At The Siege
Of Kai-Fung Fu Near The Hwang-Ho, The Latest Capital Of The Kin Emperors,
In 1232,
The Mongol General, Subutai, threw from his engines great
quarters of millstones which smashed the battlements and watch-towers on
The ramparts, and even the great timbers of houses in the city. In 1236 we
find the Chinese garrison of Chinchau (I-chin-hien on the Great Kiang
near the Great Canal) repelling the Mongol attack, partly by means of
their stone shot. When Hulaku was about to march against Persia (1253),
his brother, the Great Kaan Mangku, sent to Cathay to fetch thence 1000
families of mangonellers, naphtha-shooters, and arblasteers. Some of the
crossbows used by these latter had a range, we are told, of 2500 paces!
European history bears some similar evidence. One of the Tartar
characteristics reported by a fugitive Russian Archbishop, in Matt. Paris
(p. 570 under 1244), is: "Machinas habent multiplices, recte et fortiter
jacientes"
It is evident, therefore, that the Mongols and Chinese had engines of
war, but that they were deficient in some advantage possessed by those of
the Western nations. Rashiduddin's expression as to their having no
Kumgha mangonels, seems to be unexplained. Is it perhaps an error for
Karabugha, the name given by the Turks and Arabs to a kind of great
mangonel? This was known also in Europe as Carabaga, Calabra, etc. It is
mentioned under the former name by Marino Sanudo, and under the latter,
with other quaintly-named engines, by William of Tudela, as used by Simon
de Montfort the Elder against the Albigenses:
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