Did Ancient Korea Also Have Advanced Technology?

The Hwacha was an ancient Korean weapon that delivered 150 rocket propelled arrows with the use of gunpowder.

I sometime watch this American show called Mythbusters, but since I don’t live in the U.S., I haven’t been able to watch it regularly.  The premise of the show is that there is a myth, and a team of scientists tests the myth to see if it is true or not.  For example, the Mythbusters were able to determine that mentos (a type of candy) really does create an explosive reaction when mixed with diet coke.  But only a specific flavor of mentos and a specific brand of diet cola.

Well I was flipping around youtube and saw that the Mythbusters actually attempted to bust the myths about the hwacha, an ancient Korean weapon.

Descriptions about the hwacha suggest that it could shoot between 100 and 200 rocket powered arrows over 500 yards and that they would explode on impact.

On the show, they tested all of these myths and found that all of them were true.

However, they obviously used modern rocket fuses when they made it, I doubt the original hwacha worked so well.  Even so, they proved that the capabilities of the hwacha under perfect conditions are at least feasible, making it a devastating weapon that was ahead of its time.  I’ll post the video clip here.

http://www.youtube.com/v/yM2NcPwsngU?fs=1&hl=en_US