Singijeon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Singijeon

Korean name
Hangul:	신기전
Hanja:	神機箭
Revised Romanization:	Singijeon
McCune-Reischauer:	Sin'gijŏn

Singijeon is a Korea variation of the Chinese fire arrow, first made by Choe Mu-seon in 1377 during the Goryeo Dynasty under King U.^[1] These were launched through multiple means, such as the hwacha and large-barrelled guns. Juhwa was the first singijeon, and the result of the effort to acquire the technology of manufacturing gunpowder. In order to gain ascendancy in the sea against the Japanese pirates, the Koreans had adopted rockets and gunpowders from China.^[2] But, the Chinese were unwilling to share the technology of gunpowder manufacturing and limited its trade.^[3] Therefore, Koreans sought to acquire the manufacturing secrets of gunpowder, and, in 1374 (~1376), Choe successfully extracted potassium nitrate from the soil^[4] and developed Korea's first gunpowder. This eventually led to the creation of Juhwa.

Singijeon branched into three major types: large (dae) (대), medium (joong) (중), and small (so) (소). The large singijeon was a duplicate of the Chinese fire arrow, and it comprised a bamboo stick with a paper barrel of gunpowder attached to it.^[5] The 52cm long missile was launched individually on a handheld gun, and the launch was initiated by a fuse in the tube. Even after launch, the fuse would remain in the tube, consuming the black powder until it hit the "warhead" and detonate.^[6] The fuse length was determined by the amount of gunpowder in the paper tube, and was adjusted depending on the distance that the missile had the cover so that it would explode on the target. Its range was around 1 to 2 kilometers.^[7] The medium singijeon was of the same construction and function as the large singijeon, but, due to its smaller size of 13cm,^[6] its range was limited to 150 meters.^[5] The small singijeon was simply an arrow with a gunpowder pouch attached to it, and had no explosive capabilities. It was launched in multiples of 100 by a hwacha, and had a range of 100 meters. All gunpowder weapons including the singijeon used black powder.