Role of The Counterweight Trebuchet
The sieges of Fancheng and Xiangyang were also noteworthy for the introduction of the counterweight trebuchet in China from Persia as these new weapons proved to be decisive in forcing the surrenders of the two cities in 1273. Within a few days after the Yuan forces took up the bombardment of Fancheng by the counterweight trebuchet in March 1273, the city had been ripe for attack and successfully assaulted. Shortly afterwards, the Song commander of Xiangyang, realizing that the city could not withstand a similar attack, accepted the surrender terms of the Yuan.
The counterweight trebuchet was a relatively new type of ballistic siege engine which was much more powerful than the earlier traction trebuchets, which had existed in China for centuries. The origin of the counterweight trebuchet is obscure, but it appears to have been invented somewhere in the Mediterranean basin in the twelfth century. Many possible inventors have been hypothesized, including Emperor Alexios I Komnenos of Byzantium and the Muslim engineers of Saladin.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Xiangyang
Famous quotes containing the words role of and/or role:
“Scholars who become politicians are usually assigned the comic role of having to be the good conscience of state policy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“I wish glib and indiscriminate critics of industrialists had some conception of the problems that have to be met by factory management.... General condemnation of employers is a favorite indoor sport of the uninformed intelligentsia who assume the role of lance- bearers for labor.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)