Battles & Wars › Medieval wars
Gunpowder and cannon
c. 850 (China); cannon by c. 1300· Invention or discovery· Weapons, armor & warships
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
A Chinese mix of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal that became the propellant for guns and cannon, transforming war worldwide.
See it on the Battles & Wars map →What happened
Chinese alchemists found the explosive mix by about the 800s; a military manual of 1044 records formulas. China used it in fire arrows, bombs and the fire lance, a tube that shot flame. The first true metal guns appear in China by about 1288. Gunpowder reached the Islamic world and Europe in the 1200s; European cannon are first pictured in 1326. By the mid-1400s huge bombards could smash castle walls in days.
Why it matters
Gunpowder ended the age of the high-walled castle and the armored knight, and rewarded states rich enough to buy artillery, shifting power toward centralized monarchies and empires.
How we know
Chinese texts such as the Wujing Zongyao (1044), surviving guns like the Heilongjiang hand cannon, European manuscripts, and dated cannon such as Mons Meg (1449).
Still debated
How gunpowder traveled west, via Mongol armies, Silk Road trade or Islamic scholars, and whether Europe developed the cannon independently, are debated.
Inside this (6)
Connections (15)
▸Castles and siege warfare lost their edge to Gunpowder and cannonMostly agreed
The connection
Tall, thin stone walls were built to stop climbers, not cannonballs. By the mid-1400s heavy bombards could breach them in days: France retook dozens of English-held castles in Normandy in 1449–1450. In 1453 Ottoman guns battered down parts of Constantinople's great walls. Engineers answered with low, thick, angled bastion forts, the 'trace italienne'.
When and how
Europe and the Mediterranean, mid-1400s to 1500s; the Bureau brothers' French artillery, Ottoman siege guns, Italian fortress engineers.
How sure are we?
Chronicles record suddenly short sieges; surviving bombards, and star forts built from the 1500s, show the shift in design.
Debates and open questions
How quickly cannon made castles obsolete is debated; many old castles stayed useful against raiders and rebels into the 1600s.
▸Gunpowder and cannon breached the walls at Fall of ConstantinopleWell documented
The connection
Mehmed II hired Orban, a Hungarian cannon founder the Byzantines could not afford, to cast giant bombards. The largest, about 8 meters long, fired stone balls of roughly 500 kg a few times a day. For seven weeks dozens of guns pounded the thousand-year-old Theodosian Walls. Defenders patched breaches nightly, but the final assault came through the battered central section.
When and how
The land walls of Constantinople, April 6 – May 29, 1453; guns cast by Orban at Edirne and fired by Ottoman gunners.
How we know
The Venetian eyewitness Nicolò Barbaro and the Greek historian Kritoboulos describe the guns; the similar 1464 Dardanelles Gun survives in Britain's Royal Armouries.
Debates and open questions
Sources differ on the great gun's size and whether it cracked early; some historians argue numbers and the final assault mattered as much as cannon.
▸Mongol conquests may have carried westward Gunpowder and cannonDebated
The connection
The Mongols met gunpowder bombs while fighting the Jin and Song in China, and took Chinese engineers on campaigns as far as Iran. Within decades of their western invasions, gunpowder recipes appear in Arabic and European writings (Roger Bacon, about 1267), and cannon by the 1320s. Mongol-era roads and trade make them the likeliest carriers, but this is inferred.
When and how
Northern China, 1210s–1230s; Iran and Iraq, 1250s; Mongol armies with Chinese siege engineers; gunpowder known in Europe and the Islamic world by about 1260–1330.
How sure are we?
Chinese records describe Jin defenders using iron bombs against the Mongols at Kaifeng in 1232, and Persian chroniclers note Chinese engineers with Hülegü. Direct proof of transmission is lacking.
Debates and open questions
Gunpowder may have traveled west with merchants or scholars instead, and some argue Europeans developed the cannon largely on their own.
▸Mongol invasions of Japan used early exploding bombs, a product of Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
Yuan forces threw or catapulted ceramic bombs, called tetsuhau by the Japanese, packed with gunpowder and iron fragments. Their flash and blast frightened horses and stunned samurai who had never met such weapons. They show that by the 1270s Chinese gunpowder bombs were standard Mongol equipment, carried even across the sea.
When and how
Hakata Bay and Takashima, northern Kyushu, 1274 and 1281; Yuan Mongol, Chinese and Korean troops against Kamakura-era samurai.
