The history of firearms begins in 10th-century China, where early gunpowder weapons emerged from the innovation of mounting tubes filled with explosive powder onto spears, creating portable “fire lances.” Over the following centuries, these devices evolved into a wide range of weapons, including handheld firearms such as flintlocks and blunderbusses, as well as fixed artillery pieces like cannons. By the 15th century, gunpowder technology had spread throughout Eurasia. Firearms played decisive roles in major historical events, including the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the expansion of European colonial empires in the Americas, Africa, and Oceania.

The pace of innovation accelerated dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries with the development of metal cartridges, rifled barrels, repeating mechanisms, belt-fed systems, and ultimately automatic weapons such as machine guns. While early firearms relied on black powder as a propellant, modern weapons use smokeless powder or other advanced propellants.

Separate from firearms but often mentioned in discussions of early weaponry is Greek fire, an incendiary weapon reportedly used by the Byzantine Empire between the 7th and 14th centuries. Though sometimes delivered through siphon-like flamethrowers or grenades, its composition remains uncertain and it does not appear to be directly related to Chinese gunpowder weapons or later firearms.

10th–12th Centuries: Origins in China

The first true firearms developed in China following the invention of gunpowder. The earliest known depiction of a gunpowder weapon appears in a 10th-century silk banner from Dunhuang illustrating a fire lance. These early weapons consisted of paper or bamboo tubes filled with black powder and attached to spears, functioning primarily as flamethrowers. Over time, shrapnel or pellets were added so that projectiles would be expelled along with the flame.

Historical records, such as accounts of the 1132 siege of De’an during the Jin–Song Wars, describe the use of fire lances in battle. As gunpowder formulas improved—particularly through increased saltpeter content—barrels were reinforced with metal to withstand greater explosive force. Eventually, projectiles were shaped to fit the barrel more precisely, leading to the development of the hand cannon: a metal-barreled weapon firing a properly sized projectile using high-nitrate gunpowder.

By the 12th century, sculptures in Sichuan depicted vase-shaped bombards firing cannonballs, indicating the clear transition from flame-based weapons to true projectile firearms.

13th Century: Expansion Across Asia

The oldest surviving firearm, the Heilongjiang hand cannon dated to 1288, was discovered in northeastern China. Contemporary records describe its use in suppressing rebellions during the Yuan dynasty.

Gunpowder technology spread beyond China during the Mongol expansions of the 13th century. Campaigns into Southeast Asia likely transmitted knowledge of firearm production. Inscriptions from Vietnam in 1312 reference guns and ammunition among captured spoils, suggesting regional familiarity with such weapons.

Some scholars argue that early cannon were used in the 1260 Battle of Ain Jalut between the Mamluks and Mongols, though historians continue to debate the timing and origin of gunpowder’s introduction to the Islamic world.

14th–15th Centuries: The Middle East and Europe

By the late 13th or early 14th century, firearms had appeared in the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire began using handheld firearms, including early arquebuses and muskets, between the late 14th and mid-15th centuries. Firearms manuals from China in the late 16th century even described Turkish muskets as superior to their European counterparts.

In Southeast Asia, firearm production developed through the blending of Arab, Turkish, Portuguese, and local traditions. The capture of Malacca in 1511 facilitated further technological exchange, leading to the Indo-Portuguese matchlock tradition and the creation of the istinggar arquebus.

In South Asia, firearms were recorded in use by the late 14th century. The Mughal Empire incorporated Turkish firearms in the 16th century, contributing to decisive victories such as the First Battle of Panipat. Mughal emperors refined matchlock design, while other regional powers—including the Marathas, Mysore under Tipu Sultan, and the Sikh Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh—developed their own artillery and firearm traditions.

In Europe, gunpowder likely arrived via trade routes such as the Silk Road or through Mongol invasions. By the mid-14th century, cannons were used in sieges such as the English campaign at Calais. Smaller portable hand cannons appeared in Italy in the late 14th century. During the Hussite Wars (1419–1434), firearms became central to battlefield tactics, and the Czech term houfnice eventually gave rise to the English word “howitzer.”

Early Modern Developments

During the early modern period, ignition systems evolved from matchlocks to wheellocks, snaplocks, flintlocks, and finally percussion caps. Paper cartridges were introduced before the late 16th century, and bayonets appeared in France during the same era.

The development of fixed metallic cartridges in the 19th century revolutionized firearms. Brass cartridge cases combined primer, powder, and projectile into a single waterproof unit. When fired, the brass expanded to seal the breech, preventing dangerous gas escape and greatly improving reliability.

