Abstract
During 1621-1627, 42 great ordnance from three European shipwrecks at the southern China coast were transported to Beijing. The casting and firing techniques became the first lesson China, as an Oriental continental country, had to learn from Occidental maritime countries. Although this is just a small episode in the contemporary European maritime expansion history, such new weapons played an important role at the battlefields during the Ming-Qing cataclysm. However, many researches in the related field did not give a proper weight to the process and the effect of the import of European guns, and incorrect statements are not difficult to find in them. Especially, no detailed study has been made on the salvage process of the guns.
The author tried in this article to re-comb the Chinese and the Western literature to look for related materials. Efforts have also been made to study the extant 17th-century European guns in China. This article attempts to restore these historic events and to clarify how Christian literati and their friends push the Ming court to import European guns from the wrecks in order to deal with the menace of emerging Manchu regime. The article also reveals how the realization of this effort is strongly influenced by the social network and the political struggles of literati during the late Ming. The author further tries to discuss the situation our community of China history is facing in the new era through the experience of this study.
Keywords
history of late Ming and early Qing, history of European expansion, military history, great ordnance, shipwreck
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