THE CHINESE
China, like India, affords an example of “arrested civilisation:”
the Chinese intellect and language became petrified while still
in a primitive stage of development. But, unlike the Hindus, the
Chinese betook themselves at an early period to historical pursuits.
“Debarred both by the nature of the material at their command and by
a lack of original genius from indulging in the higher branches of
imaginative writing, Chinese authors devoted themselves with untiring
energy and with very considerable ability to the compilation of
information concerning their own and neighbouring countries.”[281]
Among the results of their labours are the “Twenty-One Histories,”
from the third century B.C. to the middle of the seventeenth century,
sixty-six folio volumes, and a number of vast Encyclopædias, of which
the _Koo-kin-too-shoo_, &c., occupies 6109 volumes. From such immense
compilations and other sources Chinese scholars have supplied us with
much information about the present subject.
Although the invention of gunpowder is disclaimed for his countrymen
“by every (Chinese) writer who treats seriously” on the subject,[282]
the people cherish the legend that the invention was made by a Chinaman
in some forgotten past. The existence of this legend among a people
possessed of a deep veneration for antiquity is in no way surprising.
Every Chinese custom, art, and institution is supposed to be very
ancient, and what is not really old is readily invested with fictitious
antiquity. The world as we know it, they tell us, came into being
2,670,000 years before Confucius, who was a contemporary of the prophet
Daniel. “The more sober historians, however, are content to begin with
a sufficiently mythical Emperor, who reigned only 2800 years before the
Christian era.”[283] This insatiable craving for antiquity is shown in
all their works. “As with all other arts (the Chinese) have claimed for
the manufacture of porcelain an antiquity far beyond the actual facts
of the case. This exaggerated estimate of the antiquity of Chinese
porcelain was for a long time supported by the supposed discovery in
Egypt of certain small bottles made of real porcelain and inscribed
with Chinese characters, which were said to have been found in tombs
at Thebes, dating as early as 1800 B.C. The fact, however, that they
are inscribed with quotations from Chinese poets of the eighth century
A.D., and have characters of a comparatively modern form, shows that
the whole story of their discovery is a fraud.... During all periods
Chinese potters were constantly in the habit of copying earlier styles
and of forging their marks, so that very little reliance can be placed
on internal evidence. Indeed, the forgeries often deceive the Chinese
collectors of old porcelain.”[284]
According to the Jesuits, Chinese history is free from this defect.
Father Moyria de Maillac (commonly called Mailla), in the long
introductions to his _Histoire générale de la Chine_, begs us to put
our full trust in the Chinese historians, and pleads that, however
mendacious the lower orders of the nation, the better classes love
the truth, and the historians are honest and accurate. But such pleas
in bar of investigation and verification are of little weight unless
it can be shown that Chinese historians never drew (in good faith)
erroneous conclusions, never mistook the meaning of a document, were
never misinformed, and never made a slip in writing. As Gibbon clearly
saw,[285] the Jesuits were blinded by admiration of the Celestials;
their sharp, critical sagacity was blunted by the air of sincerity
displayed in Chinese books.[286] But this “accent de sincérité”
is ruthlessly treated by MM. Langlois and Seignobos: “C’est une
impression presque irrésistible, mais elle n’en est pas moins une
illusion. Il n’y a aucun critérium extérieur ni de la sincérité ni
de l’exactitude. ‘L’accent de sincérité,’ c’est l’apparence de la
conviction; un orateur, un acteur, un menteur d’habitude l’auront
plus facilement en mentant qu’un homme indécis en disant ce qu’il
croit. La vigeur de l’affirmation ne prouve pas toujours la vigeur de
la conviction, mais seulement l’habileté ou l’effronterie. De même
l’abondance et la précision des détails, bien quelles fassent une
vive impression sur les lecteurs inexpérimentés, ne garantissent pas
l’exactitude des faits;[287] elles ne renseignent que sur l’imagination
de l’auteur quand il est sincère ou sur son impudence quand il ne l’est
pas. On est porté de dire d’un récit circonstancié: ‘Des choses de ce
genre ne s’inventent pas.’ Elles ne s’inventent pas, mais elles se
transportent très facilement d’un personage, d’un pays ou d’un temps
à un autre.—Aucun caractère extérieur d’un document ne dispense donc
d’en faire la critique.”[288] In spite of their zeal for the truth,
Chinese historians are no more infallible than others, and it is
certain that they were unconsciously led into error at times by the
change in meaning which military words underwent in China as well as
elsewhere. Thus
Mao-yiian-i erroneously believed that _huo-p’áu_ meant _cannon_ in old
times, as it did in his own. But from a sketch he has fortunately given
of one (reproduced by Romocki, i. 41) it is clear that it originally
meant a machine for scattering blazing incendiary matter.
