(The Exploitation of the Works of Nature) treatise, written by Song Yingxing in 1637, describes naval mines with a ripcord pulled by hidden ambushers located on the nearby shore which rotated a steel wheel flint mechanism to produce sparks and ignite the fuze of the naval mine. Although this is the rotating steel wheel's first use in naval mines, Jiao Yu described their use for land mines in the 14th century.

The first plan for a sea mine in the West was by Ralph