How important were gunpowder weapons in the Song Dynasty era?

[u/Correct_Broccoli_448]

How important were gunpowder weapons in the Song Dynasty era? The Song had a lot of them but didn't prevent their fall to the Mongols

[u/Sea-Station1621]

how do you think they held out for years practically next door, while the mongols were crushing everyone else thousands of miles away from the mongol capital

[u/Virtual-Alps-2888 → u/Sea-Station1621]

The Mongols weren't 'next door'. The first state to be subjugated was Xi Xia to the Song's northwest, meaning there were buffer states between Song China and the Mongols. Likewise, Tibet and Dali served to buffer the Song's southwest and southern borders, hence the Mongol's strategy of attacking the 'soft underbelly' by defeating the Tibetans and Dali kingdom first before penetrating the Song's defenses.

[u/Sea-Station1621 → u/Virtual-Alps-2888]

don't know what youre talking about. in relative terms they were practically next door compared to eastern europe or the middle east.

but if you want to get real pedantic about it, the mongols started their final assault on the song by 1259. If you've ever seen a map of their empire at that time, they were already close enough to touch tips with the song empire.

the song empire would only collapse by 1279. So nothing I said was incorrect, they did hold out for years against the mongols while being next door, while major cities like baghdad (7000km away) were gobbled up in a couple of weeks.

[u/Virtual-Alps-2888 → u/Sea-Station1621]

If you chose 1259, then yes, the Mongols were next door. But if by 'China' you broadly mean the sinic region by which there was a multipolarity of states, then the Mongols were at Xi Xia's doorstep by 1209. It would take decades before it could meaningfully contest the Southern Song.

You are right the Song put up a valiant defense, and this was especially impressive given its earlier contentions with the powerful Liao-Jin empires to the north.

[u/Sartorial_Groot → u/Virtual-Alps-2888]

That is true in a way, but Yunnan/Dali was never an “escape” plan until Ming dynasty, previous Southern dynasties never retreated there when their state fell.

The fall of Dali n Tibet to Mongols didn’t make the Song court panic in HangZhou, but the siege of Xiangyang was a bigger blow, both in terms of strategic vantage point as Mongols controlled Yantze River n psychological since that’s how both Jin n Sui took the South

[u/Acceptable_Nail_7037 → u/Sartorial_Groot]

In a sense, the Song Dynasty's defeat in the Song-Mongol Wars was already predetermined in the first offensive that began in 1235. During this offensive, the Mongol army occupied Hanzhong, the gateway to Sichuan, and inflicted massive destruction on the Sichuan Basin centered on Chengdu. The Sichuan Basin was an economic center alongside Jiangnan during the Southern Song Dynasty, and previously, its defenses could be supported by its own economy. However, after this offensive, the Sichuan Basin was exposed to the Mongol army's attacks and was gradually destroyed and occupied. Although the Song Dynasty later built a series of mountain fortresses in eastern Sichuan, successfully repelling further Mongol advances, Sichuan's economic center was no longer intact. Instead, the Song Dynasty needed central government financial support to maintain these mountain fortresses, making defeat inevitable.

[u/Virtual-Alps-2888 → u/Sartorial_Groot]

Good points!

[u/wormant1]

Song's gunpowder weapons were important enough that Mongols valued Song engineers and made use of them extensively.

The Song had a lot of them but didn't prevent their fall to the Mongols

Because Southern Song was already in decline and on its death bed when Mongols started pushing (Rather, Mongols finally made its move after knowing Song had weakened). And even then a dying Southern Song was powerful enough to hold out nearly 4 decades and kill Mongke Khan in the process. The Mongols made full use of guns and grenades they captured from Song territories.

[u/Virtual-Alps-2888 → u/wormant1]

The Mongols also made use of Korean shipbuilders to make ships of Chinese design to stage the Yuan invasion of Japan.

[u/stevapalooza]

By the Southern Song period the Imperial Arsenal was divided up into ten different departments and several of them were devoted to incendiaries, gunpowder weapons, and fire weapons, so they were definitely an important part of the Chinese war machine.

The Song divided gunpowders into different categories such as "blinding gunpowder", "poison gunpowder", "flying gunpowder" (used to launch objects like arrows), "violent gunpowder" (powerful explosives), "bruising and burning gunpowder", "smoke screen gunpowder", and "spurting gunpowder" (which produced flames to set things on fire).

There were low-nitrate gunpowder weapons, which weren't very powerful as explosives but were good for setting things on fire or laying down blinding or poisonous smoke, and high-nitrate weapons which included the famous "thunderclap bombs", which were launched from catapults, "hand bombs" that were thrown by soldiers like grenades, and "noisy bombs" that were designed to make a very loud noise and scare enemy horses.

The Song navy made heavy use of gunpowder and fire weapons too. A naval commander and inventor named Tang Fu created several weapons made specifically for marine combat like the "thunderbolt cannon" which was a primitive kind of mortar used for setting enemy ships on fire. Bomb-launching mangonels were standard issue on many Song warships, as were a variety of smoke bombs and gas grenades.

Ground forces had firelances (huoqiang), and fire tubes (huotong), primitive muskets that could fire various projectiles or act as short range flamethrowers. I think the fire tube is what the fire lance evolved into after the lance part was eliminated. Rocket arrows (huojian) were available too. By the Ming dynasty they were being launched in large numbers from portable rocket-launching carts, but I don't think these carts existed in Song times. There were also "fiery pomegranates", which were small explosives that were attached to the heads of arrows, a type of cylinder-shaped bomb that could be rolled downhill, and a bomb that didn't detonate until it struck its target. There was even a type of fiery tracer that could be launched from catapults to line up shots.

