But who is the inventor? When did he make bows and arrows? There are different opinions in ancient books, some say that Fuxi invented the bow and arrow, some say that Huangdi invented the bow and arrow, and some ancient books say that Houyi invented the bow and arrow.
In fact, according to the research of archaeologists, these statements are not accurate, because from the unearthed cultural relics, scientists believe that bows and arrows appeared much earlier than these legendary figures, and can be traced back to the Paleolithic Age in China 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
It can be seen from all kinds of ancient books and unearthed cultural relics that the bow and arrow first invented by human beings is very simple. It is made of branches or bamboo, bent to form a bow, and vines of plants or tendons of animals are used as strings.
This primitive half-moon bow and arrow, because the bow body has been bent to a great extent, produces little force.
Later, people constantly summed up their experience and changed the bow body into a "bow" shape, so that the middle part of the bow and arrow was sunken, and the bow body would not change much when it was not wound, which could store more and more power and increase the lethality of the bow and arrow.
Scientists speculate that the word "bow" written by Jin Wen and Oracle Bone Inscriptions comes from the shape of a curved bow, which indicates that its invention and use predate its writing.
It is particularly worth mentioning that archaeologists found stone arrows made at that time in the ruins of the late Paleolithic period in Shanxi. You can imagine how long China has made bows and arrows!
By the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the bow and arrow manufacturing industry in China had been greatly improved. For a long time, bows and arrows were important weapons in the hands of military strategists and Orion.
When using bow and arrow, you need to hold the bow and arrow in one hand and pull the string in the other, which affects the accuracy of archery.
In order to overcome these shortcomings, people in ancient China borrowed from the original bow clip used to kill prey and came up with the original idea of making crossbows, that is, installing a directional device and a mechanical launching system on the bow arm, which greatly improved the hit rate and launching power. In this way, crossbows with better performance than bows were born.
From this point of view, crossbows are bows with arms. As a conventional weapon in ancient China, it obviously evolved from the bow.
Bows and arrows have been used in China for at least 20,000 to 30,000 years, and crossbows, as a conventional weapon of our army, have a history of more than 2,000 years. According to the detailed description of the preserved crossbow, the earliest crossbow is a bronze pistol type, and its top design belongs to the early Zhou Dynasty.