Fourteenth-century Chinese military manuals described the first functional multi-stage rockets

The 'Huolongjing', a Ming Dynasty military treatise, details a sophisticated weapon known as the 'fire dragon issuing from the water.' This was the world's first multi-stage rocket, featuring a primary booster that propelled a larger tube into the air, which then ignited secondary rockets to release a swarm of fire arrows. This sequential burn allowed the weapon to reach distances of up to three kilometers, a six-fold increase over standard single-stage rockets of the era.