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Article: How the East was won.(Chinese military history around the year 1000)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- August 16, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At a time when Europe's military forces were loosely organized bands of knights and foot soldiers, China's Song dynasty had hundreds of thousands of men in a professional army supported by imperial taxes and a large iron-and-steel industry.
That industry also gave the Chinese a superweapon: a sophisticated crossbow that historians believe could penetrate leather armor. Although guns hadn't been invented, the Chinese also had gunpowder, which they used in "fire arrows" and bomb-like devices.
Of course, Europeans did have armor, spears, and swords, but they simply weren't organized on the same scale the Chinese were. "Compared to Europe, the Chinese had a ...