of crossbows, rockets, gunpowder weapons, and other "exotic weapons", but the Chinese also made many advances on conventional iron weapons such as swords and spears that were far superior to other contemporary weapons. Crossbow The crossbow, invented by Chinese in the 7th century BC, and by Greeks in the 5th century BC, was considered the most important weapon of the Chinese armies. The mass use of crossbows allowed Chinese armies to deploy huge amounts of firepower, due to the crossbow's deadly penetration, long range, and rapid rate of fire. As early as the 4th century BC, Chinese texts describe armies employing up to 10,000 crossbowmen in combat, where their impact was decisive. Crossbow manufacture was very complex, due to the nature of the firing bolt. Historian Homer Dubs claim that the crossbow firing mechanism "was almost as complex as a rifle bolt, and could only be reproduced by very competent mechanics. This gave an additional advantage, as this made the crossbow "capture-proof" as even if China's barbarian enemies captured them they would not be able to reproduce the weapon.Crossbow ammunition could also only be used in crossbows, and was useless in the conventional bows employed by China's nomadic enemies. In combat, crossbows were often fitted with grid sights to help aim, and several different sizes were used. During the Song dynasty, huge artillery crossbows were used that could shoot several bolts at once, killing many men at a time. Even cavalrymen were sometimes issued with crossbows. It was recorded that the crossbow could "penetrate a large elm from a distance of one hundred and forty paces". Repeating crossbows were introduced in the 11th century, which had a very high rate of fire; 100 men could discharge 2000 bolts in 15 seconds, with a range of 200 yards. This weapon became the standard crossbow used during the Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Gunpowder weapons As inventors of gunpowder, the Chinese were the first to deploy gunpowder weapons. A large variety of gunpowder weapons were produced, including guns, cannons, mines, the flamethrower, bombs, and rockets. After the rise of the Ming dynasty, China began to lose its lead in gunpowder weapons to the west. This became partially evident when the Manchus' began to rely on the Jesuits to run their cannon foundry, at a time when European powers had assumed the global lead in gunpowder warfare through their Military Revolution. Guns and