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World History 1

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	Societies like those of the Turks and the Mongols had originally gained power as a result of their prowess as mounted warriors. Turkish fighters, whether Janissaries or mamluks, were renowned for their archery and equestrian abilities. The <OpenstaxTerm>Mongols</OpenstaxTerm> also awed their opponents with their skills as archers and riders. In the tenth century, however, the invention of gunpowder transformed the manner in which these societies and others made war.
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	The first recorded use of gunpowder in battle occurred in <OpenstaxTerm>China</OpenstaxTerm> in 919. Scholars believe gunpowder was invented as a by-product of experiments conducted by Chinese alchemists, a group of people who pursued ways to turn ordinary metals into gold. A painting from Dunhuang in western China depicts a figure holding a tube from which flames are issuing forth (<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 17.26</a>). In 1126, a Chinese army was described as using similar tubes made of bamboo to fire projectiles at their opponents. Only six years later, another Chinese army made use of a bamboo cannon on wheels to destroy the walls of a city to which they had laid siege. By the thirteenth century, the Chinese were forging cannons from bronze.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/eb875c59a806b52ab18151e48d03a441feccca60" alt="An image of a highly detailed painting is shown. In the left half of the image, a bluish-gray figure sits cross legged with the bottom of his feet facing up. He wears a rich gold robe on top of a red and green intricately detailed cloth. He has black short hair, wears a rounded gold hat, has long earlobes, and rests one hand on the green and black ground next to him with the other in his lap with an upturned palm. His head is surrounded in a circle of zigzagged black, red, blue and black lines while the rest of his body is surrounded in a circle of designs resembling fire in the same colors with a border of light red and white designs. Flowers surround the image on the right and left side and white and light red lines sprout from the top to colorful half circles. Below the image are colorful designs and a figure in red in the bottom left corner. The right side of the image displays a variety of figures. At the top, the bottom half of a gray man is shown in a red loincloth. Next, a gray colored man with three white serpents coming out of his head wears a red loincloth and holds a long stick with red fire sprouting out of the end. Below him a brown colored man stands in a black loincloth with a monster’s face drawn on his belly. Serpents comes out of his eyes and mouth and he holds a ball of red fire in his right hand. Below him two dark colored figures stand, one holding a white mask to his face while the other holds a gray person above his head. In the bottom right corner, a large man in red robes, black moustache and black cap holds a sword in the air while to smaller figures in armor and helmets cling to his waist. An animal in a white shirt holds a snake in his paws and bites it in the middle. Two women in red robes and black hair stand in front of the animal." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1100" height="882" />
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	Figure 17.26 This mid-tenth-century silk painting from Dunhuang, China, believed to show Buddha tempted by the demon Mara, depicts a figure in the upper right holding a tube from which fire emerges. Below him, another figure holds what appears to be a flaming bomb or grenade. (credit: “First illustration of Fire Lance and a Grenade, 10th Century, Dunhuang” by Unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	Gunpowder and guns, along with the knowledge of how to manufacture them, spread westward from China with invading Mongol armies. This was not entirely new technology, however. The Arabs of this region already knew how to create flammable substances using petroleum, and the Byzantines employed a substance made from naphtha, called “<OpenstaxTerm>Greek fire</OpenstaxTerm>,” to set enemy ships alight (<a href="#fig-00002">Figure 17.27</a>). Arab texts of the thirteenth century contain numerous recipes for gunpowder and descriptions of rockets and other weapons that made use of it. The Mongols employed gunpowder and incendiary devices when laying siege to cities but did not adopt guns for fighting on horseback. The Arabs and Turks did, however. At the <OpenstaxTerm>Battle of Ain Jalut</OpenstaxTerm> in 1260, the mamluk forces that successfully fought off a Mongol army and prevented it from conquering Egypt were armed with an early type of cannon.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/ab224e9c8f40c52d05c3ded0bc331245659924bc" alt="A faded and worn image is shown of two black colored boats on blue water and a pale yellow background with gold and red scripted writing across the top left of the image. The boat on the left has gold oars and a gold flowery symbol in the middle of the boat. Gold posts are seen in the middle of the boat and a white sail with red trim hangs from it. Six figures are in the boat in blue robes and brown hair. Three row with oars, one sits holding a long thin black spear upright and one is on the right side of the boat with a gold cone shooting red and orange fire out at the other boat. The second boat has black oars and three figures being engulfed in the fire from the other boat. A blue and gold tall object is seen in the far right background of the image." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1300" height="666" />
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	Figure 17.27 A twelfth-century codex illustration shows the Byzantines using Greek fire to burn an enemy ship during a rebellion of the ninth century. The use of Greek fire in a variety of forms was a critical weapon for the Byzantines for centuries and made them a formidable force on the seas. (credit: “Greek Fire, from Codex Skylitzes Matritensis” by Unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	Europeans probably first encountered early versions of firearms in Russia, where the Mongols had introduced Chinese technology. Western Europeans discovered recipes for gunpowder in Arabic texts brought back from the Crusades or, in the case of Spain, introduced by the Muslims who established kingdoms there from the eighth through the fifteenth centuries. By the fifteenth century, numerous European countries had begun to use gunpowder and guns in battle. Some of the earliest weapons employed exploding gunpowder to fire arrows. By the thirteenth century, European and Ottoman armies were using early cannons called bombards to destroy the walls of cities and fortresses.
