15 Facts About Wujing Zongyao

Wujing Zongyao, sometimes rendered in English as the Complete Essentials for the Military Classics, is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044.

Parts of the Wujing Zongyao were copied from older sources; historian Ralph D Sawyer calls it "essentially a cut-and-paste job", containing many passages from earlier classical military writings whose original authors are left unidentified, a common practice at the time.

Wujing Zongyao was one of 347 military treatises listed in the biographical chapters of the History of Song, one of the Twenty-Four Histories.

The original text of the Wujing Zongyao was kept in the Imperial Library while a number of hand-written copies were distributed elsewhere, including a copy given to Wang Shao by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1069 AD.

Original copy of the Wujing Zongyao was lost during the Jin–Song wars when the invading Jurchens sacked the Northern Song capital of Kaifeng in 1126 AD.

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The entire Wujing Zongyao was reprinted in 1510 AD and this version is currently the oldest extant copy available.

Xu Wujing Zongyao is a "continuation" of the Wujing Zongyao written in the late Ming dynasty.

Fan wrote the book because he felt that reprints of the Wujing Zongyao circulating at that time were out of date and did not take into account the technological and strategic changes that had occurred since the Song dynasty.

Several decades after the Wujing Zongyao was written, the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo wrote of the first truly magnetized compass needle in his book Dream Pool Essays .

Wujing Zongyao's illustrated descriptions of warships had a significant influence on later naval handbooks and encyclopedias such as the naval section of the Wubei Zhi from circa 1628.

The use of pictures from the Wujing Zongyao would continue to appear in Japanese naval texts up until the 18th century.

Wujing Zongyao discusses various types of incendiary bombs and grenades.

The Wujing Zongyao contains three formulas for gunpowder: one for an explosive bomb launched from a trebuchet, another for a similar bomb with hooks attached so that it could latch on to any wooden structure and set it on fire, and another formula specified for a poison-smoke bomb used for chemical warfare.

Wujing Zongyao's first recorded gunpowder formula used in these bombs held a potassium nitrate level of 55.

Wujing Zongyao describes a flamethrower with a double-acting two-piston cylinder-pump capable of shooting a continuous blast of flame.