Every year, over the autumn and winter months, this district in China’s southeast Guangzhou province fills with the scent of drying tangerine peels, or chenpi. For some locals, it’s the smell of gold.
The earliest representations we have of the crossbow date from 400 BCE, in China. By 209 BCE the Chinese army had 50,000 crossbowmen who fought with mass-produced bronze weapons. These crossbows, ...