The crossbow was a pretty common weapon in China until the invention of gunpowder. The crossbow was composed of several pieces,”This is a weapon based on the bow, featuring a horizontal bow-like assembly called a prod, which is then mounted on a stock. It shoots projectiles that are sometimes called bolts or quarrels.”-William Bernhardt. The crossbow has a very long history that all started in Ancient China. “The crossbow was invented in Ancient China during the Zhou dynasty, around the year 700 BC. A Chinese text, from about 200 BC, gives credit to a Mr. Ch'in of Ch'u for inventing the crossbow. It consisted of a horizontally mounted bow, with a stock and trigger mechanism added.”-Unknown Author. Even though the crossbow is only used today for sport it played an important role in ancient warfare and also in medieval times. In fact, a pope banned the crossbow because of how easy it was to master. The superior individuals of the medieval world didn’t want simple peasants to be able to shoot higher class people, so they banned the crossbow. The longbow often took years to master, but the crossbow might only take a week or two, see the danger that the nobles …show more content…
China had discovered iron in the fourth century B.C., a far cry from when the Europeans discovered it; there was a bit of geological luck involved. The plow is one of those incredibly significant inventions that is up there with the invention of the wheel. The plow might have been around before in China, but they now had one of the most precious (in its own way) materials to make it extremely more practical. “in China the usage of steel goes back to 2550”-Author Unknown. The plow that John Deere invented in 1837 had been around for about 1800 years or so ( Deere’s was made of steel instead of just iron though). Anyways, as we discussed in class, the more efficient the farming the farther advanced a civilization will typically be. It is my personal opinion that it is because of advanced agricultural techniques like this that the isolated Chinese were able to support