Interstate warfare and constant harassment by mounted nomadic warriors induced the Zhou to develop more efficient weapons. The crossbow was the most significant military technological innovation of the period. The invention of its simple bronze trigger mechanism was the important key to the introduction of this devastating long-range weapon.
With armies of 100,000 men battling against each other and the need to defend walled fortifications, the crossbow was a small, easy-to-use weapon, but extraordinarily powerful and deadly for its size.
The short crossbow bolt had an iron shaft, flights of leather or thin bone rather than real birds' feathers and was tipped with a bronze arrowhead. The shattering power of such a bolt was greater than that of a modern high-velocity rifle bullet. This new, rapid-fire weapon enabled untrained peasant conscripts to kill both mounted and foot soldiers more easily.
