Who invented the land mine?

Land mines were invented in the 13th century, where there are records of its use by Song Dynasty China against the Mongols. The invention is attributed to Lou Qianxia.

Some sources report that the 3rd century Prime Minister Zhuge Liang of the Kingdom of Shu in China invented a landmine-type device in the third century, although this is purely speculative.

The earliest confirmed use of a land mine dates to 1277 AD in Song Dynasty China, when it was used by the Chinese against an assault of the Mongols, who were besieging a city in northern China. The invention of this detonated "enormous bomb" was credited to one Lou Qianxia of the 13th century.

The 14th century Chinese text of the 'Huolongjing, which was the first to describe hollow cast iron cannonball shells filled with gunpowder, was also the first to describe the invention of the land mine in greater detail than references found in texts written beforehand.

The first modern explosive anti-personnel mines were likely those used by the Confederate army in 1862, in the US Civil War. Their general, Gabriel J. Rains, had used similar explosives as booby traps in 1840 during the Seminole Wars.