After the Qing Dynasty was determined, it encountered a rare large-scale war or a sufficiently matched opponent, so it did not pursue further development in the production or performance of artillery , and it could not even maintain its original level. The 20th year of Daoguang, the Opium War, forced the Qing court to build a large number of cannons again. However, the military strength of the two parties involved has been significantly different due to the industrial revolution of in Europe. Most of the Qing army's troops are still mainly cold weapons. Although they are equipped with red cannons (a hodgepodge with a casting time spanning two centuries and a diverse production country), their quality is quite different from that of the British army. The UK has successively sent 108 ships of various types, 724 guns, and the total strength of the Navy and Army is about 20,000. Among the participating ships, the country's first wrought iron shell steam warship, the Goddess of Nemesis, can also be seen among the participating ships. The ship has only six artillery pieces. Although it is not suitable for active attack, its draft is only 1.8 meters and does not require wind or manpower. Therefore, it can continue to sail in the inland highway with its armor to effectively carry out reconnaissance or troop transport tasks.
Above picture: The British iron-shell steam warship who participated in the Opium War; the picture below: Ding Gongchen's "Collection of Cannon Pictures" "Small Steam Vehicle Machinery Picture"
In the battle to capture Humen Fortress on the 6th of the 21st month, it was said that only five British troops were slightly injured, while the Qing army suffered 500 casualties (including the heroic death of the country, Guangdong Navy Admiral Guan Tianpei ), One thousand five hundred people were captured, and a total of 460 cannons were captured or destroyed on the same day and the next day. For example, taking the Weiyuan cannon as an example, it includes 111 cannons: among which 107 iron cannons, except for three British cannons, the rest are Chinese cannons, including a 68-pound cannon, a 42-pound cannon, and many 32, 24, and 12-pound cannons; there are also four copper cannons, cannons, which were made by the Portuguese in 1627, including two 330 cm long and about 27 cm caliber.
The 68-pound main gun of Weiyuan Fort should have been cast by the Qing court on the eve of the Opium War. At that time, many coastal strongholds used more than 10,000 kilograms of cannon artillery as the focus of preparation. The heaviest of the existing front-mounted smoothbore cannons made in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, or the 23-year-old compound iron cannon that weighs 12,000 kilograms (with a bomb of 40 kilograms, about 53 pounds) in the Yangzhou Shikefa Memorial Hall. However, the Qing court should have cast larger cannons at that time, because Li Xiangfen, the governor of the cannons in the first month of the 23rd year of Daoguang, once reported that the barbarians' ships were strong and powerful, and the people and boats were familiar with each other, and the boats were sensitive. It is difficult for the mainland to win the battle with the navy. That is, to build large ships and cannons, and still need to supervise the military and pilot the craftsmanship. It will not be able to be familiar with it for a year or two. With what I have in mind, I am the one who has the strengths. Even if I have the tools to win, I will be unable to control the power to win. I thought it would be better to reject it from the land than to reject it from the water. The cannons on the ships of the Yi people are eight thousand kilograms, but most of them cannot be carried. However, I can win by land by double the number of them... Therefore, in the Guangdong aftermath case, ten copper cannons were cast in 13 thousand kilograms. I personally supervised them and placed two big yellow zithers and two sand-tails. The soldiers were ordered to perform the show. The child weighed 70 kilograms and received 480 kilograms of medicine. Eight miles away from the target, the small boats on both sides of the strait were overturned.
, the Dahuang Cellar (named Tau-wang-kow or Yellow Pagoda Fort in the west) and the Ershawei Fort are equipped with 13,000 kilograms of copper cannons, which are equipped with 70 kilograms of ammunition (about 95 pounds). The diameter of the 68 pounds of ammunition in Weiyuan Fort should be about 12% smaller than this.
During the fifteenth year of Daoguang, the Qing court successively added 59 newly cast 8,000 jin and 6,000 jin cannons in various forts in Humen, Guangdong. However, according to the report of Guan Tianpei, the admiral of the Guangdong Navy, when he was released one by one in five times, he actually broke ten gates and killed two injured soldiers. After inspection, he found that the crushed iron blocks were too much, and the chamber was uneven. "The holes all over his body looked like a hive, and there were holes, and four bowls of water could be stored inside." In addition, some new guns have "fire around the tail of the gun", "blast hole explodes", "width and depth of the gun hole", "the body of the gun body has traces of filling and holes", "bad ears are broken", "the door eye takes too much medicine, which shows that there are holes". Since the contract requires the manufacturer to "guaranteed for 30 years, and the internal explosion is limited to the craftsman," the furnace maker has paid a total of fourteen doors, together with the "inappropriate construction" four doors, the furnace maker has paid a total of four.That is, although the new and old artillery positions installed at the eight Humen forts at that time reached 234, their quality was often inferior to that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were probably not many people who could truly trust the gunners.
Daoguang Chao cannon in front of the Opium War Museum. The bore of the gun is similar to a hive. It used
in the Opium War. If the inner diameter of the artillery is purely considered, the Qing army's weapons seem to be no less than that of the British army. Therefore, ocean-going ships are limited by the tonnage of displacement, so they usually do not load too many heavy cannons. For example, among the seventy-four cannons equipped with the British flagship Melville, the largest one is 32-pound cannons, a total of 28, and there are 28 18-pound cannons, with the remaining 12-32-pound carons. As for the British East India Company's armed steamship Queen, there is a 68-pound carona cannon, but only one cannon weighs less than 1,503 kilograms, a gun with a length of 102 cm and an inner diameter of 25.6 cm. The effective distance for flat shooting with 6 pounds of gunpowder is 240 meters. If launched at a 2-degree elevation angle, it can reach 600 meters. The design of the
caron cannon was proposed by General Robert Melville to the Carron company of Scotland in 1774, because the British government's Board of Ordnance Office issued a warning on March 22, 1771, pointing out that the new artillery of the Caron company was often exploded due to defects in process or materials. This new artillery began to serve in the British fleet in 1779. The process used a boring machine developed by John Wilkinson (one of the important navigators of the industrial revolution) in 1774. This machine can drill the solid cast gun body (made of better spreadable cast iron and gray cast iron), so that the inner diameter of the gun body can be evenly and straight, and is less likely to explode. The Ordnance Bureau therefore ordered that all British military artillery must be manufactured in this way (originally casting technology with mud molds), but to avoid monopoly, under the operation of the British Navy, Wilkinson's patent was cancelled in 1779, but he was still one of the major artillery casters at that time.