The first two questions that present themselves are: (1) Did the
Chinese make use of gunpowder in a very distant past? and (2) did they
possess an explosive shell in 1232?
The Chinese annals give no support to the hypothesis that gunpowder
was known in China in very early times. Currency was given to the
popular legends about it by such writers as Father Gaubil, who
declares that gunpowder had been in use for 1600 years when he
wrote, and Father Amiot, who fully accepts a much earlier date. With
reference to Koung-ming, who is said to have employed earth-thunder
(_ty-lei_) about 200 A.D., Amiot says: (_a_) “Les auteurs qui parlent
de Koung-ming ne le font pas l’inventeur de cette manière de nuire
à l’ennemi. Ils disent, au contraire, qu’il l’avait puisée dans les
ouvrages des anciens guerriers; ce qui est une preuve sans réplique
que les Chinois connaissaient la poudre à tirer ... bien longtemps
avant que cette connaissance fût parvenue en Europe.... (_b_) Les
anciens Chinois employaient la poudre (_chen-ho-yen_), soit dans les
combats, soit pour mettre le feu au camp des ennemis.... (_c_) Cette
poudre (_ny-foung-yo_) a une vertue qui, ce me semble, pourrait être
d’une très grande utileté dans nos armées; c’est que la fumée va
également contre le vent.”[289] In (_a_) and (_c_) of these extracts
the true note of legend is audibly sounded, and the tacit assumption
that _ty-lei_ was an explosive is to be noted. As to (_b_), Amiot was
unwittingly describing some early incendiary similar to that of Marcus
Græcus, No. 2: “Ignis quæ comburit domos inimicorum.” Such is Father
Amiot’s “preuve sans réplique” that the Chinese possessed gunpowder in
the times of the pre-adamite Sultans. It must be put aside; and with it
must be laid the evidence of Fathers Maillac and Gaubil. First, their
critical faculty became paralysed when dealing with Chinese history.
Secondly, they evidently did not understand the difference between an
explosive and an incendiary. Thirdly, without questioning their good
faith, they are open to the charges brought against them by MM. Reinaud
and Favé, when speaking of M. Quatremère’s dating Artillery in China
at the thirteenth century: “(Il) ne s’est pas aperçu que PP. Mailla
et Gaubil avaient traduits différement certains passages des Annales
chinoises, et qu’ils y avaient même ajouté tantôt des expressions de
leur cru, et tantôt des interpolations de la version tartare-mandchou,
version qui date seulement d’un peu plus d’un siècle, et qui, par
consequent, n’a aucune autorité.”[290]
Had the Chinese an explosive shell in 1232?
