The Tangut people (Tangut: 𗼎𗾧, mjɨ nja̱ or 𗼇𘓐, mji dzjwo; Chinese: 党項; pinyin: Dǎngxiàng; Tibetan: མི་ཉག་, Wylie: mi nyak; Mongolian: Тангуд) were a Sino-Tibetan people who founded and inhabited the Western Xia dynasty. The group initially lived under Tuyuhun authority, but later submitted to the Tang dynasty. After the collapse of Tang dynasty, the Tanguts established the Western Xia. They spoke the Tangut language, which initial research believed to be either of the Qiangic or Yi groups of the Tibeto-Burman family, later phylogenetic and historical linguistic accounts revealed that it belonged to the Gyalrongic branch of the Qiangic group. The Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongol Empire in 1227, and most of its written records and architecture were destroyed. Today the Tangut language and its unique script are extinct; only fragments of Tangut literature remain.
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👉 Tanguts in the context of Gunpowder weapons in the Song dynasty
Gunpowder weapons in the Song dynasty included fire arrows, gunpowder lit flamethrowers, soft shell bombs, hard shell iron bombs, fire lances, and possibly early cannons known as "eruptors". The eruptors, such as the "multiple bullets magazine eruptors" (bǎi-zi lián zhū pào, 百子連珠炮), consisting of a tube of bronze or cast iron that was filled with about 100 lead balls, and the "flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor" (fēi yún pī-lì pào, 飛雲霹靂炮), were early cast-iron proto-cannons that did not include single shots that occluded the barrel (thus called "co-viative" weapons). The use of proto-cannon, and other gunpowder weapons, enabled the Song dynasty to ward off its generally militarily superior enemies—the Khitan led Liao, Tangut led Western Xia, and Jurchen led Jin—until its final collapse under the onslaught of the Mongol forces of Kublai Khan and his Yuan dynasty in the late 13th century.