The equipment used by Britain to drill solid cast guns into drilling chambers in the early 19th century was also developed simultaneously in certain European countries. For example, Swiss engineer Jean Mariz also invented a vertical drilling machine in France in 1713 to drill a slow-down vertical nacelle with a rotating drill bit. However, the method was time-consuming and inaccurate. Therefore, he improved the horizontal lathe (horizontal boring machine) in 1734, and together with his son Jean Mariz II, made great contributions to the improvement of French artillery. The method of making is to drill the solid cast gun body with a bore machine, so the inner diameter is larger, the pipe wall is thinner, and smooth and straight. This technology can make the gap of the gun barrel reach 1/20 of the diameter of the shell, ensuring the improvement of the gun range and shooting accuracy.
Horizontal lathe used for British artillery in the early 19th century
During the Opium War, the caliber and type of British artillery had gradually been standardized, and the quality and lethality of ammunition were far beyond the reach of the Qing army. In addition, warships have also begun to install new caron guns in large numbers. For example, on the Blenheim and Wellesley participating in the battle, there are twelve 32-pound caron guns and six 18-pound caron guns, and six 62 12-32-pound caron guns. The Conway, Rattlesnake and Alligator are equipped with twenty 32-pound caron guns and six 18-pound caron guns, and the cannon guns are only two 9-pound cannons; on the Druid and Blonde, there are sixteen 32-pound caron guns, and there are another 30 cannons, of which twenty-eight are 18-pound shells and two are 9-pound shells. After the author counted the weapons on the 18 British warships listed by Wikipedia (wikipedia), it was found that among the 611 guns, the caron cannons accounted for 304, almost half of which, 32 pounds had 240 bullets, 24 pound bullets, and 18 pound bullets had 54 bullets (the specifications have been reorganized into only three types, while 24 pound bullets only appeared on the Sulphur). Especially on the eighteen or twenty-eight cannons, almost all are carons, with less than two of them being cannons; as for the seventy-two cannons, the warships of the seventy-two cannons are mainly cannons (the largest 124 32-pound cannons are 122 above this level), and usually there are only eighteen carons each.
In the late 18th century, Europe used horizontal lathe hole-firing method to make cannons
Because the caron gun was light in weight, good maneuverability, and it was carried with a special sliding gun stand. Its range of about 500-1400 meters was quite suitable for the close-range combat needs of the "side gun line volley" tactic. For example, in December of the 20th year of Daoguang, the imperial envoy Qishan reported that Chen Dajiao and Shajiao were captured by the British army, and said:
checked the beginning of the attack of the barbarians, and only used several small and medium-sized warships, arranged multiple cannons, and entered one after another, and launched them in a joint ring. The force was extremely strong. When hitting the back wall, it broke and scattered. Our army had to fight back with all our might, but whether we were injured or not, we retreated temporarily, while changing the ship to advance again, and then repelled and retracted. After several cycles, the ship can be easy, but the turret cannot be easy. The cannons are available in each ship. Our army only has cannons installed in the platform, which is not only unchanged, but also has no time to change. Moreover, the cannons cast in the past are not very good, so now we can look at them from the broken ones. The iron inner soil is not clean, so we can ask about other things. Therefore, after several consecutive launches, the cannons had already heated up, and it was time for our army to be exhausted. When the cannons were about to explode, their large ships rushed forward, showing their ambitions and wanted to do things. This was the situation of a water battle.
clearly presents the power of naval guns such as carrot cannons when using the "side cannon line-type volley" tactic.
In addition, the Qing army's heavy cannons could fire on average every six minutes at that time, while the British army could fire nine shots in six minutes because of the flintlock machine, ignition and fixed-load shells. The fire rate of the caron can reach as many as eighteen. That is, although the Caron cannon was eliminated by Western powers before the Second Opium War of , the power of this cannon cannon was far from being matched by the long cannon used by the Qing army.
Furthermore, the Baker or Bruswick rifles (both front-mounted, rifled, flintlocked) issued by the British army to infantry are far from comparable to the Qing army's front-mounted smoothbore flintlock rifles (can only fire once per minute, and the range is only about 100 meters). Because the range of the Baker rifle is about 200 meters, it can aim and shoot two to three rounds within a minute. As for the Bruswick rifle, which started mass production in 1838, the range can reach about 300 meters and three to four rounds per minute.
In the 23rd year of Daoguang, the Qing court formed a group of iron-core and iron-body double-layer artillery "General Yaowei", which may be the largest existing smooth-bore cannons made by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Through metallographic inspection, it can be found that the material of the outer chamber is cast iron, and the inner chamber is dry iron or low carbon steel . Although this "composite material" can overcome the defects of single-layer white-mouth cast iron cannons being prone to cracking and blowing , its manufacturing technology is relatively complex, the cost is high and too heavy, so mass production is not easy.
年新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有� This difference in material results in significant differences in the smoothness and accuracy of the Chinese and British iron cannons in the barrel, the thickness of the gun wall, the casting defects inside, etc., which affects its mobility, range, rate of fire and shooting accuracy. No wonder, the performance of British iron cannons during the Opium War was significantly stronger than that of the Qing army.
Affected by the impact of Xiwei, Chinese knowledgeable people also began to imitate steamships, but they only stayed in formal imitation and failed to master the most core steam engine technology. It was not until 1865 that the Qing Dynasty launched the waters to build the first small steam ship, the "Huanghu". Shanghai "-character Linxi Daily " recorded that the ship "has a load of 25 tons and is 55 feet long; high-pressure engine, a single cylinder, a diameter of one foot, two feet long; the slewing shaft of the ship is fourteen feet long, two and two fifths inch inch in diameter; the boiler is eleven feet long, two feet six inch in diameter...", and except for "iron used for spindles, boilers and cylinder accessories" purchased from abroad, other equipment including male and female spirals, screws, piston , barometer and other equipment were all supervised by Xu Shou and his son, but this ship was not officially put into actual use.In the self-improvement movement promoted in the last thirty or forty years of the 19th century, the Qing government established the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, hoping to "learn from the barbarians to control the barbarians", so they hired foreigners to preside over the manufacturing of ships.
As for firearms, the Qing court also made some efforts. Arthur Cunningham, a British officer who served as an adjutant in the Opium War, recorded in his combat memoirs that during the Battle of Zhenhai in 1841, he said that the Qing army used a 9-pound brass caron cannon, which was imitated by the British ship cannons caught from the sea. However, because the original cannon was partially corroded, the Qing people mistakenly cast the elevation thread and the cannon body when imitating it. Also, because the Qing army originally thought that copper cannons were not easy to explode than iron cannons, they specially changed to copper casting, but copper was not resistant to high temperatures, and the Caron copper cannons were actually not suitable for continuous and rapid filling. In addition, British officer John Oktroni also claimed that in June 1842, he saw sixteen 18-pound brass carons installed by the Qing army in Shanghai. In other words, the Qing people's imitation of the caron cannon only goes to the shape of similarity, but failed to scratch the itchy spot.
