The history of the gun as a type of weapon began in the Middle Ages. The earliest known image of the gun dates back to the days of the Chinese Song Dynasty back in the 12th century, however, solid archaeological and documentary evidence of the existence of this weapon did not appear until the 13th century. In 1288, the troops of the aforementioned dynasty were allegedly marked by firing from a cannon, and the earliest example of this weapon with a specified production date refers to the same period. By 1326, these guns had already appeared in Europe, and their use in battle was almost immediately recorded. By the end of the 14th century, guns were widespread throughout Eurasia. They were used primarily as a weapon against infantry until 1374, when guns were first invented in Europe, which were first used against fortified walls.
In 1464, a huge cannon, known as the Great Turkish Bombard, was created in the Ottoman Empire. The cannon as a type of field artillery began to play a more important role after 1453. European cannons achieved their longer, lighter, more accurate and more effective "classic form" around 1480. This classic European gun design remained relatively unchanged until the 1750s.
Why is the gun called that way?
The English word cannon, denoting this instrument, comes from the old Italian word cannone, which means "big tube." This word was originally used to refer to guns from 1326 in Italy and from 1418 in England.
The Russian word "cannon" has an old Russian origin and has a common root with the words "start" and "let".
History
Perhaps the cannon appeared in the 12th century in China and was probably a parallel development or evolution of firearms, a short long-range anti-personnel weapon that combines a tube filled with gunpowder and something like a spear. The first shells, such as iron waste or porcelain debris, were once placed in the cavity of long bamboo spears, but in the end paper and bamboo trunks were replaced by metal. The ancient Chinese clearly had no idea what a gun was in the usual sense of the word.
Medieval china
The earliest known image of the cannon is a sculpture from the rocky mountains of Dazu in Sichuan, dated 1128, but the earliest archaeological samples and textual evidence do not appear until the 13th century. The main surviving examples of the 13th century cannon are the Uwei bronze cannon, dated 1227, the Heilongjiang hand gun, dated 1288, and the Xanadu pistol, dated 1298. However, only the Xanadu pistol contains an inscription with the date of production, which is why it is considered the earliest gun confirmed so far. This weapon is 34.7 cm long and weighs 6.2 kg. Apparently, the Chinese did not know what a gun was and what a gun was - these days these types of weapons were approximately ambiguous.
Heilongjiang’s hand gun is also often regarded by some historians as the oldest firearm. It was discovered near the area associated with the battle recorded in the annals, during which a gun was allegedly shot. According to the story of Yuan, in 1288, the commander of the Jurchen tribe named Li Ting led troops armed with hand guns into the battle against the rebellious prince Nayyang.
Chen Binging claims that until 1259 there were no such weapons in China, and Dang Shushan believed that Uwei weapons and other samples from the Xia era indicate the appearance of guns in 1220. Stephen Ho goes even further, claiming that this weapon was developed as early as 1200. Sinologist Joseph Needham and Renaissance siege expert Thomas Arnold give a more conservative estimate, calling 1280 the time of the appearance of the "true" gun. Regardless of whether they are correct or not, it seems likely that, at least, the pistols definitely appeared somewhere in the 13th century.
In 1341, Xi'an Zhang wrote the poem The Iron Case of the Gun, which describes a cannonball released from a bamboo pipe that can "pierce a heart or stomach, striking a person or horse, and even cut several faces at once."
By the 1350s, these guns were already widely used by the Chinese in local wars. In 1358, the army of the Ming Empire was unable to capture the city due to the use of guns by the defenders.
The first of the western guns to be introduced was explosive weapons of the early 16th century, which the Chinese began to produce by 1523 and later improved.
During the siege of 1593 in Pyongyang, 40,000 Ming Empire personnel fired cannons at Japanese troops. Despite the advantage in protecting and using the arquebuses by Japanese soldiers, they were in a difficult position due to the lack of weapons of comparable strength. During the Japanese invasions in Korea (1592-98), the coalition of the Min and Joseon states widely used artillery in land and sea battles, including on turtle ships.
