Hand cannons first saw widespread usage in China sometime during the 13th century and spread from there to the rest of the world. In 1287 Yuan Jurchen troops deployed hand cannons in putting down a rebellion by the Mongol prince Nayan. The "History of Yuan" reports that the cannons of Li Ting's soldiers "caused great damage," but also created "such confusion that the enemy soldiers attacked and killed each other." The hand cannons were used again in the beginning of 1288. Li Ting's "gun-soldiers" or "chongzu" () were able to carry the hand cannons "on their backs". The passage on the 1288 battle is also the first to coin the name "chong" () with the metal radical "jin" () for metal-barrel firearms. "Chong" was used instead of the earlier and more ambiguous term "huo tong" (fire tube; ), which may refer to the tubes of fire lances, proto-cannons, or signal flares. The oldest extant hand cannon bearing a date of production is the Xanadu Gun, which contains an era date corresponding to 1298. The Heilongjiang hand cannon is dated a decade earlier to 1288, corresponding to the military conflict involving Li Ting, but the dating method is based on contextual evidence; the gun bears no inscription or era date. Other specimens also likely predate the Xanadu and Heilongjiang guns and have been traced back to the late Western Xia period (1214-1227), but these too lack inscriptions and era dates (see Wuwei bronze cannon).