Institutions such as the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts played a key role in advancing breech-loading rifles during the mid-19th century. By this time, metallurgy had progressed sufficiently to allow mass production of durable ammunition cases.

Repeating and Automatic Firearms

Repeating firearms, capable of firing multiple rounds before reloading, emerged through mechanisms such as bolt-action, lever-action, and revolving cylinders. Revolvers, introduced in the 19th century, held cartridges in a rotating cylinder that functioned as both magazine and chamber. Single-action revolvers required manual cocking before each shot, while double-action designs allowed firing by simply pulling the trigger.

Self-loading and automatic weapons represented another major leap. The Gatling gun, invented during the American Civil War, used a hand-cranked mechanism. In 1884, Hiram Maxim developed the first true fully automatic machine gun, which used recoil energy to cycle rounds.

The early 20th century saw further innovations:

• The Mondragón rifle (1908) became one of the first successful self-loading rifles.

• The MP18, introduced in 1918, was the first practical submachine gun.

• The German StG 44 of World War II became the first widely recognized assault rifle, firing intermediate cartridges with selective fire capability.

• The AK-47 later became the most widely produced assault rifle in history.

Battle rifles such as the M1 Garand retained powerful full-size cartridges, but their recoil made fully automatic fire difficult to control, leading many militaries to adopt intermediate-caliber assault rifles instead.

Overall, firearms evolved from simple flame-projecting tubes in medieval China into highly sophisticated mechanical and chemical systems that reshaped warfare, politics, and global history.

The Opium Wars (simplified Chinese: 鸦片战争; traditional Chinese: 鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Yāpiàn zhànzhēng) were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century.

The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain. It was triggered by the Chinese government's campaign to enforce its prohibition of opium, which included destroying opium stocks owned by British merchants and the British East India Company. The British government responded by sending a naval expedition to force the Chinese government to pay reparations and allow the opium trade. The Second Opium War was waged by Britain and France against China from 1856 to 1860, and consequently resulted in China being forced to legalise opium.

In each war, the superior military advantages enjoyed by European forces led to several easy victories over the Chinese military, with the consequence that China was compelled to sign the unequal treaties to grant favourable tariffs, trade concessions, reparations and territory to Western powers. The two conflicts, along with the various treaties imposed during the century of humiliation, weakened the Chinese government's authority and forced China to open specified treaty ports (including Shanghai) to Western merchants. In addition, China ceded sovereignty over Hong Kong to the British Empire, which maintained control over the region until 1997.

First Opium War

The First Opium War broke out in 1839 between China and Britain and was fought over trading rights (including the right of free trade) and Britain's diplomatic status among Chinese officials. In the eighteenth century, China enjoyed a trade surplus with Europe, trading porcelain, silk, and tea in exchange for silver. By the late 18th century, the British East India Company (EIC) expanded the cultivation of opium in the Bengal Presidency, selling it to private merchants who transported it to China and covertly sold it on to Chinese smugglers. By 1797, the EIC was selling 4,000 chests of opium (each weighing 77 kg) to private merchants per annum.

In earlier centuries, opium was utilised as a medicine with anesthetic qualities, but new Chinese practices of smoking opium recreationally increased demand tremendously and often led to smokers developing addictions. Successive Chinese emperors issued edicts making opium illegal in 1729, 1799, 1814, and 1831, but imports grew as smugglers and colluding officials in China sought profit. Some American merchants entered the trade by smuggling opium from Turkey into China, including Warren Delano Jr. and Francis Blackwell Forbes; in American historiography this is sometimes referred to as the Old China Trade. By 1833, the Chinese opium trade soared to 30,000 chests. British and American merchants sent opium to warehouses in the free-trade port of Canton, and sold it to Chinese smugglers.

In 1834, the EIC's monopoly on British trade with China ceased, and the opium trade burgeoned. Partly concerned with moral issues over the consumption of opium and partly with the outflow of silver, the Daoguang Emperor charged Governor General Lin Zexu with ending the trade. In 1839, Lin published in Canton an open letter to Queen Victoria requesting her cooperation in halting the opium trade. 

