Iron and Steel Smelting

Chinese people utilized stone arrowheads for hunting and fishing during the Paleolithic era. Conflicts between various groups started to emerge during the Neolithic era, and the Chinese people began turning their fishing and farming instruments into lethal weapons. Bronze smelting was developed during the Shang and Zhou eras to produce various weaponry and agricultural equipment.

The development of iron - made by melting pig iron - in ancient China during the Zhou Dynasty (1050 BC - 256 BC) in the early fifth century BC has been substantiated by archaeological evidence. China saw a boom in steel smelting from the Shang Dynasty (1600 BC - 1046 BC) until the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (1050 BC - 256 BC). Private iron-making was banned and monopolized by the government during the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD), which led to a boom in iron-smelting. Qiwu Huaiwen of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386 - 557 AD), who created the method for combining wrought iron and cast iron to create steel, is regarded as the first well-known metallurgist in prehistoric China.

Different methods were employed by the Chinese to produce iron and steel weapons. Their inventive methods contributed to China's iron and steel industry's quick expansion. They advanced their civilization significantly over other cultures at the time by creating a variety of casting procedures to create crude iron, cast iron, wrought iron, tempering, and wrought steel.