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	The use of early firearms, cannons, and gunpowder transformed the ways in which wars were fought and also changed the societies that adopted this technology. On the battlefield, explosions could not only kill soldiers but also panic horses ridden by mounted warriors and thwart cavalry charges. Before the adoption of bombards and cannon, sieges of cities could drag on interminably; some lasted for years. So long as the people within the city walls had food and water, they would not surrender. Bombards and cannon allowed armies to breach stone walls, however; even a modest opening gave enemy attackers the opportunity to enter the city and do battle with the forces within. It was the use of cannon that finally allowed the Ottomans to destroy the walls of <OpenstaxTerm>Constantinople</OpenstaxTerm> and bring an end to the Byzantine Empire in 1453 (<a href="#fig-00003">Figure 17.28</a>). Earlier attempts to defeat the city had failed because armies could not break through the walls and were unable to carry on a prolonged siege that could reduce the Byzantines to starvation. The ability to destroy fortifications helped rulers assert power both in battle and at home. Nobles found it difficult to challenge the power of rulers whose cannon could destroy their castles.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/f5ee063f299089c2b57ffd886825c0af0fa23735" alt="A picture of a long cannon is shown on four black blocks on a brick patterned floor. The wall behind is gray with pipes running up and down and across. The tube is thick and has designs along the bottom opening. Square notches are seen along four segments of the tube. A black podium is seen in front of the tube with a white flat placard at the top." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1100" height="608" />
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	Figure 17.28 Cannons like this Dardanelles gun allowed the Ottoman Empire to conquer Constantinople in 1453. The Dardanelles gun was still in use nearly four hundred years later. (credit: “Dardanelles Gun Turkish Bronze 15c” by “The Land”/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	The use of cannon also changed the nature of military defenses. To give added strength to city or fortress walls, earthen banks were built up inside them. Fortresses and city defenses were designed in the shape of stars so guns could be aimed in all directions, preventing an enemy from bringing artillery within reach of the walls (<a href="#fig-00004">Figure 17.29</a>). Engineers who knew how to build or destroy the new styles of fortress were in high demand. Paying for their expertise and for cannon, gunpowder, and cannon balls was expensive; rulers in societies that adopted guns taxed peasants heavily to pay for this new style of warfare.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00004" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/e378adc4ba78670174928e6110090b3449122f56" alt="A drawing of a map of a nine pointed fort is shown with pale green ground on the outside. Round emblems are drawn in each of the top corners, a serpent with wings holding a sword on the left and a cross in the ground on the right. Both emblems have words written on the perimeter of the emblem. In both bottom corners is a wood colored sign with scripted writing on the inside. In the middle of the map of the fort, a lone red brick tower stands surrounded by a gray circle. People are seen around the tower. Groups of colorful buildings circle the lone tower, with three more circles, each larger than the previous one. Groups of buildings are separated by beige roads. Eighteen total roads lead away from the lone tower to the outside perimeter of the fort. A green perimeter is on the outside of the last circle of houses with two brown structures at either side of each point. A red brick wall surrounds the fort with nine arrow shaped points jutting out. Gray gravelly ground surrounds the wall and a pale beige road extends outside the gray area. A road leads from the bottom and one from each side at the top to the fort and enters through an arched opening." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1300" height="982" />
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	Figure 17.29 This anonymous artist’s seventeenth-century illustration of the Italian city of Palmanova shows its walls designed in the shape of a star for improved defense. (credit: “Palmanova1600” by Unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	The nature of armies changed as well. Before the invention of gunpowder, cavalry were the most effective troops a commander could place in the field. Mounted warriors could attack and escape much faster than soldiers on foot, and they could reach down from horseback to deliver fatal blows to infantry or trample them underfoot. Guns deprived the cavalry of these advantages because they could kill riders and their mounts before they came within striking distance of opponents on the ground.