The following is a translation by M. Stanislas Julien of a passage
in the Encyclopædia entitled _Tung-Chien-Kang-Mu_, relating to
the siege of Pien-king (now Kai-fung-fu) in 1232, given by Reinaud
and Favé in the _Journal Asiatique_, Oct. 1849: “A cette époque on
faisait usage de _ho-pao_ ou _pao à feu_, appelée _Tchin-tien-louï_,
ou ‘tonnerre qui ébranle le ciel,’ On se servait pour cela d’un pot
en fer que l’on remplissait de _yo_. A peine y avait-on mis le feu
que le pao s’élevait, et que le feu éclatait de toute part. Son bruit
ressemblait à celui du tonnerre, et s’étendait à plus de cent _lis_
(_i.e._ thirty-three English miles); il pouvait répandre l’incendie
sur une surface de plus d’un demi-arpent (_i.e._ about one-third of an
acre).... Les Mongols construisirent avec les peaux de bœuf un couloir
qui leur permit d’arriver jusqu’an pied des remparts. Ils se mirent
à saper les murs, et y pratiquèrent des cavités, où l’on pouvait se
loger sans avoir rien à craindre des hommes placés en haut. Un des
assiégés proposa de suspendre à des chaînes de fer des pao à feu, et de
les descendre le long du mur. Arrivés aux endroits qui étaient minés,
les pao éclataient et mettaient en pièces les ennemis et les peaux de
bœuf, au point même de ne pas en laisser de vestige.” There is another
account of the shell in the _Wu-pei-chi_, published in 1621, but (as
one gathers from Mr. Mayers[291]) it is so similar in the details that
the two accounts cannot be taken as independent. They merely quote some
common document or repeat some common tradition.
Like the _Liber Ignium_ of Marcus Græcus, the _Tung-Chien-Kang-Mu_ is
not the work of one man or of one period. The original portions (the
“Old Recipes” of Marcus) were written by Ssu-ma-kuang, 1019-86, and
were named _T’ung-Chien_, or the “Mirror of History,” by the reigning
Emperor. The book was brought up to date by Chu-hsi, 1130-1200, and
was afterwards continued, with commentaries, by various writers, up
to the seventeenth century. The above-quoted passage belongs to the
commentators,[292] and was written by some one whose date, name,
and authority for his statement are alike unknown to us; but it was
presumably written long after the event it records.
We have seen in Julien’s translation what the encyclopædist actually
says, but what meaning did he intend to convey by his words? Did
he mean to say the shell exploded? The passage may be divided into
two clauses: in the first he explains generally the action of the
ho-pao, and in the second he gives a particular example of its use.
In the first clause he says that “no sooner was a light applied to it
than the fire burst forth on all sides” (_le feu éclatait de toute
part_): in the second clause he says, “the pao burst forth” (_les pao
éclataient_). But the effect produced by the shell shows that this
latter phrase is simply an elliptical way of saying, “the fire of the
mixture contained in the pao burst forth.” On this point Reinaud and
Favé are clear: “_Les pao à feu éclataient_ s’applique aux éclats de
la flamme qui sortait par les ouvertures,”[293]—holes in the shell
which were probably numerous. Mayers agrees: the pao were lowered
into the excavations, “when the fire burst out from them, utterly
destroying every fragment of the hides,” &c.[294] The Chinese writer
was describing an incendiary, not an explosive. Gunpowder would have
left in the hiding-place of the Mongols a tangled mass of charred human
remains and scorched cowhide: only an incendiary could have destroyed
its contents so that “not a vestige remained.” Father Gaubil and M.
Berthelot acquiesce in this conclusion:[295] Herr von Eomocki dissents
from it.[296]
There is nothing in the military history of China in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries to lead us to suppose that the Chinese possessed
an explosive during that period. In 1255 Prince Hulágu had 1000 Chinese
arbalisters in his pay to work his incendiaries,[297] and it may be
presumed that he would have learnt the secret of gunpowder from them
if they had known it; but he possessed no explosive. Father Carpini,
_cir._ 1250, states that when hard-pressed the Tartars had recourse to
incendiaries, and Rashid ed-Din, in his history of Hulagu’s campaign
of 1260, makes no allusion to explosives.[298] The Chinese had only
reached the same stage as Marcus Græcus in 1257: in this year they
had Roman candles.[299] During the siege of Siang-yang-fu, 1268-73,
“Khubelai sent to his nephew Abaka, in Persia, for engineers skilled
in making catapults, called mangonals[300] by Marco Polo. Two such
engineers were sent.”[301] We have three different notices of this
siege, Chinese, Persian, and Venetian, and “they all concur as to
the employment of foreign engineers from the West,”[302] but none of
them mentions the use of explosives by either side. “The Chinese at
that period,” says Sir John Davis, “were as little acquainted with
firearms as Europeans.”[303] When Chang-chi-ki’s fleet on the Kiang
River was destroyed a few years afterwards by Atchu, it was by means of
fire-arrows.[304] In a word, during the thirteenth century, the Chinese
made a free use of various incendiaries already noticed in the chapters
on the Greeks and Arabs; and they seem to have made no progress in the
manufacture of their missiles during the course of the fourteenth.[305]
Not until we reach the fifteenth century do we meet with gunpowder and
cannon.