Before the Qing army could keep up with the development of the caron artillery, the artillery species had been replaced by other new weapons by the great powers in the West. When the British and French coalition invaded China, the British army used 12-pound ammunition (three-inch inner diameter) and then rifled Armstrong gun (RBL 12-pounder 8 cwt Armstrong gun) in actual combat for the first time in actual combat. Thanks to the industrial revolution, this gun became the first firearm to fully utilize the breech loading efficiency. It not only greatly reduces the time for filling ammunition, but also uses the vertebrae cylinder shells used to closely fit the barrel through the rifle (because the shell is covered with a thin lead coating), and stabilizes the ballistic through the gyroscope effect generated by rotation. Therefore, the effective range can reach 3,100 meters, and the accuracy is much higher than before, and the medication is almost half (because the play is almost gone). In addition, the gun is made of wrought iron as the inner tube, and is tightly covered with wrought iron outer tube that expands due to blazing heat (the inner diameter before heating is slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the inner tube). After cooling and shrinking, it can be solidly integrated with the inner tube. After repeated several similar processes, the barrel produced can greatly reduce the blasting.
On September 21 of the same year, the Qing government decided to concentrate its forces to defend Beijing city . Leading the army, mobilizing about 30,000 infantry and cavalry and more than 5,000 British and French coalition forces to fight to the decisive battle at Baliqiao, Tongzhou. Many of the artillery used by the Qing army at that time were of the cultural relic level, including the 351 cm long copper "Invincible General" mother-child cannon (which played an important role in the Battle of Yaques during the Kangxi period). As a result, the Eight Banners Cavalry, which once traversed the Central Plains, was defeated completely under the suppression of the firepower of Minié and Enfield and heavy artillery, killing more than 2,000 people in battle. The British and French coalition claimed that only five people died and forty-six were injured in this battle. This was also the last large-scale use of cavalry in the Qing Dynasty's military history. The Governor of Liangjiang, who learned from his mistakes, Zeng Guofan, therefore, established China's first modern military-industry institution "Anqing Nei Arsenal", at the end of the 11th of Xianfeng, to manufacture guns, ammunition, steam engines and ships. Li Hongzhang also vigorously advocated the purchase or imitation of foreign ships and cannons, which opened the prelude to the self-improvement movement.
Because the Qing Dynasty's military preparations were completely behind Western power at this time, when Beijing fell, Russian also took advantage of the situation and forced the Qing court to sign the " China-Russia Beijing Treaty " on November 14, 1860, taking away a large area of territory defined by the "Invincible General" and "General Weiyuan" during the Kangxi period (according to the "Hidden General" and "General Weiyuan" Treaty " in 1689). As for the rear-mounted rifled Armstrong gun, which had played a great role in the Second Opium War, it was ordered to suspend construction by the British government in 1864 because the cost of the gun body and ammunition were too high.
The defeat of the Qing army at Baliqiao and the most advanced Armstrong artillery used by the British army at that time. In the development of modern firearm history, Japan in Asian countries was initially similar to China, but later took a very different path.
After the Qing Dynasty was determined, it encountered a rare large-scale war or a sufficiently matched opponent, so it did not pursue further development in the production or performance of artillery , and it could not even maintain its original level. The 20th year of Daoguang, the Opium War, forced the Qing court to build a large number of cannons again. However, the military strength of the two parties involved has been significantly different due to the industrial revolution of in Europe. Most of the Qing army's troops are still mainly cold weapons. Although they are equipped with red cannons (a hodgepodge with a casting time spanning two centuries and a diverse production country), their quality is quite different from that of the British army. The UK has successively sent 108 ships of various types, 724 guns, and the total strength of the Navy and Army is about 20,000. Among the participating ships, the country's first wrought iron shell steam warship, the Goddess of Nemesis, can also be seen among the participating ships. The ship has only six artillery pieces. Although it is not suitable for active attack, its draft is only 1.8 meters and does not require wind or manpower. Therefore, it can continue to sail in the inland highway with its armor to effectively carry out reconnaissance or troop transport tasks.
Above picture: The British iron-shell steam warship who participated in the Opium War; the picture below: Ding Gongchen's "Collection of Cannon Pictures" "Small Steam Vehicle Machinery Picture"
In the battle to capture Humen Fortress on the 6th of the 21st month, it was said that only five British troops were slightly injured, while the Qing army suffered 500 casualties (including the heroic death of the country, Guangdong Navy Admiral Guan Tianpei ), One thousand five hundred people were captured, and a total of 460 cannons were captured or destroyed on the same day and the next day. For example, taking the Weiyuan cannon as an example, it includes 111 cannons: among which 107 iron cannons, except for three British cannons, the rest are Chinese cannons, including a 68-pound cannon, a 42-pound cannon, and many 32, 24, and 12-pound cannons; there are also four copper cannons, cannons, which were made by the Portuguese in 1627, including two 330 cm long and about 27 cm caliber.
The 68-pound main gun of Weiyuan Fort should have been cast by the Qing court on the eve of the Opium War. At that time, many coastal strongholds used more than 10,000 kilograms of cannon artillery as the focus of preparation. The heaviest of the existing front-mounted smoothbore cannons made in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, or the 23-year-old compound iron cannon that weighs 12,000 kilograms (with a bomb of 40 kilograms, about 53 pounds) in the Yangzhou Shikefa Memorial Hall. However, the Qing court should have cast larger cannons at that time, because Li Xiangfen, the governor of the cannons in the first month of the 23rd year of Daoguang, once reported that the barbarians' ships were strong and powerful, and the people and boats were familiar with each other, and the boats were sensitive. It is difficult for the mainland to win the battle with the navy. That is, to build large ships and cannons, and still need to supervise the military and pilot the craftsmanship. It will not be able to be familiar with it for a year or two. With what I have in mind, I am the one who has the strengths. Even if I have the tools to win, I will be unable to control the power to win. I thought it would be better to reject it from the land than to reject it from the water. The cannons on the ships of the Yi people are eight thousand kilograms, but most of them cannot be carried. However, I can win by land by double the number of them... Therefore, in the Guangdong aftermath case, ten copper cannons were cast in 13 thousand kilograms. I personally supervised them and placed two big yellow zithers and two sand-tails. The soldiers were ordered to perform the show. The child weighed 70 kilograms and received 480 kilograms of medicine. Eight miles away from the target, the small boats on both sides of the strait were overturned.
