Why didn't the Chinese make widespread use of guns if they discovered them in the first place...

Why didn't the Chinese make widespread use of guns if they discovered them in the first place? I see that Europeans used a lot of gunners in their armies even by the early 16th century, while China only used large amounts of gunners during certain periods, but later abandoned them in favor of traditional military units. Why is that? Wy were they so resilient to adapt to new ways?

Other urls found in this thread:

academia.edu/20295276/The_Arquebus_Volley_Technique_in_China_c._1560_Evidence_from_the_Writings_of_Qi_Jiguang
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/11/matchlock-of-ming-dynasty.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/12/weather-proofed-arquebuses-of-ming.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/02/xu-guang-qi-victorious-troops-p1.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/11/gun-bei.html
historum.com/asian-history/121374-tang-army-vs-late-ming-army-7.html
quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?page=simple;g=eebogroup
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I have zero knowledge of Chinese history, but competition might have something to do with it. My personal observation is that competition is the impetus that makes people discover, progress, develop, etc.

I am by no means an expert, but I rememner hearing that the main advantage of early guns was that they didn't take much training to use. China had no problem financing the training of archers, and they had the neccesary manpower. Euro states didn't so they used guns, and eventually those guns became more useful than bows. Again though, this might all be wrong I'm no expert

>ive read guns germs and steel or more likely heard a synopsis of it on a YouTube video and failed to think critically about it at all

...

guns and crossbows from China kinda tell me that Rome probably wouldn't have used that steam engine even without Christianity

They did. I am not sure what event prompts you into thinking they didn't.

If some slow firing antiquated siege guns manned by levies in a quiet region of China is suddenly set upon by a 40 cannon frigate with experienced gunners there is going to be a difference in effectiveness even though most of the technology is the same.

because the new ways kinda sucked, early guns were expensive, inaccurate, unreliable depending on weather, had a low rate of fire that depended on the user being drilled and trained, often absurdly shortranged and dangerous to use, it was a trick to get a stone ball trough enemy defenses or formation, or a trick to get bits of lead trough enemy armor, spray the enemy with sharp bits of junk and old nails etc... the effectivenes of the trick varied videly, granades and such explosive or incendiary devices were way more efficient in what they did, and rockets were routinely used all over asia

also in order to make muskets and such effective in a strategic sense you need to use mass formations and concentrated fire othervise you might as well be using bb guns(in fact air guns were way more dangerous at that point, but had problems of their own), this might be a problem depending on the who, where and when

if early firearms were so shit why did the Europeans stick it out while the Chinese never bothered?

>Euros were better at metalurgy by 1400s (which would improve both quality and quantity of armaments, as well as create demand for an weapons capable of piercing armor)
>Euros were also better at constructing fortresses, which again created demand for armaments capable of destroying them
>Hussite wars worked as a great showcase for gunpowder (that's my guess, though)

because they understood it could be powerful if mixed with some germs and steel

had something to do with anti-armor use

individual european armies were usualy not that large compared to asian armies, while largescale wars were realy frequent, so they went more for intensity in tactics and armament, and as much armor as could be humanly afforded by whichever feudal entity, and so the capacity to take down elite armored troops without getting too close was valued, also feudalism had a thing with fortifications and apparently cannons are realy good at taking out fortifications

a good example were the taborite hussites, basicaly a army of pesant heretics (they were basicaly gommies) that btfo german knights by making loads of relatively short, wide iron barrels, sticking them on top of poles and filling them with gunpowder and shrapnel, so you just pointed the thing like a polearm ignited the powder and there goes the knight - we dont know how many taborites lost their own face off while using the things tho

but europeans basicaly used firearms as substitute for crossbows, the arkebuse and similar were basicaly fortification weapons, same as siedge crossbows, and both were used alongside, later on trigger mechanisms were adopted that made musketeers able to function pretty much the same as crossbowmen did in the field, and then drill and tactics developed and then coutertactics developed and the technology followed and so on and that whole dialectic so you got pike and shot, which developed into napoleonic era mass musket formations, and then it was all about slowly perfecting the weapons till you got repeating rifles and machineguns

one of the key points behind mass use of muskets is that it was a rather multipurpose weapon, especialy with the bajonet, while early musketeers were rather specialist troops just like crossbowmen, later on the average footsoldier wasnt realy expected to shoot that much, most of the actual decisive fighting was done 'manualy'

...

China didn't expand much comparatively and was more unified than the former Roman Empire. China tended to just fortify cities rather than have just fortifications. So basically just like biological evolution, path of least resistance

Reminder it was the mongols with their free trade ideas allowed gunpowder techniques to easily spread along the Silk Road. So basically, mongols have a higher kill count than the Anglos

someone should create a taborite mod for AoE.