In Great Britain
Outside of China, the earliest texts mentioning gunpowder are the Opus Majus of Roger Bacon (1267th) and the Opus Tertium. The last text, however, is interpreted as a description of the first fireworks brought to Europe. At the beginning of the 20th century, a British artillery officer suggested that another work, conditionally attributed to Bacon, "A Comparative Description of Heavy Shooting Guns," also known as the "Opus Minor" (i.e., "small doing"), dated 1247, contained an encrypted powder formula hidden in the text. These claims, however, were disputed by academic historians, because it is not known for certain whether Bacon knew what a gun was. In any case, the very formula indicated by the famous scientist is useless for creating firearms or even fireworks: such gunpowder burns slowly and produces mainly smoke.
In continental Europe
In Europe there is a record of firearms dated 1322 and discovered in the nineteenth century, but lost for unknown reasons. Fortunately, even in the photo, guns of different centuries easily differ from each other depending on their "age".
The earliest known European depiction of this weapon appeared in 1326 in the manuscript of Walter de Milemet, although not necessarily written by him, known as De Nobilitatibus, sapientii et prudentiis regum (“On the greatness, wisdom and prudence of kings”). This manuscript can be considered the beginning of the history of the cannon in Europe, because it describes weapons with a large barrel, cores and a long cane, designed to push these same cores. A document from the suburbs of Turin, dated 1327, contains a record of a certain amount paid for the manufacture of a device or device invented by Friar Marcello for throwing “lead pellets”.
In turn, a record dated 1331 describes an attack organized by two German knights against the ruler of the city of Friuli. During this attack, they used some kind of weapon, the strength of which is based on gunpowder. The 1320s were apparently the take-off point for the first firearm in Europe, which most European medieval historians agree with. However, some scholars have suggested that the lack of gunpowder in the well-stocked various "good" Venetian catalog for the new Crusade in 1321 means that the Europeans still did not know how to fire a gun - and, in general, did not yet know what it was such. One can only hope that in the future archeology will provide us with more data for a final solution to this issue.
Oldest weapon
The oldest cannon in Europe is a small bronze barrel found in Loshul, Scania, in southern Sweden. It dates from the beginning of the mid-14th century and is currently in the Swedish Historical Museum in Stockholm. Photos of the gun standing in the museum are available to anyone who is interested in the history of weapons, but can’t afford to go to Stockholm.
But not only the Swedes were noted for weapons inventiveness. The characterization of a cannon made in 13th-century France, of course, leaves much to be desired, but at that time the Gallic guns were very popular throughout Europe. At that time, these guns were known under the French names pot-de-fer and tonnoire, as well as German ribaldis and büzzenpyle. Ribaldis, who shot with large arrows and simplified cores, was first mentioned in the reports of the English secret ambassador in preparation for the battle of Crecy, between 1345 and 1346. In the future, traces of this German cannon are lost, and the word "Ribaldis" quickly became obsolete.
Approaching the Renaissance
In the battle of Crescy, which occurred between the British and French in 1346, an early use of the gun was recorded, which helped to fight off a large group of crossbowmen deployed by the French. Initially, the British intended to use a massive gunpowder gun against the cavalry, taking their archers away, believing that the loud noises created by the guns would scare the approaching horses and kill the riders sitting on them.
Early artillery models could be used not only to kill infantry and scare away horses, but also for defense. The English cannon was used as a defensive means during the siege of the castle of Breteuil, when the British fought off the advancing French. Thus, the cannon could be used to destroy the siege equipment before it reached the fortifications. The cannon shooting was probably carried out already for the siege at that time, because in this way it was possible not only to break down the fortifications, but also to set fire to them. The special igniter used in these guns was most likely a special powder mixture.
Another aspect of the early European artillery was that it was a rather small, compact bombardment, which, however, moved quite slowly and reached the battlefield last. In fact, it is likely that the cannon used at the Battle of Crescy was able to move quite quickly, as there is an anonymous chronicle that notes that the weapon was used to attack the French camp, which indicates that it was mobile enough to Attack. These dwarf guns eventually gave way to the larger wall-destroying guns that appeared throughout Europe by the end of the 1300s.