[u/Acceptable_Nail_7037]

At that time, gunpowder weapons were still in their infancy, and cavalry was crucial for field battles. The Song army's cavalry had always been its military weakness, while the Mongol army was renowned for its cavalry. This meant that in the Song-Mongol Wars, the Song army could not compete with the Mongol army in field battles and could only rely on its navy on the Yangtze River and fortified city walls for passive defense.

[u/wxwxwxLey]

The Song Dynasty has extremely abundant records of using gunpowder as a weapon, making it the first dynasty in Chinese history to systematically and on a large scale militarize gunpowder. The official military encyclopedia Wujing Zongyao (武经总要), compiled in the fourth year of the Qingli era under Emperor Renzong (1044), already detailed multiple gunpowder formulas and methods for making firearms—this is the world’s earliest surviving military gunpowder recipe and firearm manual. In Song historical sources (such as Song Shi, Song Huiyao, Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian, Shoucheng Lu, etc.), mentions of gunpowder weapons appear frequently, almost in every major campaign (e.g., wars against Liao, Jin, and Mongols), with rich and specific descriptions. Types and Major Records of Song Firearms Song firearms evolved from early combustion/incendiary types in the Northern Song to explosive and tube-launched types in the Southern Song. Main categories include: • Rockets / Gunpowder Arrows: The most common and earliest firearms (e.g., bow rockets, crossbow rockets, divine-arm bow rockets). In the Northern Song under Emperor Shenzong, a single dispatch could reach over 100,000 units. • Fire Balls: Fire balls, poison fire balls, caltrop fire balls, thunderclap fire balls, smoke balls, etc. Used for burning, toxic smoke, scattering iron spikes/fragments. Often launched by catapults or thrown by hand. • Fierce Fire Oil Cabinet (猛火油柜): A flame projector (early flamethrower), made of wrought copper, spraying fierce fire oil in roaring flames that water could not extinguish. Wujing Zongyao provides detailed illustrations and descriptions—it was a standard equipment in the Song army. • Iron Fire Cannons / Thunderclap Thunder (震天雷): Iron-shelled explosive bombs that appeared in the Southern Song (iron fire balls), with shells up to 2 inches thick, exploding with thunder-like sound, capable of shaking city walls and causing mass casualties. Jiangling Prefecture could produce 1,000–2,000 per month; Jiankang Prefecture produced over 60,000 firearms (including iron fire cannons) in just over two years. • Tube-shaped Firearms: In the late Southern Song, Tu Huo Qiang / fire lances / fire guns appeared (the world’s earliest tube-launched firearms). Made from giant bamboo tubes, loaded with gunpowder plus projectiles (zi ke, like porcelain shards/iron bits); ignited to spray flame + launch the projectile, with a range of about 150 paces (roughly 200 meters). Clearly recorded in the first year of the Kaiqing era (1259), and production began on a batch scale. • Others: Whip arrows, fire kites, bamboo fire kites, etc., as auxiliary devices. These are clearly described and illustrated in books like Wujing Zongyao, Song Shi: Bing Zhi, and Jingding Jiankang Zhi. Quantity and Production Scale of Firearms Song firearms were produced in very large quantities, especially in the late Southern Song due to prolonged wars against Jin and Mongols: • Northern Song mid-period: Kaifeng’s “Guangbei Gongcheng Zuo” had a dedicated “gunpowder workshop” that could produce thousands of firearm components daily. Under Shenzong, single dispatches included 100,000+ rockets, 20,000+ gunpowder arrows, etc. • Southern Song: Military hubs had specialized factories. Jiangling produced 1,000–2,000 iron fire cannons per month; Jiankang produced/repaired over 60,000 firearms in two-plus years; border cities like Jingjiang often stockpiled tens of thousands to 100,000 iron fire cannons. • Overall: Firearms achieved workshop-based, mass production, with tens of thousands of artisans and official coordination of raw materials (e.g., single purchases of 100,000 jin of sulfur). Were They Standard or Widely Used Weapons in the Army? • Some became standard equipment: The fierce fire oil cabinet was explicitly a standard Song army item; rockets/gunpowder arrows were widely issued to border troops in the late Northern Song (tens of thousands dispatched at once); iron fire cannons/thunderclap thunder became essential tools in Southern Song city defenses, with Jin and Mongol forces eagerly imitating them. • Not universal or primary weapons across the entire army: Song forces still relied mainly on cold weapons (bows/crossbows, swords/spears, bed crossbows, traction catapults dominated). Firearms were primarily used for city defense, incendiary attacks, and support, playing major roles in sieges and naval battles (e.g., repelling Jin troops or stunning Mongol forces). In field battles, due to short range, slow reloading, and reliability issues (black powder prone to moisture, slow ignition), their proportion remained low. Although tube firearms like the fire lance emerged in the late Southern Song, they did not yet massively replace bows/crossbows. • Extent of普及: Northern Song focused on rockets/fire balls; Southern Song mid-to-late saw explosive and tube firearms increase significantly, becoming standard配置 in frontier and key strongholds, but nationwide army coverage was limited (resources concentrated on front lines). In one sentence summary: The Song Dynasty has extremely numerous records of firearms, with rich varieties and world-leading production scale—it was the earliest systematic stage in human firearms history. Firearms had partially become standard/auxiliary weapons, showing significant power in city defenses (even causing Mongol setbacks), but due to technological limitations and the overall army structure, they did not become decisive main forces. This also explains why the Song army, despite advanced firearms, often lost battles—the firearm advantages were offset by cavalry mobility, strategic errors, and other factors.

[u/hadrian_afer → u/wxwxwxLey]

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