, the Dahuang Cellar (named Tau-wang-kow or Yellow Pagoda Fort in the west) and the Ershawei Fort are equipped with 13,000 kilograms of copper cannons, which are equipped with 70 kilograms of ammunition (about 95 pounds). The diameter of the 68 pounds of ammunition in Weiyuan Fort should be about 12% smaller than this.
During the fifteenth year of Daoguang, the Qing court successively added 59 newly cast 8,000 jin and 6,000 jin cannons in various forts in Humen, Guangdong. However, according to the report of Guan Tianpei, the admiral of the Guangdong Navy, when he was released one by one in five times, he actually broke ten gates and killed two injured soldiers. After inspection, he found that the crushed iron blocks were too much, and the chamber was uneven. "The holes all over his body looked like a hive, and there were holes, and four bowls of water could be stored inside." In addition, some new guns have "fire around the tail of the gun", "blast hole explodes", "width and depth of the gun hole", "the body of the gun body has traces of filling and holes", "bad ears are broken", "the door eye takes too much medicine, which shows that there are holes". Since the contract requires the manufacturer to "guaranteed for 30 years, and the internal explosion is limited to the craftsman," the furnace maker has paid a total of fourteen doors, together with the "inappropriate construction" four doors, the furnace maker has paid a total of four.That is, although the new and old artillery positions installed at the eight Humen forts at that time reached 234, their quality was often inferior to that of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there were probably not many people who could truly trust the gunners.
Daoguang Chao cannon in front of the Opium War Museum. The bore of the gun is similar to a hive. It used
in the Opium War. If the inner diameter of the artillery is purely considered, the Qing army's weapons seem to be no less than that of the British army. Therefore, ocean-going ships are limited by the tonnage of displacement, so they usually do not load too many heavy cannons. For example, among the seventy-four cannons equipped with the British flagship Melville, the largest one is 32-pound cannons, a total of 28, and there are 28 18-pound cannons, with the remaining 12-32-pound carons. As for the British East India Company's armed steamship Queen, there is a 68-pound carona cannon, but only one cannon weighs less than 1,503 kilograms, a gun with a length of 102 cm and an inner diameter of 25.6 cm. The effective distance for flat shooting with 6 pounds of gunpowder is 240 meters. If launched at a 2-degree elevation angle, it can reach 600 meters. The design of the
caron cannon was proposed by General Robert Melville to the Carron company of Scotland in 1774, because the British government's Board of Ordnance Office issued a warning on March 22, 1771, pointing out that the new artillery of the Caron company was often exploded due to defects in process or materials. This new artillery began to serve in the British fleet in 1779. The process used a boring machine developed by John Wilkinson (one of the important navigators of the industrial revolution) in 1774. This machine can drill the solid cast gun body (made of better spreadable cast iron and gray cast iron), so that the inner diameter of the gun body can be evenly and straight, and is less likely to explode. The Ordnance Bureau therefore ordered that all British military artillery must be manufactured in this way (originally casting technology with mud molds), but to avoid monopoly, under the operation of the British Navy, Wilkinson's patent was cancelled in 1779, but he was still one of the major artillery casters at that time.
The equipment used by Britain to drill solid cast guns into drilling chambers in the early 19th century was also developed simultaneously in certain European countries. For example, Swiss engineer Jean Mariz also invented a vertical drilling machine in France in 1713 to drill a slow-down vertical nacelle with a rotating drill bit. However, the method was time-consuming and inaccurate. Therefore, he improved the horizontal lathe (horizontal boring machine) in 1734, and together with his son Jean Mariz II, made great contributions to the improvement of French artillery. The method of making is to drill the solid cast gun body with a bore machine, so the inner diameter is larger, the pipe wall is thinner, and smooth and straight. This technology can make the gap of the gun barrel reach 1/20 of the diameter of the shell, ensuring the improvement of the gun range and shooting accuracy.
Horizontal lathe used for British artillery in the early 19th century
During the Opium War, the caliber and type of British artillery had gradually been standardized, and the quality and lethality of ammunition were far beyond the reach of the Qing army. In addition, warships have also begun to install new caron guns in large numbers. For example, on the Blenheim and Wellesley participating in the battle, there are twelve 32-pound caron guns and six 18-pound caron guns, and six 62 12-32-pound caron guns. The Conway, Rattlesnake and Alligator are equipped with twenty 32-pound caron guns and six 18-pound caron guns, and the cannon guns are only two 9-pound cannons; on the Druid and Blonde, there are sixteen 32-pound caron guns, and there are another 30 cannons, of which twenty-eight are 18-pound shells and two are 9-pound shells. After the author counted the weapons on the 18 British warships listed by Wikipedia (wikipedia), it was found that among the 611 guns, the caron cannons accounted for 304, almost half of which, 32 pounds had 240 bullets, 24 pound bullets, and 18 pound bullets had 54 bullets (the specifications have been reorganized into only three types, while 24 pound bullets only appeared on the Sulphur). Especially on the eighteen or twenty-eight cannons, almost all are carons, with less than two of them being cannons; as for the seventy-two cannons, the warships of the seventy-two cannons are mainly cannons (the largest 124 32-pound cannons are 122 above this level), and usually there are only eighteen carons each.
In the late 18th century, Europe used horizontal lathe hole-firing method to make cannons
Because the caron gun was light in weight, good maneuverability, and it was carried with a special sliding gun stand. Its range of about 500-1400 meters was quite suitable for the close-range combat needs of the "side gun line volley" tactic. For example, in December of the 20th year of Daoguang, the imperial envoy Qishan reported that Chen Dajiao and Shajiao were captured by the British army, and said:
checked the beginning of the attack of the barbarians, and only used several small and medium-sized warships, arranged multiple cannons, and entered one after another, and launched them in a joint ring. The force was extremely strong. When hitting the back wall, it broke and scattered. Our army had to fight back with all our might, but whether we were injured or not, we retreated temporarily, while changing the ship to advance again, and then repelled and retracted. After several cycles, the ship can be easy, but the turret cannot be easy. The cannons are available in each ship. Our army only has cannons installed in the platform, which is not only unchanged, but also has no time to change. Moreover, the cannons cast in the past are not very good, so now we can look at them from the broken ones. The iron inner soil is not clean, so we can ask about other things. Therefore, after several consecutive launches, the cannons had already heated up, and it was time for our army to be exhausted. When the cannons were about to explode, their large ships rushed forward, showing their ambitions and wanted to do things. This was the situation of a water battle.
clearly presents the power of naval guns such as carrot cannons when using the "side cannon line-type volley" tactic.
