In his brilliant study, The Pursuit of Power, William McNeill suggested that the development of cannons in the West went through a stage of “Second Bronze Age”, approximately 1453-1543, because wrought iron, the mainstay of Western iron technology, was not fit for manufacturing cannons. Without cast iron technology, which was first applied to the casting of cannons around 1450, the West had to resort to using bronze. Interestingly, early specimens of Chinese cannons that date back to the turn of the 14th century were also made of bronze. Iron cannons did not make their debut in China unti1 slightly later. If the Chinese iron technology had been characterized by cast iron technology, then it would be quite strange that they did not apply it to the fashioning of cannons, which were to appear towards the end of the Southern Song (1127-1278) after the first formula of gunpowder was recorded in around 1040. The manipulation of gunpowder explosion necessitated the use of hard metal and especially delivery barrels. Cast iron would ideally serve this purpose. However, it seems that the Song iron technology could not meet the needs too. This is most likely a consequence of the use of coal (shitan), instead of charcoal, to smelt iron ore that became popular in the Northern Song times (960-1126). The coal from Northern China contained high percentages of sulfur. Cast iron that contains more than 0.5% of sulfur will lose its hardness. Without the skill to extract sulfur and other impurities from coal, the Chinese artisans were not able to cast cannon barrels hard-enough to withstand the explosive power of gunpowder in use. From the Song through the Ming (1368-1661),the Chinese increasingly used the so-called “shutie”, a kind of iron similar to Western wrought iron. Like wrought iron, however, shutie is not fit for manufacturing cannons. The invention of coke in 1704 was the decisive moment when, one can say, the European “Second Bronze Age” in cannon-making came to its full cycle. The Chinese, indeed, had by 1599 developed the skill to make coke, but for various reasons they never seemed to have been able to produce good-quality cast iron cannons. The second Chinese Bronze Age thus ended in a way fundamentally different from that of Europe. It never actually ended until the Europeans introduced their iron cannons technique to China. These comparative experiences of cannon-making and cast-iron technology show that civilizations do not have to take the same route of development. Chinese artisans had been more fascinated with how to improve iron implements for daily use, and were satisfied without having to better the quality of cast iron essential for making cannons. On the other hand, Europeans seemed to have more systematically wanted to manufacture weapons that represented power, notwithstanding economic irrationality. This last point echoes McNeill's putative remark on Europeans’ “unintelligible behavior”. However, it was the Chinese “rationality” that led to its failure to comprehend the military implications of technological development.