How we know
A scroll commissioned by the samurai Takezaki Suenaga shows a bomb bursting near him, and underwater archaeology off Takashima has recovered actual bombs.
Debates and open questions
Parts of the scroll, including figures near the bomb, may have been added centuries later, and how much the bombs affected the fighting is unclear.
▸Gunpowder and cannon helped France win the last battles of Hundred Years' WarWell documented
The connection
In the 1440s Charles VII built a professional artillery train under the brothers Jean and Gaspard Bureau. Its guns knocked down English-held castles in weeks, not months, speeding the reconquest of Normandy (1449–50). At Formigny (1450) French guns drew English archers out of position, and at Castillon (1453) John Talbot attacked a fortified French gun park and was killed.
When and how
Normandy and Gascony, 1449–1453; master gunners Jean and Gaspard Bureau serving Charles VII; Formigny, April 1450; Castillon, July 17, 1453.
How we know
French royal accounts record the artillery's growth and cost, and chroniclers credit the guns with the fast fall of Norman towns and the result at Castillon.
Debates and open questions
At Formigny a late French cavalry charge decided the day; how much credit belongs to guns versus English weakness and politics is debated.
▸Mehmed II the Conqueror used huge bombards made possible by Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
Mehmed saw that cannon could beat land walls no army had broken in a thousand years. He paid Orban well, had huge guns cast for the siege, and founded a state gun foundry tradition the Ottomans kept for centuries. A giant bronze bombard cast for him in 1464 guarded the Dardanelles and still fired on a British fleet in 1807.
When and how
Edirne and Constantinople, 1452–53; the founder Orban; later the Ottoman cannon works (Tophane) in Istanbul, founded under Mehmed.
How we know
Byzantine and Ottoman accounts describe Orban's hiring; the 1464 Dardanelles Gun, inscribed with Mehmed's name, is now at the Royal Armouries' Fort Nelson in England.
Debates and open questions
How much Ottoman gunnery relied on hired European experts like Orban, rather than its own craftsmen, is debated.
▸Gunpowder and cannon gave a small edge to Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empiresMostly agreed
The connection
Cortés landed with about a dozen arquebuses and some 14 light cannon; Pizarro had even fewer at Cajamarca. Slow to reload and short of powder, the guns mainly added shock and noise, plus some firepower in sieges and from the brigantines. Steel swords, armor, horses, Indigenous allies and disease did far more of the work.
When and how
Mexico, 1519–21, and Peru, 1532–36; Spanish arquebusiers and gunners, including cannon mounted on brigantines on Lake Texcoco.
How sure are we?
Spanish muster lists and accounts give small gun counts, and Nahua accounts in the Florentine Codex describe fear of the guns' noise and smoke.
Debates and open questions
How much the guns' psychological effect mattered is debated; historians increasingly stress allies and disease over technology.
▸Battle of Sekigahara was fought with muskets descended from Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
Gunpowder, invented in China, reached Japan in a decisive form in 1543, when Portuguese traders landed on Tanegashima island with matchlock guns. Japanese smiths copied them within a few years, and by the 1570s armies fielded gunners by the thousands. At Sekigahara both sides deployed large matchlock units alongside spearmen and mounted samurai.
When and how
Tanegashima island, south of Kyushu, 1543; mass production in towns such as Sakai and Kunitomo; used by both armies at Sekigahara in 1600.
How we know
The Teppōki, a 1606 chronicle, records the 1543 arrival; surviving Japanese matchlocks follow Portuguese designs, and battle accounts list gunner units.
Debates and open questions
Whether Chinese or Korean guns reached Japan before 1543, and how much guns mattered at Sekigahara compared with defections, is debated.
▸First Battle of Panipat was won by Babur using Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
Babur, a Central Asian prince descended from Timur and Genghis Khan, invaded India with perhaps 12,000 to 25,000 men. At Panipat he chained carts into a barrier, an Ottoman method, behind which his cannon and matchlock men fired, while mounted archers struck the flanks. Sultan Ibrahim Lodi's much larger army and war elephants broke. Babur founded the Mughal Empire.
When and how
Panipat, north of Delhi, April 21, 1526; Babur against Ibrahim Lodi of the Delhi Sultanate.
How we know
Babur's own memoir, the Baburnama, describes the battle and his Ottoman-trained gunner Ustad Ali Quli.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate whether guns or Babur's horse archers and flanking attacks did more, since he had only a few cannon.
