Song Dynasty Innovations
The Song dynasty (960–1279) was the era in which China developed the technologies that would transform the world centuries before they appeared in Europe: gunpowder weapons (fire arrows, bombs, and proto-guns by the 11th century), printing with moveable type (Bi Sheng, c.1040), the magnetic compass for navigation, and paper currency for commercial transactions. Song China was also the world's first state to develop a professional standing navy and to deploy paddle-wheel warships. Its commercial revolution — urban markets, long-distance trade, specialised agricultural production for sale rather than subsistence — created the most monetised economy in the medieval world, with a GDP that historians estimate accounted for roughly a quarter to a third of global output. The dynasty's loss of northern China to the Jurchen Jin in 1127 produced the Southern Song, which continued this commercial and technological development until the Mongol conquest of 1279.
- Year: 960 CE
- Category: Technology
