Wujing Zongyao records the first gunpowder formulas
- Date
- 1044 CE
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- China
- Era
- Post-Classical / Medieval
- Significance
Compiled around 1040–1044 under the Northern Song dynasty by Zeng Gongliang and colleagues, the military encyclopaedia Wujing Zongyao ('Complete Essentials from the Military Classics') contains the earliest known written formulas for gunpowder, specifying mixtures of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal along with other ingredients.
The manual describes their use in incendiary bombs, fire arrows, smoke and poison projectiles thrown by trebuchets, documenting gunpowder's transition from alchemical curiosity to organised weapon of war. Over the following Song and Yuan centuries Chinese engineers refined these compositions into ever more powerful charges and pioneered the fire lance, bombs and the first true cannon. Knowledge of gunpowder spread westward along the trade and conquest routes of Eurasia, reaching the Islamic world and Europe, where it would eventually transform fortification, warfare and the balance of power. The same Song era also saw the first description of the magnetic compass used for navigation, recorded by Shen Kuo around 1088, completing a trio of Chinese inventions that reshaped the early modern world.
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Empires active in 1044 CE
- Abbasid Caliphate750 CE – 1258 CE
- Song Dynasty960 CE – 1279 CE
- Byzantine Empire330 CE – 1453 CE
- Kanem-Bornu Empire700 CE – 1900 CE
- Fatimid Caliphate909 CE – 1171 CE
- Toltec State (Tula)950 CE – 1168 CE
Related science, technology & invention events
- Bi Sheng invents movable-type printing in Song Chinac. 1040–1048 CE
- The Diamond Sutra, the earliest dated printed book11 May 868 CE
- Ibn al-Haytham Completes the Book of Opticsc. 1021 CE
- Construction of the Grand Canal under Emperor Yang605–609 CE
- Ibn Sina completes the Canon of Medicinec. 1025 CE
- Al-Biruni Measures the Earth's Radiusc. 1017 CE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
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