Near East
According to historian Ahmad Y. al-Hasan, during the battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the Mamluks used guns against the Mongols. He claims that it was “the first gun in history” and used a powder formula that was almost identical to the ideal explosive powder recipe. He also claims that this "superweapon" was not known to either the Chinese or the Europeans. Hassan further claims that the earliest textual data on this type of weapon refers to the Middle East, based on earlier originals, which say that the Mamelukes used the cannon at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. However, Hassan’s claims have been refuted by other historians such as David Ayalon, Iktidar Alam Khan, Joseph Needham, Tonio Andrade and Gabor Agoston. Khan claims that it was the Mongols who gave the gunpowder to the Islamic world, and believes that guns appeared in the Egyptian Mamelukes in the 1370s. According to Needham, the term midfa, coined by text sources from 1342 to 1352, did not refer to true hand guns or bombers, and stories about the iron cannon in the Islamic world were not recorded until 1365. Andrade dates the textual description of the gun in Middle Eastern sources until the 1360s. Gabor Agoston and David Ayalon believe that the Mamluks, of course, used siege guns by the 1360s, but cases of the earlier use of these weapons in the Islamic world are unclear. There is some indirect evidence of the appearance of powder guns in the Emirate of Granada by the 1320s and 1330s, however, the arguments put forward in defense of this version are not very convincing from an academic point of view.
Ibn Khaldun reported the use of guns as siege machines of Sultan Marini Abu Yakub Yusuf during the siege of Sigilmas in 1274. Ibn Khaldun’s campaign against the siege of Sidzhalmassa in 1274 is described in several sources, and all of them contain references to massive iron guns, which when shooting make a frightening rumbling sound, "terrifying Allah himself." However, these sources do not correspond to the declared time and were written a century later, around 1382, and therefore, most likely, distort real facts. This version was ultimately rejected as an anachronism by most academic historians who have been careful about allegations of the use of Islamic firearms from 1204-1324, as the same word was used in later medieval Arabic texts to mean gunpowder and an earlier incendiary mixture . The historian Needham, for example, believes that Ibn Khaldun in his descriptions had in mind ordinary burning spears, horns and catapults, which were later accepted by later readers and interpreters as describing guns.
Guns of Russia
Documentary evidence of guns used by Russia does not appear until 1382. Apparently, initially they were used only in sieges, more often for defense than for attack. Only in 1475, when Ivan III founded the first Russian cannon foundry in Moscow, did these advanced weapons of destruction at that time begin to be produced in our country. The history of these weapons in Russia has come a long way from primitive bombers of the late 13th century to the 57 mm cannon widely used during the Great Patriotic War.
In the Balkans
Later large guns were known as bombers and reached lengths of three to five feet. They were used by the Croatian cities of Dubrovnik and Kotor for protection already at the end of the 14th century. The first bombards were made of iron, but bronze became more common, as it was recognized as more stable and able to move stones weighing up to 45 kilograms (99 pounds).
Around the same period, the Byzantine Empire began to create its own cannons in order to confront the Ottoman Empire, starting with medium guns 3 feet (0.91 m) long and 10 caliber. The earliest reliable mention of the use of artillery in the Balkans dates from 1396, when the Byzantines forced the Turks to leave, firing them from the walls of Constantinople besieged by the Basurmans. However, the Turks learned to build their own guns and again besieged the Byzantine capital in 1422. By 1453, the Ottomans used 68 captured Hungarian guns for a 55-day bombardment of the walls of Constantinople, killing everyone who stood in their way. The largest of their guns was the Great Turkish scorer, for the use of which required an operational team of 200 people and 70 oxen, as well as at least 10,000 people to transport this bronze hulk. Gunpowder made the destructive Greek fire obsolete before, and the Byzantines surrendered Constantinople with shame, having lost their empire forever.
Conclusion
The appearance and functionality of artillery over the centuries almost did not change until the technical revolution of the beginning of the last century, when the first mechanical guns appeared. But weapon historians and simply curious readers well remember where the history of artillery began. The actively developing mass culture with the popular war movie industry contributed to this, and therefore now every child knows what a gun is.