'pace' in interpreted as the Roman 'pace' i.e actually 2 paces, about 1.5m.
This gives converted figures for crossbows in the region of 800-900m as we have been hearing (in error).
Another version would be the single pace,
http://www.answers.com/topic/pace
which again might put the maximum more in the range of a 90-120lb longbow.

It's a shame if people seem to be waving the wrong end of a stick just to win a 'versus' argument.

Just to let you know that I've changed the location of my "Chinese Siege Warfare and Siege Weapons of Antiquity - An Illustrated History" to a new host thanks to history-forum who kindly opened a subdomain for me.

People in China should be able to access the site now since angelfire being a freeserver is blocked.

http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...esesiegewarfare

Here's a few cute pictures of plastic models of Song dynasty HuDun Pao and the Sangong Chuangzi Nu though the improbably high winch fixing makes it just the toy maker's fantasy imagination of how it might have worked.

Whare do the pictures come from? Who makes the models?

Quite frankly, I've forgotten when they came from. They've been in my harddrive for a while now.

The miniature figurines are probably lead/pewter. Judging by their basing they are made for wargaming, probably 28mm+ in scale.

The reason I ask is that I thought they looked familiar...

So I ferrited about. The pictures are from Outpost Wargames site: http://www.outpostwargameservices.co.uk/

The figures are 28mm Curteys miniatures and the designer worked from a whole pile of Chinese illustrations I provided (and some other stuff).

It's always best to say where an image comes from (common curtousy plus required by copywrite law), this is also usefl when you (like me) get a bit older and start fogetting things

Tadamson, were the 'Chinese rabble/peasant horde' units part of what you provided, or their own artistic license ?

I gave them lots of images from scrolls and paintings, I'm not a good enough artist to give my own images. The figures are ok (perhaps rather too tough / fierce looking, more like extras from a kungfu moovie), you get to add your own tools/weapons etc.

Kenneth, one problem I noticed. When you calculated the range of a 10 dan crossbow, how'd you do it? A 6 dan crossbow would be 260m(as agreed), so a 10 dan should be 433, since a 6 dan is .6 the power of a 10 dan, making it 433 meters(433*.6 = 260), if all else being equal.

.6(*range of 10 dan) = 1(*range of 6 dan, which is 260)
which means the range of 10 dan is 433.33333meters. Simple logistics say that a 10 dan crossbow would use a lot heavier bolt than a 6 dan, so if you count that it would probably be 365 meters as you said. I feel like I'm in a math class...

btw, the 250-300kg crossbows at Han watchtowers which you mentioned... wouldn't that just be a 10 dan crossbow? 250kg(although not 300kg) would be within its range.

Yeah, I worked it out in a wierd way. 433m is correct.
It really was a throw-away figure...all things being equal...only to show that the huge ranges the East ZHou weapons are said to reach with earlier versions must be either incorrect or irrelevant.
The only points worth absorbing are those from the Han records themselves and not my own clumsy maths.
The point remains and it isn't worth stewing over the range of the 10 dan device when it may have fired a heavier bolt or it may have not.
It is worth checking this thread;
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...5&#entry4756344
Which still puts crossbows of periods from East ZHou to Tang at 200-300m ranges for standard weapons. This is pretty consistent and credible.
On another note I got to fire my recurve bow out on my parents farm.I measured out increments of 30m out to 120m.
60m is a range that seems effective with a bit of skill (or luck) to hit individual targets and the 90m bow ranges would still be effective for good weapons no doubt.
At a stretch I got this bow to fire to 120m...but it is in a high arc (only a 32lb bow) and shows that at even this range you lose sight of the arrow as it flies. Individual targeting would not be possible...and high arc fire is both slower to reach the target and hits less hard.
Even with heaviest draw weight weapons this would still remain true.
I am still looking out for a 150lb crossbow and some heavier bows....got my eye on one......but it still shows me that firing out to ranges beyond 200-300m is a pretty liberal use of arrows when ancient Chinese archers only had 30 or so in a quiver.

btw; You are right the max range for longbows is more like 180m...not 200m as I said. They can supposedly fire out to 400 yards in the high arc but with less effectiveness.
A Chinese leg-loaded crossbow sounds like a more lethal weapon for killing range...but the longbow can be fired more rapidly 1 on 1.