In addition, the Qing army's heavy cannons could fire on average every six minutes at that time, while the British army could fire nine shots in six minutes because of the flintlock machine, ignition and fixed-load shells. The fire rate of the caron can reach as many as eighteen. That is, although the Caron cannon was eliminated by Western powers before the Second Opium War of , the power of this cannon cannon was far from being matched by the long cannon used by the Qing army.
Furthermore, the Baker or Bruswick rifles (both front-mounted, rifled, flintlocked) issued by the British army to infantry are far from comparable to the Qing army's front-mounted smoothbore flintlock rifles (can only fire once per minute, and the range is only about 100 meters). Because the range of the Baker rifle is about 200 meters, it can aim and shoot two to three rounds within a minute. As for the Bruswick rifle, which started mass production in 1838, the range can reach about 300 meters and three to four rounds per minute.
In the 23rd year of Daoguang, the Qing court formed a group of iron-core and iron-body double-layer artillery "General Yaowei", which may be the largest existing smooth-bore cannons made by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Through metallographic inspection, it can be found that the material of the outer chamber is cast iron, and the inner chamber is dry iron or low carbon steel . Although this "composite material" can overcome the defects of single-layer white-mouth cast iron cannons being prone to cracking and blowing , its manufacturing technology is relatively complex, the cost is high and too heavy, so mass production is not easy.
年新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有新有� This difference in material results in significant differences in the smoothness and accuracy of the Chinese and British iron cannons in the barrel, the thickness of the gun wall, the casting defects inside, etc., which affects its mobility, range, rate of fire and shooting accuracy. No wonder, the performance of British iron cannons during the Opium War was significantly stronger than that of the Qing army.
Affected by the impact of Xiwei, Chinese knowledgeable people also began to imitate steamships, but they only stayed in formal imitation and failed to master the most core steam engine technology. It was not until 1865 that the Qing Dynasty launched the waters to build the first small steam ship, the "Huanghu". Shanghai "-character Linxi Daily " recorded that the ship "has a load of 25 tons and is 55 feet long; high-pressure engine, a single cylinder, a diameter of one foot, two feet long; the slewing shaft of the ship is fourteen feet long, two and two fifths inch inch in diameter; the boiler is eleven feet long, two feet six inch in diameter...", and except for "iron used for spindles, boilers and cylinder accessories" purchased from abroad, other equipment including male and female spirals, screws, piston , barometer and other equipment were all supervised by Xu Shou and his son, but this ship was not officially put into actual use.In the self-improvement movement promoted in the last thirty or forty years of the 19th century, the Qing government established the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, hoping to "learn from the barbarians to control the barbarians", so they hired foreigners to preside over the manufacturing of ships.
As for firearms, the Qing court also made some efforts. Arthur Cunningham, a British officer who served as an adjutant in the Opium War, recorded in his combat memoirs that during the Battle of Zhenhai in 1841, he said that the Qing army used a 9-pound brass caron cannon, which was imitated by the British ship cannons caught from the sea. However, because the original cannon was partially corroded, the Qing people mistakenly cast the elevation thread and the cannon body when imitating it. Also, because the Qing army originally thought that copper cannons were not easy to explode than iron cannons, they specially changed to copper casting, but copper was not resistant to high temperatures, and the Caron copper cannons were actually not suitable for continuous and rapid filling. In addition, British officer John Oktroni also claimed that in June 1842, he saw sixteen 18-pound brass carons installed by the Qing army in Shanghai. In other words, the Qing people's imitation of the caron cannon only goes to the shape of similarity, but failed to scratch the itchy spot.
Before the Qing army could keep up with the development of the caron artillery, the artillery species had been replaced by other new weapons by the great powers in the West. When the British and French coalition invaded China, the British army used 12-pound ammunition (three-inch inner diameter) and then rifled Armstrong gun (RBL 12-pounder 8 cwt Armstrong gun) in actual combat for the first time in actual combat. Thanks to the industrial revolution, this gun became the first firearm to fully utilize the breech loading efficiency. It not only greatly reduces the time for filling ammunition, but also uses the vertebrae cylinder shells used to closely fit the barrel through the rifle (because the shell is covered with a thin lead coating), and stabilizes the ballistic through the gyroscope effect generated by rotation. Therefore, the effective range can reach 3,100 meters, and the accuracy is much higher than before, and the medication is almost half (because the play is almost gone). In addition, the gun is made of wrought iron as the inner tube, and is tightly covered with wrought iron outer tube that expands due to blazing heat (the inner diameter before heating is slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the inner tube). After cooling and shrinking, it can be solidly integrated with the inner tube. After repeated several similar processes, the barrel produced can greatly reduce the blasting.
On September 21 of the same year, the Qing government decided to concentrate its forces to defend Beijing city . Leading the army, mobilizing about 30,000 infantry and cavalry and more than 5,000 British and French coalition forces to fight to the decisive battle at Baliqiao, Tongzhou. Many of the artillery used by the Qing army at that time were of the cultural relic level, including the 351 cm long copper "Invincible General" mother-child cannon (which played an important role in the Battle of Yaques during the Kangxi period). As a result, the Eight Banners Cavalry, which once traversed the Central Plains, was defeated completely under the suppression of the firepower of Minié and Enfield and heavy artillery, killing more than 2,000 people in battle. The British and French coalition claimed that only five people died and forty-six were injured in this battle. This was also the last large-scale use of cavalry in the Qing Dynasty's military history. The Governor of Liangjiang, who learned from his mistakes, Zeng Guofan, therefore, established China's first modern military-industry institution "Anqing Nei Arsenal", at the end of the 11th of Xianfeng, to manufacture guns, ammunition, steam engines and ships. Li Hongzhang also vigorously advocated the purchase or imitation of foreign ships and cannons, which opened the prelude to the self-improvement movement.
Because the Qing Dynasty's military preparations were completely behind Western power at this time, when Beijing fell, Russian also took advantage of the situation and forced the Qing court to sign the " China-Russia Beijing Treaty " on November 14, 1860, taking away a large area of territory defined by the "Invincible General" and "General Weiyuan" during the Kangxi period (according to the "Hidden General" and "General Weiyuan" Treaty " in 1689). As for the rear-mounted rifled Armstrong gun, which had played a great role in the Second Opium War, it was ordered to suspend construction by the British government in 1864 because the cost of the gun body and ammunition were too high.
