Choe Museon

Ch'oe Musŏn was a medieval Korean chemist, inventor, and military general during the late Goryeo Dynasty and early Joseon Dynasty. He is best known for enabling Korea to domestically produce gunpowder by obtaining a recipe for the Chinese commodity from a Chinese merchant, as well as inventing various gunpowder-based weapons in an attempt to repel the wokou pirates that plundered coastal regions of the Korean Peninsula.