The Prince of Yen (afterwards the Emperor Yung Loh) is said to have
been “defeated by firearms” at the battle of Tung Chang, 1401;[306]
but whether these arms were furnished with incendiaries or explosives
is doubtful. The first trustworthy account of the use of artillery in
China is given in the _Kai-yii-tsung-kao_, published in 1790, by Chao
I, a man of considerable ability, and an accomplished antiquarian. He
states that in the beginning of Yung Loh’s reign, 1407, cannon were
acquired by the Emperor and employed during his campaigns in Cochin
China.[307] Whence came these cannon and their ammunition?
It is antecedently improbable that the Chinese either invented or
manufactured them; for although the Chinese exhibited considerable
intellectual power in some fields of investigation, they possessed
little genius for mechanical or chemical inventions, and what
mechanical ability they had was absorbed in other pursuits. When
actually possessed of powder, they seem to have been incapable of
making any improvement in its manufacture. “Si la poudre de Chine
vaut mieux que la nôtre,” says Father Incarville, the ablest of the
Jesuits I have consulted, “cela vien plutôt de la bonté des matières
que du soin que les Chinois prennent de la faire bonne; ils la grainent
très mal et ne savent pas la lisser.”[308] “Whatever their claims as
inventors,” says another writer, “it is certain that the Chinese have
made no progress in the art” (of making gunpowder).[309] Even their
fireworks were no better than European fireworks. They did not employ
stars, and their largest rockets had a length of only five inches, with
an internal diameter of eight lines.[310]
There is no trustworthy evidence, so far as I am aware, to prove that
the Chinese invented gunpowder. The statements of the Jesuits on this
particular matter are worthless for reasons already given,[311] and the
popular Chinese tradition is deprived of any little weight it might
otherwise have had by the disavowal of the invention by sober Chinese
historians. On the other hand, we possess a number of facts which point
to the conclusion that the Chinese obtained their first gunpowder and
firearms from the West.
(_a_) It has been already pointed out that the mangonals
used at the siege of Siang-yang-fu, 1268-73, were of
western origin, and were worked by western engineers.
(_b_) The residence of the Polos in China, 1275-92, was
by no means an isolated fact. They were but the pioneers
of a considerable body of mechanics, missionaries, and
merchants who continued their relations with the country
for at least half a century.[312] It may be doubted
whether the merchants ever lost touch with China.
(_c_) Yung Loh, the first Chinese Emperor who possessed
_ts’iang_, or cannon, had agents in Malay, Delhi, Herat,
and Mecca,[313] and his agent in the latter city could
hardly have failed to hear of, and report on the use
of firearms in the West. If such were the case, there
was nothing to prevent the Emperor from obtaining small
guns by land, or guns of any size by sea. There had been
communication by land between China and Europe from the
time of the early Roman emperors of the West.[314] It was
seriously interrupted, no doubt, by the disorders which
broke out in China at the close of the ninth century, but
it was re-established when they came to an end in the
middle of the thirteenth.[315] Mr. F. Hirth proves in his
“China and the Roman Orient” that there was communication
by sea between China and Europe at a very early date.
Masudi speaks of the communication in his own time,
the tenth century. The Arab and Chinese ships met, he
says, at a port called Killat, half-way between Arabia
and China, where they transhipped their cargoes.[316]
There was constant communication between China and the
west coast of India in the first half of the fifteenth
century. Abd ur-Razzak says the men of Calicut were
bold navigators, and adds that they were called (in
compliment) “the sons of China.” When John Deza destroyed
the Zamorin’s fleet there, it was commanded by a
Chinaman, Cutiale.[317]
(_d_) The Chinese made their charcoal from young shoots
of the willow in the eighteenth century,[318] and “as
they seldom change anything,”[319] they probably did so
from the beginning. Twigs of willow are recommended for
this purpose by Roger Bacon and Hassan er-Rammah (pp.