The defeat of the Qing army at Baliqiao and the most advanced Armstrong artillery used by the British army at that time. In the development of modern firearm history, Japan in Asian countries was initially similar to China, but later took a very different path.After the introduction of the European fuselage gun into Japan, it took only about 30 years (1540-1570) to popularize it to various battlefields in the country (it is estimated that Japan had more than 300,000 fuselage guns in 1556). This "infantry revolution" accelerated the end of in the Warring States Period. However, with the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603, although Japan has achieved peace for more than two hundred years, the lockdown order issued in the 18th year of Kiyonaga (1641) also cut off the possibility of introducing new Western weapons. It was not until 1854 that the American East India fleet led by General Perry opened its door to lockdown. According to the author's impression of the ancient Japanese cannons collected in Tokyo Tourist Museum in 2004, the quality of the smooth-bore copper cannons cast by Japan around 1850 was obviously not inferior to China, but it was still far from comparable to the firearms such as the Paixhans installed in American warships. For example, there were six Pixons on the Susquehanna in the Perry fleet at that time. The gun weighed 7,400 pounds, 2.84 meters long, and 22 cm inside diameter. The bomb filled with it weighed 59 pounds. Its characteristic is to shoot at high speed. Because the shell is equipped with fuse , it will automatically ignite when it is launched and will explode later, so it can cause heavy casualties between the enemy. The Battle of Sinop (1853) of the Ottoman Empire, which was previously proved that the function of bombs igniting fire was a nightmare for wooden sailboats. The British and French coalition forces also used this cannon during the Second Opium War.
Under the threat of strong ships and powerful guns, Japan signed an unequal "Five-Country Trade Treaty" with the United States, the Netherlands, Russia, Britain and France in 1858. This impact triggered the Meiji Restoration of , allowing Japan to replace the samurai feudal system for more than 600 years by vassals and capitalists, and established a modern army that aligns with the West under the thinking of " leaving Asia and entering Europe". The success of the Meiji Restoration made Japan the first industrialized country in Asia and among the world's most powerful countries. However, its adoption of militarism of aggressive expansion caused great disaster to Asian neighbors. In the
Although the Qing army in the Sino-Japanese War also purchased a lot of weapons from Western powers, it failed to perform its due effects due to improper maintenance or operation. For example, the Japanese army launched eleven Schwartzkopff torpedoes with five torpedo boats in the Battle of Weihaiwei in 1895, sinking three Qing warships in total. However, in the Battle of the Yellow Sea the same type of torpedo launched by the Qing army failed to achieve any results. The annihilation of Beiyang Navy declared that the self-improvement movement that lasted more than 30 years completely failed. However, military powers such as Europe, the United States and Japan continued to try to intervene in China's modern history with their ever-changing weapons. Through the "HTM1 Xinchou Treaty" signed by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1901, China became a semi-colonial of the great powers, thus accelerating the demise of the Qing Dynasty.
During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the main artillery species of the Japanese Navy
From the Battle of Sarhu in the 47th year of Wanli to the entry of the Qing people in the first year of Shunzhi, Liaodong and Jingji were at the forefront of the battle between the Ming and Qing dynasties for 25 years. The scale, frequency of each battle and geographical concentration may be the leading group in other parts of the world during the same period. Both camps also worked hard to introduce and imitate the Red Barbarian cannon (the so-called cannons in the West), and since then, such new weapons have been seen on the battlefields of China.
In order to seek greater military advantages that can suppress each other, the Ming and Qing regimes also tried to develop new artillery species, and adopted the iron-core copper-body artillery barrel design developed by Han craftsmen to cast the "General Dingliao" and "General Shenwei" who may be in the world's leading position in quality. In the first year of Shunzhi, Dorgon led more than 100,000 Manchu, Mongolian and Han soldiers, carrying about a hundred red barbarian cannons, including 35 "Shenwei Generals" and entered the pass to challenge the great cause of reform. These advanced firearms have the power to destroy the general Chinese city walls. The Qing army, who was in the active attacking party, often could mobilize more artillery to deal with the Ming army that had to be defended from the city. As for the Ming artillery that the Qing army captured due to repeated battles, it expanded its chances of victory in future battles. Although the composite metal cannon was the most technologically advanced smooth-bore cannon on the land of China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is paradoxically that it was absent from almost all ancient artillery monographs or modern artillery history research. However, composite metal gun barrels are not China's patents. At the latest in the mid-16th century, India and Europe should have appeared, but because their cast iron industry is not yet mature, the direction of development is different from that of China. For example, a cannon built by the Gujarat Sultan of India between 1537 and 1554 was to cast copper bodies outside the wrought iron inner tube; the small Mid-spirit cannon on the Batavia of the Netherlands, which sank in 1629, was made of metals such as copper, iron, lead, and tin in the mixing of forging and casting methods. In addition, two patents related to composite metal guns appeared in the first half of the 17th century in the Netherlands.
in European countries, or because of the increasing labor cost of forging and the complex metal production process of Mi Ling Cannons, it has not continued to develop due to economic factors. In India, because skilled wrought iron craftsmen may still be easier to obtain, and in response to the frequent wars of Mughal Emperor Aurangzebu, many large composite cannons were successively manufactured in the second half of the 17th century. As for the Ming and Qing dynasties, although there were multiple composite metal cannons made of methods (such as those with familiar iron cores and pig iron bodies on the walls, there were also pig iron cores and copper bodies, and three-layer composite iron cannons appeared), there may be no time to specifically evaluate their superiority due to war, which led to the lack of labor-intensive composite cannons being popularized.
The long-term battle between the Ming and Qing dynasties made the possession and operation of Red Cannons in China increasingly popularized. This situation allowed Zheng Chenggong 's army to force surrender in the city of Jelanzha in southern Taiwan in 1662 and drove away the Netherlands, the strongest maritime power country in the world at that time. In fact, the Guangnan regime's navy earlier defeated the Dutch fleet with artillery in a bay called C?a Eo off the coast of Hue, Vietnam in 1643, making the latter's attempt to block the lifeline of Portuguese Asian trade. That is, if the Opium War had arrived in the Kangxi Dynasty early, the Qing court would probably not have no power to resist the Western powers.