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	The development of handheld guns for individual soldiers lagged behind improvements in large artillery pieces like cannon. Early firearms were heavy and difficult to carry and maneuver. An <OpenstaxTerm>arquebus</OpenstaxTerm>, one of the earliest guns, had to be propped up on pieces of wood to be fired because it was too heavy to hold easily (<a href="#fig-00005">Figure 17.30</a>). Early firearms were also unreliable, inaccurate, and slow to load. A skilled archer like a mamluk soldier could fire several arrows in the time it took to reload a gun. Indeed, even after firearms were introduced, many armies still relied on infantry armed with bows and arrows. The Ottomans, for example, used peasant soldiers called <OpenstaxEm>azebs</OpenstaxEm> who carried bows and arrows, sabers, and sometimes halberds (weapons that combined a spear and an axe). <OpenstaxEm>Azebs</OpenstaxEm> bore the brunt of the enemy’s frontal attack before moving to the side and allowing cannon and Janissaries with guns, who had been stationed behind them, to fire at the oncoming foe.
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<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00005" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/3751d06ff2c835d637eaa298bb3876d52fda84e1" alt="Two black drawings on a white background are shown. The top drawing shows a man in chain mail armor with a large helmet with a feather in the back, tall boots, gloves, and swords hanging at his side. He is holding a very long rifle type gun that is propped at the front on a “Y” shaped pole. The bottom drawing shows a portion of the weapon – a section of the hexagonal tube with openings on top on the left and a section of the front of the weapon propped up on the “Y” shaped pole on the right." mediaType="image/jpg" width="650" height="1038" />
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	Figure 17.30 The arquebus, an early gun, was so large and difficult to maneuver that it had to be propped on forked rods before it could be fired. (credit: “Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l’époque carlovingienne à la Renaissance - illustration Tome 6” by Viollet-le-Duc/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
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	The adoption of firearms like the arquebus required the development of new military tactics to enable them to be used effectively in battle. For example, military commanders adapted the technique of <OpenstaxTerm>volley fire</OpenstaxTerm>, which had been used by archers and crossbow fighters, to the use of firearms. Because early guns like the arquebus were so inaccurate and took so long to reload, a row of soldiers was trained to fire and then immediately move to the rear behind other rows of troops who, in turn, stepped to the front, fired, and then moved back. The soldiers in the rear had time to reload their guns as others fired their volleys. To help soldiers remember the complex series of steps to be followed in loading their guns, the Ming general <OpenstaxTerm>Qi Jiguang</OpenstaxTerm> composed a song listing them in turn.
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	In most societies, male members of the nobility, often the only ones who could afford to purchase and pay for the upkeep of horses, had formed the core of the fighting forces. Their role as society’s defenders helped to justify the exalted position their class occupied. When handheld guns became common, armed peasant infantrymen supplanted the mounted elite. The loss of their warrior role often marked the beginning of the decline in the power of the aristocracy, and the loss of privileges that other social classes had not shared.
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	As societies adopted the use of guns, some states developed a decisive advantage over others. Rulers who had access to metal to forge guns and the chemicals to make gunpowder were better able to impose their will on societies that did not. As the cost of handheld guns decreased, rulers such as <OpenstaxTerm>Matthias I</OpenstaxTerm> of Hungary created corps of armed infantry. Matthias armed approximately one-quarter of his foot soldiers with arquebuses in the fifteenth century. Countries with centralized governments and well-developed bureaucracies that were able to effectively tax their populations had the money to pay for these developments and found it easier to locate and recruit soldiers into the army. States with these advantages grew even more powerful.
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	Gunpowder thus helped to develop centralized states in Europe. These changes did not happen everywhere, though. States like the Ottoman Empire and Ming China already possessed centralized governments before they adopted gunpowder technology, and the use of firearms did not have a significant impact on the position of their nobility. In the Ottoman Empire, the non-noble Janissaries had formed the core of the Ottoman military before the widespread adoption of gunpowder and remained an elite force afterward. For the military portion of the Janissary corps, the adoption of gunpowder weapons combined with their intense training from a young age made them a formidable fighting force indeed, especially when using weapons that were not simple to use effectively. In <OpenstaxTerm>Japan</OpenstaxTerm>, the daimyo elite and their samurai vassals retained their privileged position in society until the nineteenth century, hundreds of years after the Japanese adopted guns. The arrival of guns brought change to a society, but not all societies responded in the same way.
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