During the 8th century, Gunpowder (火药) was invented in Tang Dynasty (唐朝) of China which was called Black powder ( 黑火药 ) nowadays. Black powder was practically the only known propellant and explosive until the middle of the 19th century. It has been superseded by more efficient explosives such as smokeless powders and TNT. It is still manufactured today but primarily for use in fireworks, model rocket engines, and reproductions of muzzleloading weapons

The first reference to missile throwing weapons appears in 1259 when bamboo tubes were used to launch baked clay bullets or packed pebble projectiles at the enemy, commonly refer to as a "firelance" (these bamboo tubes were sometimes attach to the shaft of lances or pikes, hence the name. Also, the common chinese word for "gun" is also defined as "spear"). This type of weapon was primarily a nuisance, rather than a danger on the battlefield. Paper charges of black powder attach to arrows were also used; the Chinese soon realize that these charges could act as primitive rocket motors and send arrows off without the aid of a bow. Many early mixtures of Chinese gunpowder contained toxic substances such as mercury and arsenic compounds, and could be considered an early form of chemical warfare. The oldest metal cannon in China dates from 1323. From China, the military use of gunpowder appears to have spread to the rest of the world. It was used by the Mongols (1279 - 1368) against the Russians. By the mid 14th century, early cannon are mentioned extensively both in Europe and in China.

In China, the use of gunpowder to produce firearms and cannon was delayed by difficulties in creating metal tubes that would contain an explosion. This problem may have led to the myth that the Chinese used their invention only for the manufacture of fireworks. In fact, gunpowder powered cannon and rockets were extensively used in the Mongol conquests of the 13th and 14th centuries and were a feature of East Asian warfare afterwards. The low, thick city walls of Beijing (started in 1406) for example, were specifically designed to withstand an artillery attack, and the Ming dynasty (明朝) moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing in 1421 specifically because the hills around Nanjing were good locations for invaders to place artillery.

Early Chinese firearm development was limited, due in part to China's isolation from competing empires. Without need for gunpowder weapons in the defense of the empire, there was little pressure to develop firearms technologies, despite an adequate technological base for producing key components such as cast iron and the matchlock. At the time, the only real threat was that of Mongolian hordes in the northern steppes of China. During the Ming dynasty, the Chinese military attempted to incorporate firearms in defense against Mongolian raiders. Soldiers would fire from a circular enclosure of shields at passing raiders. The slow rate of fire and poor quality of the firearms proved ineffective against the fast Mongol horsemen and their combat tactics, which contributed to the decline of firearm development in the country. By the time of the Qing dynasty, the Mongolian hordes had been subdued and the Chinese were left without any incentive to produce or develop firearms of sufficient quality, which contributed to their vunerabilty to Western aggression.

The 15th through 17th century saw widespread development in gunpowder technology mainly in Europe. Advances in metallurgy led to portable weapons and the development of hand-held firearms such as muskets. Cannon technology in Europe gradually outpaced that of China and these technological improvements transferred back to China through Jesuit missionaries who were put in charge of cannon manufacture by the late Ming and early Qing emperors.

The latter half of the 19th Century saw the invention of nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose and smokeless powders which rapidly led to the replacement of gunpowder in many applications.