Social Change and the Adoption of Gunpowder

The OTTOMANS, the MAMLUKS, and the MING HIST 1301 | History Social Change and the Adoption of Gunpowder Originally, the strength of societies such as the Turks and the Mongols came from their skill as horsemen. Turkish combatants were known for their skill with the bow and horseback, whether they were Janissaries or Mamluks. The Mongols' prowess as horsemen and archers also astounded their adversaries. But the development of gunpowder in the eleventh century changed how this and other nations waged war. In 919, gunpowder was used in combat for the first time ever documented in China. Experts think that the invention of gunpowder resulted from the experiments carried out by Chinese alchemists, a group of individuals who sought to convert common metals into gold. A person is shown clutching a tube that is erupting in flames in an artwork from Dunhuang, western China. Similar bamboo tubes were reportedly used by a Chinese army in 1126 to launch missiles at their adversaries. Six years later, another Chinese army besieged a city and destroyed its walls with the help of a bamboo cannon on wheels. By the 13th century, the Chinese began producing bronze cannons. With the invasion of Mongol forces from China came the knowledge of how to make cannons and gunpowder, which also expanded westward. Still, this was not a wholly novel technology. The Arabs in this area were already skilled at fusing petroleum to make incendiary materials, and the Byzantines used "Greek fire," a chemical derived from naphtha, to ignite enemy ships. There are several gunpowder formulas and descriptions of rockets and other weapons that used it in thirteenth-century Arab writings. The Mongols did not adopt weapons for mounted combat; instead, they used gunpowder and burning devices while besieging cities. But the Turks and Arabs did. An early form of cannon was used by the Mamluk soldiers during the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 to repel a Mongol army and stop it from taking Egypt. It is likely that the Mongols brought Chinese technology to Russia, where Europeans first saw early weapons. In Arabic writings brought back from the Crusades, or in the case of Spain, imported by the Muslims who built kingdoms there from the seventh to the fifteenth century, Western Europeans found formulas for gunpowder. By the fourteenth century, gunpowder and firearms were being used in warfare in several European nations. Exploding gunpowder was used in some of the first weapons to shoot arrows. By the thirteenth century, castle walls and city walls were being destroyed by European and Ottoman troops employing primitive cannons known as bombards. Early guns, artillery, and gunpowder were used in battles, and these innovations altered the cultures that used them as well as the methods in which conflicts were waged. Explosions on the battlefield might prevent cavalry charges and terrorise horses used by mounted warriors in addition to killing troops. Before the invention of artillery and bombardment, city sieges could go on forever—some even lasted for years. The inhabitants behind the city walls would not give up as long as they had access to food and water. However, armies were able to breach stone walls with the use of bombs and guns; even a small gap allowed opposing assaults to approach the city and engage its warriors in combat. The Ottomans' eventual destruction of Constantinople's walls and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 were made possible by their employment of cannon. Previous efforts to take the city had failed because troops were unable to breach the walls and maintain a long-term siege that would have starved the Byzantines to death. The capacity to demolish defences aided kings in establishing their dominance at home and in war. It was hard for nobility to stand up to kings whose guns might level their fortresses. The character of military defences was likewise altered by the employment of artillery. Earthen banks were constructed inside city or fortress walls to increase their strength. Star-shaped fortresses and city defences allowed cannons to be pointed in every direction, making it impossible for an adversary to position artillery close to the walls. There was a great demand for engineers who could construct or demolish the new types of fortifications. The cost of their knowledge, cannon, gunpowder, and cannonballs was high; in cultures where firearms were common, the rulers levied high taxes on the peasantry to finance this new kind of warfare. Additionally, armies shifted in character. Prior to the development of gunpowder, a commander's most useful military force was cavalry. Compared to foot soldiers, mounted warriors could move considerably more quickly, launch devastating strikes from their horses, and crush infantry underfoot. Because guns could kill riders and their horses before they approached opponents on the ground, they deprived the cavalry of their advantages. The advancement of huge artillery pieces like as cannons was not kept up with the development of portable firearms for individual infantry. Early guns were bulky, difficult to handle, and tough to manoeuvre. One of the first firearms, the arquebus, was too heavy to carry comfortably and had to be propped up on pieces of wood in order to fire. Moreover, early guns were difficult to load quickly, imprecise, and unreliable. A mamluk soldier with archery skills could shoot many arrows in the time it took to reload a rifle. Indeed, many armies continued to rely on infantry equipped with bows and arrows even after guns were invented. For instance, the Ottomans employed azebs, or peasant troops, who carried halberds—weapons that combined the usage of a spear and an axe—as well as bows and arrows and sabres. After taking the brunt of the enemy's frontal charge, Azebs moved to the side so that gun-wielding Janissaries and cannons stationed behind them could fire at the approaching enemy. To ensure that weapons like as the arquebus could be utilised in combat, new military strategies had to be created in response to their introduction. For instance, volley fire, a tactic previously employed by archers and crossbowmen, was modified by military leaders for use with weapons. A row of soldiers was trained to shoot, move immediately to the rear behind other rows of men who stepped to the front, fired, and then retreated since early weaponry like as the arquebus were so imprecise and took so long to reload. While others shot their volleys, the men in the rear had time to reload their weapons. General Qi Jiguang of the Ming dynasty wrote a song that listed each step sequentially to aid soldiers in remembering the intricate sequence of actions required to load their firearms. The basis of the combat forces in most civilizations had traditionally consisted of male aristocrats, who were sometimes the only ones able to afford to buy and maintain horses. Their class's elevated status was justified in part by their function as society's protectors. Elite mounted troops were replaced by armed peasant infantrymen as handguns became widely available. The aristocracy's loss of their warrior function frequently signalled the start of their power fall and the loss of advantages that they had enjoyed in common with other social groups. As gun ownership increased, certain states gained a clear edge over others. Rulers were better able to impose their will on civilizations without access to the metal needed to manufacture firearms and the chemicals needed to produce gunpowder. Leaders such as Matthias I of Hungary established corps of armed soldiers when the cost of handguns dropped. In the fifteenth century, Matthias equipped around 25% of his foot men with arquebuses. The resources to finance these advancements and the ease with which troops could be located and enlisted in the army were available to nations with centralised administrations and sophisticated bureaucracies that could successfully tax their citizens. States that benefited from these advantages increased in strength. Thus, gunpowder contributed to the emergence of centralised regimes in Europe. However, not all places saw these improvements. Before using gunpowder technology, states like the Ottoman Empire and Ming China had centralised regimes, and the nobility's status was largely unaffected by the usage of weapons. Before gunpowder was widely used in the Ottoman Empire, the non-noble Janissaries made up the majority of the military and continued to be an elite force. The military division of the Janissary corps was a strong force in battle, especially when utilising weaponry that were difficult to use successfully, thanks to their early training and acceptance of gunpowder weapons. Hundreds of years after the Japanese acquired firearms, the daimyo aristocracy and their vassals, the samurai, continued to enjoy a privileged status in Japanese society until the nineteenth century. A civilization's reaction to the introduction of firearms varied depending on the society.