In the 12th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the Three Feudals and Francisco began. The Jesuit Nan Huairen was ordered to cast cannons. He was originally engaged in the work of governing the calendar in the palace and had no relevant experience in casting. Therefore, he was likely to be referring to the methods contained in the Western Book. Because The Qing was rich in material resources at that time, most of the castings were copper cannons with simpler methods. From the 20th to 30th years of the reign of Emperor Kangxi, although the Qing court had cast iron-core copper cannons several times, they were all more than 100 kilograms of small cannons that were convenient for marching and field battles. After the Qing Dynasty settled the Three Feudals and conquered the Zheng regime of Taiwan's Ming Dynasty, it was in a state of peace for a long time, so it no longer actively manufactured heavy firearms and did not develop artillery science. Even a century and a half after Nan Huairen introduced Galileo's parabolic ballistics in "The Explosive Neo-Confucianism" to the introduction of Galileo's parabolic ballistics, no new Chinese book discussing artillery appeared!
Until the eve of the Sino-British Opium War, the Qing court began to re-engrave large quantities of artillery to cope with this overwhelming crisis.From Fujian and Guangdong in the south to Shanhaiguan in the north, all coastal provinces actively strengthened their military facilities. In order to surpass the 17th century artillery, the focus of this new cannon was on pursuing heavy weight. The composite metal method, which was originally mature in the late Ming Dynasty, was once again activated because it could increase the barrel's resistance to chamber pressure. However, because China's originally leading iron smelting technology has been stagnant since its entry into the Qing Dynasty, and even retreated instead of advancing. Compared with the West, the quality of gunmaking is often very rough, the inner wall of the gun barrel is usually not even enough, the quality of cast iron is also poor, and the play value is also large.
Although the front-mounted smoothbore cannon made by China again hit a climax in the late Daoguang Dynasty, due to the progress of European powerful artillery technology, even the Qing army's newly formed composite metal heavy artillery such as "General Yaowei" was still unable to face the challenges of the great powers. This is because the quality of cast iron of British guns has been greatly improved, and most of them are cast into solid iron pipes first, and then mechanically open a symmetrical inner chamber. This method not only has high accuracy, but also costs only one-tenth of the traditional mold casting method, and can make the barrel straighter and withstand higher chamber pressure. What's more, in the Opium War that the Qing army encountered two centuries after the Dingge, it had become a defensive party. The artillery was scattered in coastal fortresses, while the more than 700 cannons carried by the British 100 ships were like mobile turrets, which could quickly mobilize more and better cannons and carons (referring to more accurate, durable and faster fire rate) and effectively concentrate firepower to defeat the Qing army defending Taiwan. The front-mounted smooth-bore red-barrel artillery that appeared on Chinese land since the end of the Ming Dynasty was finally forced out of the historical stage by Britain's solid bore cannon. The shame of defeat also made the starting point of modern Chinese history be traced with scars that could never be removed, and the era of Great Divergence between China and Europe began.
The diverse manufacturing modes of composite guns appearing in different regions are often the result of the integration of high-quality components in different technical traditions. After contacting the design of European smooth-bore copper cannons in the late Ming Dynasty, the Fujian and Guangdong region first combined with the local developed cast iron technology to successfully imitate the Red Iron Cannon. When these new firearms appeared in Liaodong and the capital due to the long-term confrontation between the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they successively hybridized new artillery species with the original iron core copper body technology in the north: "the number one iron-lied copper-haired cannon", "General Dingliao", "General Shenwei", etc. Although these Chinese composite metal cannons played a very positive role in the battlefield, because of their cumbersome process, they could only be short-lived in the pan in the long river of history and could not form a trend. They were forgotten in the peaceful state of Chinese society in the early Qing Dynasty for more than a hundred years. In other words, the phenomenon of hybrid prosperity should be similar. As for the composite metal cannons made in the Netherlands and India in the 17th century, they combined the high-quality genes of wrought iron and cast copper processes, but they were later eliminated because they failed to maintain their technological advantages and economic benefits.
There are still thousands of ancient red and barbarian cannons scattered all over the country, and some are used as trophys or military historical relics for museums or individuals around the world. Their blood-stained cannon bodies may have witnessed the history of the Qing Dynasty's decline from prosperity. The cultural relics community should first conduct a comprehensive survey and protection, and together with relevant academic circles and folk accomplices, outline their "life history" from the perspective of material culture, and strive to explore their possible interactions with history for a long time, and make full use of the new research environment in the big data era (in addition to the Chinese classical documents that can be retrieved over tens of billions of words, it also contains a large number of Western literature) to explore the mutual influence and comparison between the casting technology of artillery in the Ming and Qing dynasties and other regions (not only Europe, but also Islamic countries, and surrounding Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia). It is hoped that a new generation of academic workers can better tell this far-reaching story in China's military history from the perspective of world history and perspective.
This article is excerpted from "Red Cannons and the Ming and Qing War" (written by Huang Yinong, Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2022).
During the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the main artillery species of the Japanese Navy
From the Battle of Sarhu in the 47th year of Wanli to the entry of the Qing people in the first year of Shunzhi, Liaodong and Jingji were at the forefront of the battle between the Ming and Qing dynasties for 25 years. The scale, frequency of each battle and geographical concentration may be the leading group in other parts of the world during the same period. Both camps also worked hard to introduce and imitate the Red Barbarian cannon (the so-called cannons in the West), and since then, such new weapons have been seen on the battlefields of China.
In order to seek greater military advantages that can suppress each other, the Ming and Qing regimes also tried to develop new artillery species, and adopted the iron-core copper-body artillery barrel design developed by Han craftsmen to cast the "General Dingliao" and "General Shenwei" who may be in the world's leading position in quality. In the first year of Shunzhi, Dorgon led more than 100,000 Manchu, Mongolian and Han soldiers, carrying about a hundred red barbarian cannons, including 35 "Shenwei Generals" and entered the pass to challenge the great cause of reform. These advanced firearms have the power to destroy the general Chinese city walls. The Qing army, who was in the active attacking party, often could mobilize more artillery to deal with the Ming army that had to be defended from the city. As for the Ming artillery that the Qing army captured due to repeated battles, it expanded its chances of victory in future battles. Although the composite metal cannon was the most technologically advanced smooth-bore cannon on the land of China in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is paradoxically that it was absent from almost all ancient artillery monographs or modern artillery history research. However, composite metal gun barrels are not China's patents. At the latest in the mid-16th century, India and Europe should have appeared, but because their cast iron industry is not yet mature, the direction of development is different from that of China. For example, a cannon built by the Gujarat Sultan of India between 1537 and 1554 was to cast copper bodies outside the wrought iron inner tube; the small Mid-spirit cannon on the Batavia of the Netherlands, which sank in 1629, was made of metals such as copper, iron, lead, and tin in the mixing of forging and casting methods. In addition, two patents related to composite metal guns appeared in the first half of the 17th century in the Netherlands.
in European countries, or because of the increasing labor cost of forging and the complex metal production process of Mi Ling Cannons, it has not continued to develop due to economic factors. In India, because skilled wrought iron craftsmen may still be easier to obtain, and in response to the frequent wars of Mughal Emperor Aurangzebu, many large composite cannons were successively manufactured in the second half of the 17th century. As for the Ming and Qing dynasties, although there were multiple composite metal cannons made of methods (such as those with familiar iron cores and pig iron bodies on the walls, there were also pig iron cores and copper bodies, and three-layer composite iron cannons appeared), there may be no time to specifically evaluate their superiority due to war, which led to the lack of labor-intensive composite cannons being popularized.