The letter never reached the Queen. It was later published in The Times as a direct appeal to the British public for their cooperation. An edict from the Daoguang Emperor followed on 18 March, emphasising the serious penalties for opium smuggling that would now apply henceforth. Lin ordered the seizure of all opium in Canton, including that held by foreign governments and trading companies (called factories), and the companies prepared to hand over a token amount to placate him. Charles Elliot, Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China, arrived 3 days after the expiry of Lin's deadline, as Chinese troops enforced a shutdown and blockade of the factories. The standoff ended after Elliot paid for all the opium on credit from the British government (despite lacking official authority to make the purchase) and handed the 20,000 chests (1,300 metric tons) over to Lin, who had them destroyed at Humen.

Elliott then wrote to London advising the use of military force to resolve the dispute with the Chinese government. A small skirmish occurred between British and Chinese warships in the Kowloon Estuary on 4 September 1839. After almost a year, the British government decided, in May 1840, to send a military expedition to impose reparations for the financial losses experienced by opium traders in Canton and to guarantee future security for the trade. On 21 June 1840, a British naval force arrived off Macao and moved to bombard the port of Dinghai. In the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its superior ships and guns to inflict a series of decisive defeats on Chinese forces.

The war was concluded by the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842, the first of the Unequal treaties between China and Western powers. The treaty ceded the Hong Kong Island and surrounding smaller islands to Britain, and established five cities as treaty ports open to Western traders: Shanghai, Canton, Ningbo, Fuzhou, and Xiamen (Amoy).

The treaty also stipulated that China would pay a twenty-one million dollar payment to Britain as reparations for the destroyed opium, with six million to be paid immediately, and the rest through specified installments thereafter. Another treaty the following year gave most favoured nation status to Britain and added provisions for British extraterritoriality, making Britain exempt from Chinese law. France secured several of the same concessions from China in the Treaty of Whampoa in 1844.

Second Opium War

In 1853, northern China was convulsed by the Taiping Rebellion, which established its capital at Nanjing. In spite of this, a new Imperial Commissioner, Ye Mingchen, was appointed at Canton, determined to stamp out the opium trade, which was still technically illegal. In October 1856, he seized the Arrow, a ship claiming British registration, and threw its crew into chains. Sir John Bowring, Governor of British Hong Kong, called up Rear Admiral Sir Michael Seymour's East Indies and China Station fleet, which, on 23 October, bombarded and captured the Pearl River forts on the approach to Canton and proceeded to bombard Canton itself, but had insufficient forces to take and hold the city. 

On 15 December, during a riot in Canton, European commercial properties were set on fire and Bowring appealed for military intervention. The execution of a French missionary inspired support from France. The United States and Russia also intervened in the war.

Britain and France now sought greater concessions from China, including the legalization of the opium trade, expanding of the transportation of coolies to European colonies, opening all of China to British and French citizens and exempting foreign imports from internal transit duties. The war resulted in the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin (Tianjin), in which the Chinese government agreed to pay war reparations for the expenses of the recent conflict, open a second group of ten ports to European commerce, legalize the opium trade, and grant foreign traders and missionaries rights to travel within China.

China was also required to use diplomacy in the Western, egalitarian style instead of their normal way of conducting business with lesser states through a tribute system. This treaty led to the era in Chinese history known as the "Century of Humiliation". This term refers to China's loss of control of many territories to its enemies after being forced into treaties which they considered unfair. Even though the treaties were signed in 1858, there was still Chinese resistance to its principles including the residence of foreign ambassadors in Beijing. The British continued to attack the Chinese. After a second phase of fighting which included the sack of the Old Summer Palace and the occupation of the Forbidden City palace complex in Beijing, the treaty was confirmed by the Convention of Peking in 1860.

Cultural relics

In February 1860, the British and French imperialist authorities again appointed Elgin and Grotto as plenipotentiaries respectively, leading more than 15,000 British troops and about 7,000 French troops to expand the war against China. The British and French forces invaded Beijing, and the Qing emperor fled to Chengde. The British and French forces broke into the Old Summer Palace, looted jewelry, and burned it. Among the cultural relics that were looted were the well-known Old Summer Palace bronze heads.

On the morning of 7 October, the French army broke into the Old Summer Palace and began to rob it. British soldiers who arrived in the afternoon also joined the robbery, and the most precious things in the Old Summer Palace were looted. All twelve bronze statues of animal heads began to be lost overseas. On 18 October, the Old Summer Palace was burned down by British soldiers, and France refused to provide aid. The fire burned for three days and nights, razing the buildings of the Old Summer Palace to the ground and destroying nearby royal properties.

As of December 2020, seven of the twelve bronze statues have been found and returned to China. The whereabouts of the remaining five are still unknown

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