▸Battle of Lepanto showed the power at sea of Gunpowder and cannonMostly agreed
The connection
Venice converted six big merchant galleys into galleasses, floating gun platforms with cannon facing several directions. Placed ahead of the Christian line, they broke up the Ottoman formation before contact. League galleys also carried heavier bow guns, and Spanish arquebusiers outshot many Ottoman archers. Lepanto showed that firepower, not just ramming and boarding, now shaped sea battles.
When and how
Near the Gulf of Patras, October 7, 1571; Venetian galleasses under Francesco Duodo; Spanish and Venetian arquebusiers against Ottoman archers and gunners.
How sure are we?
Eyewitness reports from both fleets describe the galleasses' fire, and Venetian Arsenal records document their conversion.
Debates and open questions
How much damage the galleasses actually did, versus boarding fights won by Spanish infantry, is debated.
▸Gunpowder and cannon was first packed into a tube in the Fire lance: the first gunMostly agreed
The connection
Chinese gunpowder was first used in war in fire arrows and incendiary bombs. Packing it into a bamboo or paper tube on a spear produced the fire lance, a short-range flamethrower. Strengthening the tube, tightening the fit and adding projectiles then led step by step to the metal-barreled gun and the cannon.
When and how
China, from about 950 (the Dunhuang painting) to 1132, when Song defenders used fire lances at De'an in Hubei.
How sure are we?
Song military manuals describe early gunpowder weapons, and Chen Gui's account of De'an is the first battle record of fire lances.
Debates and open questions
Dating the first fire lance depends on how one reads the Dunhuang painting, and whether some early 'fire arrows' used true gunpowder is debated.
▸Gunpowder and cannon propelled the first Gunpowder rockets (Chinese fire arrows)Mostly agreed
The connection
Gunpowder first made fire arrows burn fiercely. Packed tightly into a tube open at one end, it produced a jet of hot gas that pushed the tube forward: a rocket. The same chemistry that later blasted shot from cannon here drove the projectile itself.
When and how
China, between about 1000 and 1300; Song and Jin armies, and later Ming China and Joseon Korea.
How sure are we?
Military manuals from the Wujing Zongyao (1044) to the Huolongjing describe gunpowder arrows and, later, true rockets.
Debates and open questions
When incendiary fire arrows became self-propelled rockets is unclear; proposed dates range from the 1000s to the 1200s.
▸Trebuchet (traction and counterweight) was finally replaced by Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
By the late 1300s cannon could bring down walls faster than trebuchets, and their power grew quickly. Trebuchets lingered alongside guns for decades, but by the late 1400s cannon dominated sieges. Hernán Cortés's improvised trebuchet at Tenochtitlan in 1521 failed, one of its last recorded uses.
When and how
Europe and the Middle East, about 1350–1500; the Ottoman cannon at Constantinople in 1453 showed the change.
How we know
Siege accounts list both kinds of engine together before trebuchets disappear; Bernal Díaz describes the failed one at Tenochtitlan.
Debates and open questions
Early cannon were not clearly better than big trebuchets; when guns truly overtook them, and where, varied and is debated.
▸Gunpowder and cannon was put in soldiers' hands as The gun: arquebus and musketWell documented
The connection
Early cannon were scaled down into hand guns: simple tubes fired by touching a hot wire or burning match to a hole. In the 1400s gunsmiths added a shoulder stock and a lock that brought the match to the powder when a trigger was pulled, creating the arquebus.
When and how
Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1300s–1400s; Hussite hand guns in the 1420s; arquebus by about 1475.
How we know
Surviving hand guns and arquebuses, an Austrian manuscript of 1411 showing an early matchlock, and arsenal inventories.
Debates and open questions
Who first added the matchlock, and where, whether in Germany, Italy or the Ottoman lands, is unclear.
▸Hand grenade descends from the early bombs of Gunpowder and cannonWell documented
The connection
Gunpowder, first recorded in China around 850, was soon packed into bombs. By the 1200s Song and Jin armies threw or catapulted iron-cased 'thunder crash' bombs, and Mongol forces used bombs against Japan. The idea reached Europe, where 'grenade' comes from the French word for pomegranate, its seeds like the fragments.
When and how
China, 1000s–1200s, including the Mongol siege of Kaifeng in 1232; Japan, the 1274 and 1281 invasions; Europe, from the 1500s.
How we know
Chinese military manuals such as the 1044 Wujing Zongyao, a Japanese scroll of the Mongol invasions, and bomb casings recovered from the 1281 wreck site off Takashima.
Debates and open questions
Early 'bombs' may have been mostly incendiary rather than explosive; when true explosive grenades first appeared is debated.