The Chinese had made the hand cannon and the mongols were spreading it by using it on people they were trying to conquer. The hand cannon wasn’t very good at shooting at long range and it mostly just pinged off knight’s plate armor so people started looking for better hand cannons. The arquebus is the ancestor of the rifle and matchlock. The original arquebus could hold a lot more gunpowder than the hand cannon could and could blast straight through plate armor but to light the gunpowder you had to light a match and stick it in the barrel and get your hand out of the way before it goes off. People eventually drilled a hole in the back of the stock to put in the match in so that you don’t blow off your hand. The arquebus can shoot far further than arrows can and be more deadly.
School Essays 