149, 24.)
(_e_) The Chinese strained the mother-liquor of their
saltpetre through straw;[320] so also did Whitehorne (A.,
p. 20).
(_f_) They employed animal glue, or charcoal, to remove
the insoluble impurities of the mother-liquor,[321] just
as Bacon did, if the explanation of the word “Phœnix”
given in Chap. VIII. be accepted (p. 154).
(_g_) They incorporated the ingredients of gunpowder
on a _marble_ slab,[322] as directed by Marcus Græcus,
recipes 4 and 13, for incendiaries, and by Arderne for
gunpowder (p. 177).
(_h_) They passed their rocket composition through a
sieve of fine silk,[323] the counterpart of Arderne’s
“sotille couerchief” (Ib.).
(_i_) They occasionally added camphor and mercury to
their powder,[324] like Kyeser and many other westerns
(Romocki, i. 157).
(_j_) They called their powder _yo_, “the drug,” as did
the Germans, Danes, and Dutch (p. 6).
(_k_) They used varnishes,[325] of the same family as the
_lutum sapientiæ_, Marcus Græcus, recipe 1.
(_l_) An Encyclopædia, quoted in the _Pai-pien_, 1581,
states that “on the walls of Si-ngan there was long
preserved an iron _chen-tien-lui_ = heaven-shaking
thunderer, which in shape was like two cups”[326]—the
shell of Valturio (p. 221).
(_m_) Bits of metal, _mitraille_, were added to the
charge of Chinese shells,[327] after the manner
prescribed in a German Firebook (Romocki, i. 189).
(_n_) The shell were loaded with the _maximum_ charge
that could be rammed into them,[328] as directed in the
same Firebook (ib.).
(_o_) For repairing and closing the interstices of their
built-up bombards, the Chinese appear to have used the
same materials the Scotch used for Mons Meg; and it is
noticeable that the Chinese preferred “western iron” for
this purpose: “Ils emploient pour les confectionner du
cuivre rouge. Dans les interstices apparents, ceux qui
emploient du fer se servent de fer doux et malléable pour
consolider (ces machines). Le fer de l’Occident est le
meilleur qui puisse être employé à cet usage.”[329] In
the “Chronicles and Memorials of Scotland,” vol. vi., for
July 1459, we find: “For the repair of the great bombard
at Edinburgh, brass, copper and iron, _so much_” [_pro
expensis factis circa eandem emendacionem (magni bumbardi
ante castellum de Edinburgh) in ere, cupro et ferro_].
(_p_) In 1520 the heavy guns of the Portuguese ships
at Canton “attracted considerable attention, and soon
acquired the name of ‘Franks.’... The Chinese seem to
have subsequently availed themselves of the assistance of
the Portuguese, and of their wonderful guns, to punish
their own pirates”;[330] a circumstance which recalls
the expedition of Mahmoud of Gujarat against the Bulsar
pirates in 1482 (p. 116). These “Franks,” we learn from
the _Wu-pei-che_, “were of iron, 5 or 6 _ch’ih_ (6 or 7
ft.) long.... Five small barrels (chambers) were used,
which were placed (successively) inside the body of the
piece from which they were fired off.”[331]
(_q_) The Chinese guns manufactured in 1618 were cast
under the superintendence of the Jesuits at Peking.[332]
The general conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing inquiry is
virtually Gibbon’s, which may be expressed in somewhat firmer language
than he has used, since we possess many facts which were unknown to
him. It is highly probable that the invention of gunpowder was carried
from the West to China, by land or water, at the end of the fourteenth
or the beginning of the fifteenth century, and “was falsely adopted as
an old national discovery before the arrival of the Portuguese and the
Jesuits in the sixteenth.”[333]