Early Firearms
During their Chinese campaigns, the Mongols would, for the first time, have faced a new type of weaponry: firearms. The earliest recipe for gunpowder comes from the Wujing Zongjao (c.1040), while the Chinese may have used "fire-lances" against the nomadic Jurchen in 1132. The Mongols themselves used primitive gunpowder weapons in their abortive invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, but it was their successors, the Ming Dynasty, who first exploited them, justifying the name by which gunpowder came to be known in Europe, "Chinese salt." The Ming, indeed, had a military school by the early 1400s specifically tasked with instructing soldiers in the use of firearms, and also employed dragoons (mounted handgunners). By the early 14th century Arabs and Korean had obtained firearms, which the Christian forces in Spain had also acquired and used in their long war against Muslim invaders in the Iberian peninsula.
Although cannons were used by the English at Crécy in 1346, it was only at the very end of the period that firearms really began to play a significant role in Europe. This was most notable in siege warfare, where the problems of transporting the massive cannons was less pressing than in battlefield use. The huge bombards used by the Ottomans against Constantinople in 1453 heralded a brief age in which strong fortifications were no longer a reliable protection for defending forces. It was not, however, until the introduction of iron balls, which meant cannons could be smaller, and corned powder (around 1420), which gave them more power, that field artillery became a possibility. The victory of the French at Castillon in 1453, when Jean Bureau’s cannons raked the English army and forced its flight, was perhaps the first example of a victory won through its use.
The first handguns had appeared in the early 1400s—by 1421 John the Fearless of Burgundy was said to have 4,000 in his army. Yet it was not until the introduction, from around 1450, of matchlock arquebuses, which were possible —just—to reload in combat, that the handgun began to find a place on the battlefield. Even so, the late 15th century was very much a time of transition: as late as 1494, half the French army that invaded Italy was composed of heavy cavalry, while, in contrast, the Swiss mercenaries who defeated the Burgundians at Nancy in 1477 were composed of a combined force of pikemen mixed with handgunners. The Burgundians could not penetrate the Swiss phalanx, leaving them vulnerable to volleys of fire from the handgunners. By the early 16th century, the idea of military obligation in return for land had faded in western Europe and, elsewhere, states, such as those of the Ming and the Ottoman Turks were consolidating to such an extent that central resources were once again equal to deploying larger armies and keeping them in the field for extended periods. The world lay on the verge of a military revolution.
Weapons | Thor | 
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