PS'
yes, 10 dan crossbows are 268.3 kilos apparently.

Do you buy those crossbows online?

We need more people interested in and doing research on Chinese technology. Too much emphasis has been placed on Chinese philosophy, arts, fengsui etc. to the point that many people, chinese included are ignorant of this area of Chinese science and engineering.

Chinese siege warfare is fascinating. When you start reading actual accounts of sieges in "medieval" china and read the techniques and technology employed, they rival the "best of" European sieges.

Chinese sieges used many innovative forms of both offensive and defensive methods. It wasn't uncommon for instance, for an attacking army to dam a river and flood the whole area to make the fortified city an island in the middle of a man-made lake a few metres deep. Or that water-rams were used by diverting whole rivers to batter down walls and doors.

Other technologies used were very advanced for their age such as the Mohist using echo-location to pinpoint enemy tunneling and employed poison gas to kill enemy miners and specialised troops to storm enemy dikes built to hold static water pressures to crumble city walls. In one particular siege during the Song dynasty for instance, stretched silk/cloth wetted and coated in mud for fireprotection, was tightened and stretched across the front of the city gates to act as a vertical trampoline which bounced the attacker's battering ram right back at them, much to their surprise!

There's just so much that I'm pretty overwhelmed by it all. Much of my work currently concentrates only on Mechanical Artillery which when mentioned, people tend to think Roman or Medieval Europe rather than Chinese.

My article on the History of the Catapult is I believe, the first comprehensive article on the history of the catapult that includes both European, Arabic and Chinese developments, ie. a true complete history of the catapult instead of typically eurocentric versions with only token mention of the chinese traction catapult, you'll get 99% of the time from the library or when doing an online search.

Liked your web page a lot. Wating eagerly for the appearance of the forked cart.

Hmm... I'll have to up my building schedule and start on the non-catapult stuff! Was thinking of building the Sijiao pao next!

Back to Chinese siege technology, the level of engineering is really quite staggering. There are instances where bamboo pipes were used not only as gas pipes pumped by bellows but also as water pipes to bring water down to the cities from mountains, the cityside end heated to create the necessary initial suction and gravity doing the rest.

Then there is the sinking of counterwells to draw down the water table so as to deny water from a besieged city's wells.

The Mohists also talked about sinking approx. 100m deep holes down to the levels of the aquifers to siphon off flood waters.

Very impressive that they understood groundwater hydraulics like that.

I'm currently trying to reconstruct the theoretical dimensions of a warring states city wall based on the mohist writings. It's supposed to be at least 10-15ft at the top. They apparently warned against having 10ft of water so if I used that to work backwards from hydrostatic pressures and assumed that was the maximum before the wall yielded, I have a approximate theoretical weight of the wall based on a minimum base length of 10-15ft (probably more since they were rammed earth walls and therefore were built wider at the base than at the top and assuming they were mixtures of clayey silt to form the hardened earth). Hopefully I can get a sketch up soon from the information on the possible heights and other dimensions of warring states walls.

Just something I noticed on your website Jieming...(Great work BTW)



I believe you are talking of the Korean "Chongtong"

I think that this weapon was originally Chinese rather than Korean. Although I don't have any sources at hand, could someone shed light on the matter?

Yup. I'll go edit my article to put in the term "Chongtong" thanks.

I've not found anything that mentions it was Chinese in origin though. If you do, let me know. Everything I've read to date points to a korean invention.

Altaica Militarica says their was a similar weapon in China, named "Qiantong"

Ok, you've given me a new direction to start my search. I'll see what turns up.

Thomas Chen just found this very early reference of a possible catapult!

In Han dynasty records of 2000 years ago, Han dynasty scholars investigating the war records of the Zhou dynasty identified in a description of a Zhou dynasty era battle the use of the catapult by the King of Zhou against the Duke of Zheng in 707 B.C. where it is stated that;

"stones that are thrown weighing 30 jin (6.6 kg during the Han dynasty?) fired off by machine with a range of 300 paces"

Unfortunately it is again not known how or what kind of catapult is was though the terminology used makes it clear that fairly large stones were fired by some kind of construct 300 paces away.