14 November 2015

Fei Kong Sha Tong (飛空砂筒)

Fei Kong Sha Tong (飛空砂筒, lit. 'Flying sand tube')

Ming Dynasty Sand Rocket
Drawings of Fei Kong Sha Tong and its launch tube, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.
Fei Kong Sha Tong (飛空砂筒), also known as Fei Kong Shen Sha Huo (飛空神砂火, lit. 'Flying divine sand fire') is a very unique rocket designed to blast poisoned sand to blind enemy soldiers. It is essentially a narrow bamboo slip (which serves as flight stabiliser) with two opposing rockets and a warhead, all connected to the same fuse, attached to one end. Several iron barbs are also attached to the bamboo slip so that the rocket will catch onto its target before detonation. 

According to Mao Yuan Yi (茅元儀), author of Wu Bei Zhi, this weapon can supposedly fly to its target with its first rocket, detonate its payload, then engage the second rocket to return to its sender. Needless to say, his description is utterly ridiculous and impractical as it is practically impossible to ensure the second rocket will properly send the weapon back, not to mention the barbs installed on Fei Kong Sha Tong defeats the whole purpose of the returning rocket. Even assuming the weapon somehow always work as intended, a returning Fei Kong Sha Tong will only confuse friendly troops, as there is no way to tell apart a returning Fei Kong Sha Tong from an actual rocket launched from the opposing side.

It is clear that Mao Yuan Yi either did not have access to the complete information and made up his own interpretation of the weapon, or was misled by unreliable sources. Wu Bian (《武編》), a much earlier source, actually contains the correct and practical description of this weapon. Fei Kong Sha Tong is simply a larger version of Ding Peng Jian (釘蓬箭) rocket that utilises its barbs to attach to enemy ship, then detonates its poisoned sand warhead to clear away nearby enemy personnel, and finally engage its secondary rocket, using the exhaust flame to burn down the ship.

Yu Zi Shi San Zhong Mi Shu Bing Heng (《喻子十三種秘書兵衡》) variant

Yu Zi Shi San Zhong Mi Shu Bing Heng variant of Fei Kong Sha Tong replaces its secondary rocket with another poisoned sand warhead. This variant loses its incendiary function and become a purely anti-personnel weapon.

4 comments:

  1. haha....a returning rocket. Thank you, always enjoyed your posts. It seems that Wu Bei Zhi contained a number of weapons that are questionable in nature. Were weapons such as these ever put into the development stage or were simply made up and put into the manual? This and the water skipping two-stage Dragon head rocket comes to mind.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Raymond Lau
    Good evening and welcome to my blog.

    Of all the weapons tagged as 'impractical weapon' in my blog, only Shen Huo Fei Ya (flying crow-rocket thing) had been deployed for actual use, as far as I know. Others are... weird gadgets, at best.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good to know...your blog has been a joy. I'm a ABC that can't read much Chinese so I'm limited to what's available for English-language sources (incl. those awful Osprey books) and snooping around google. Please keep posting!

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Raymond Lau
    Glad you like my blog. I will keep on writing.

    ReplyDelete

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