The long-term battle between the Ming and Qing dynasties made the possession and operation of Red Cannons in China increasingly popularized. This situation allowed Zheng Chenggong 's army to force surrender in the city of Jelanzha in southern Taiwan in 1662 and drove away the Netherlands, the strongest maritime power country in the world at that time. In fact, the Guangnan regime's navy earlier defeated the Dutch fleet with artillery in a bay called C?a Eo off the coast of Hue, Vietnam in 1643, making the latter's attempt to block the lifeline of Portuguese Asian trade. That is, if the Opium War had arrived in the Kangxi Dynasty early, the Qing court would probably not have no power to resist the Western powers.
In the 12th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the Three Feudals and Francisco began. The Jesuit Nan Huairen was ordered to cast cannons. He was originally engaged in the work of governing the calendar in the palace and had no relevant experience in casting. Therefore, he was likely to be referring to the methods contained in the Western Book. Because The Qing was rich in material resources at that time, most of the castings were copper cannons with simpler methods. From the 20th to 30th years of the reign of Emperor Kangxi, although the Qing court had cast iron-core copper cannons several times, they were all more than 100 kilograms of small cannons that were convenient for marching and field battles. After the Qing Dynasty settled the Three Feudals and conquered the Zheng regime of Taiwan's Ming Dynasty, it was in a state of peace for a long time, so it no longer actively manufactured heavy firearms and did not develop artillery science. Even a century and a half after Nan Huairen introduced Galileo's parabolic ballistics in "The Explosive Neo-Confucianism" to the introduction of Galileo's parabolic ballistics, no new Chinese book discussing artillery appeared!
Until the eve of the Sino-British Opium War, the Qing court began to re-engrave large quantities of artillery to cope with this overwhelming crisis.From Fujian and Guangdong in the south to Shanhaiguan in the north, all coastal provinces actively strengthened their military facilities. In order to surpass the 17th century artillery, the focus of this new cannon was on pursuing heavy weight. The composite metal method, which was originally mature in the late Ming Dynasty, was once again activated because it could increase the barrel's resistance to chamber pressure. However, because China's originally leading iron smelting technology has been stagnant since its entry into the Qing Dynasty, and even retreated instead of advancing. Compared with the West, the quality of gunmaking is often very rough, the inner wall of the gun barrel is usually not even enough, the quality of cast iron is also poor, and the play value is also large.
Although the front-mounted smoothbore cannon made by China again hit a climax in the late Daoguang Dynasty, due to the progress of European powerful artillery technology, even the Qing army's newly formed composite metal heavy artillery such as "General Yaowei" was still unable to face the challenges of the great powers. This is because the quality of cast iron of British guns has been greatly improved, and most of them are cast into solid iron pipes first, and then mechanically open a symmetrical inner chamber. This method not only has high accuracy, but also costs only one-tenth of the traditional mold casting method, and can make the barrel straighter and withstand higher chamber pressure. What's more, in the Opium War that the Qing army encountered two centuries after the Dingge, it had become a defensive party. The artillery was scattered in coastal fortresses, while the more than 700 cannons carried by the British 100 ships were like mobile turrets, which could quickly mobilize more and better cannons and carons (referring to more accurate, durable and faster fire rate) and effectively concentrate firepower to defeat the Qing army defending Taiwan. The front-mounted smooth-bore red-barrel artillery that appeared on Chinese land since the end of the Ming Dynasty was finally forced out of the historical stage by Britain's solid bore cannon. The shame of defeat also made the starting point of modern Chinese history be traced with scars that could never be removed, and the era of Great Divergence between China and Europe began.
The diverse manufacturing modes of composite guns appearing in different regions are often the result of the integration of high-quality components in different technical traditions. After contacting the design of European smooth-bore copper cannons in the late Ming Dynasty, the Fujian and Guangdong region first combined with the local developed cast iron technology to successfully imitate the Red Iron Cannon. When these new firearms appeared in Liaodong and the capital due to the long-term confrontation between the Ming and Qing Dynasties, they successively hybridized new artillery species with the original iron core copper body technology in the north: "the number one iron-lied copper-haired cannon", "General Dingliao", "General Shenwei", etc. Although these Chinese composite metal cannons played a very positive role in the battlefield, because of their cumbersome process, they could only be short-lived in the pan in the long river of history and could not form a trend. They were forgotten in the peaceful state of Chinese society in the early Qing Dynasty for more than a hundred years. In other words, the phenomenon of hybrid prosperity should be similar. As for the composite metal cannons made in the Netherlands and India in the 17th century, they combined the high-quality genes of wrought iron and cast copper processes, but they were later eliminated because they failed to maintain their technological advantages and economic benefits.
There are still thousands of ancient red and barbarian cannons scattered all over the country, and some are used as trophys or military historical relics for museums or individuals around the world. Their blood-stained cannon bodies may have witnessed the history of the Qing Dynasty's decline from prosperity. The cultural relics community should first conduct a comprehensive survey and protection, and together with relevant academic circles and folk accomplices, outline their "life history" from the perspective of material culture, and strive to explore their possible interactions with history for a long time, and make full use of the new research environment in the big data era (in addition to the Chinese classical documents that can be retrieved over tens of billions of words, it also contains a large number of Western literature) to explore the mutual influence and comparison between the casting technology of artillery in the Ming and Qing dynasties and other regions (not only Europe, but also Islamic countries, and surrounding Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia). It is hoped that a new generation of academic workers can better tell this far-reaching story in China's military history from the perspective of world history and perspective.
This article is excerpted from "Red Cannons and the Ming and Qing War" (written by Huang Yinong, Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2022).
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