>they were basicaly gommies

Vavra, go home

what i find interesting tho is how well adopted the gun was in other places like india or the caucasus, balkans, middle east, japanese also loved it

apparently at some point during the 1500eds india exported arms and ammo to europe, which on one hand tells you how much of a demand there was but on the other hand tells you about production capacity

realy the period from around 1500eds till imperial india collapsed into civil wars and got conquered by brits saw this paralel development of india and europe as two massive economic and military forces, it was the industrial revolution that got europe on top, before that india beat them by manpower and low cost

there are accounts of battles during those wars that went paralel to british conquest that claim each side fielded more canons than napoleon imagined in his wildest faps - but there seemes to be a thing with precision and range that they just never quite got around to handle right

>I have no idea what I'm talking about, but consider the following.
Is this a meme?

This is most likely a myth since unlike in RTS games, during the middle ages, the feudal lords were not responsible for financing the training of most of their men. They had a bunch of household troops, who usually fought as heavy cavalry, or heavy infantry, but the majority of the men would be mercenaries who would bring their own equipment and who were already trained.

Guns being only good because they were easy to use is something I find rather doubtful. In terms of ease of use, a crossbow definitely beats firearms - yet we see lots of firearms being used from the late middle ages onwards. Pic shows an army from the second half of the 15th century taken from the Hausbuch Wolfegg.

There definitely must be other reasons why these early firearms were adopted in sizeable numbers.

It's alot easier to make a gun than a crossbow

that depends on the size and development of the production facility, a craftsman can easily make a couple crossbows or a gun, but to affordably make a lot of guns you need manufactures and mills, a whole industry, its the barrel that makes it a problem moreso than the mechanism, the mechanism just mkes a bit more complex and expensive, making good steel gun barrels 'by hand' is some work, its actualy easier to pour cannon, but then you have problems of volume and availability of material and so on

this sortof gives you two basic approaches, going bigger or going smaller, for example, ottomans had this fetish for fuck-off-huge hovitzers that took formations of oxen to move, middle europeans had a thing for small cannon that can be pulled by a horse or two or even loaded on a single donkey - on one hand you get a big centralised system that can invest a lot of raw capital and energy into a single unit, on the other you get multicentered systems that go for rationalisation and quality

Compared to bows they were inaccurate, short-ranged, slow and carried the risk of backfire. They still saw some use despite that, but before the advent of the arquebus (protomusket) especially, which was only in the 15th century and invented by the Europeans, they were just not comparable to bows. Even the arquebus (and the musket, a 16th century arquebus) is inferior to bows in several regards.

Musashi (Japanese, not Chinese, so this is only for a view on how guns were viewed in the orient, and this is also 17th century) wrote that guns were powerful in war but bows were sometimes preferred because guns were not only inaccurate, the bullet also moved much faster so you could not observe the trajectory of your first shot if it missed and adjust your aim precisely, and a bow could fire several arrows in the time it took a gun to reload.

Western armies observed the same thing, they just adjusted their strategies around this limitation to retain the advantage of being able to raise an untrained militia- by the late eighteenth century we still hear about the American musketeers being told to wait until they could see the whites of British eyes before firing, because muskets were not incredibly accurate and took ages to reload after each shot. Before that the Dutch invented volley fire, in which a phalanx of arquebuses would fire from the first row, which would go to the back row and begin reloading while the second row fired and so forth so that by the time the back row was again the front row they would be ready to fire again, sustaining fire.

Basically guns were either a novelty or only filled a small niche that wasn't as important in the East as it was in the West, and early guns were so shit compared to bows that they weren't even worth developing compared to better bows, crossbows and armour (the latter being what eventually drove the development of guns, as the heavy arquebus, or musket, could punch through steel).

This is a topic that I've spent a lot of time researching.

It might be because the Chinese sucked at using the guns they already had, and thus saw little reason to continue developing them.

There is a persistent myth that early firearms were easy to use and required no training. Yet if we look at military manuals in Europe during this time period, we see an extremely heavy emphasis on the need for gunners to be well-trained, as poorly trained gunners were more of a danger to their own side than the enemy. Poorly trained men detonating powder dumps was not uncommon and something that every commander wished to avoid. It was usually the most experienced infantry who were given firearms and they also tended to be the best paid. The entire modern concept of formal military training in Europe was invented for the benefit of creating better musketeers.

In China however, we don't see this attitude. The only period sources I've ever seen in my years of research that treat the gun as a weapon requiring no skill or training come from China. Foreign sources commonly describe both Chinese muskets and musketeers as low-quality. During wartime, Chinese firearms and artillery were more often than not broken down or out of either bullets or powder. Training, supplies and quality firearms were too expensive for the frequently cash-strapped Chinese state to make good use of them. Equipping squads of peasants with hand weapons was the cheaper and more expedient route.

Considering that guns were more expensive than crossbows I doubt that guns were easier to make.

Muskets significantly outranged traditional bows and had comparable theoretical accuracy, but were also much easier to aim. Musashi put the effective range of a bow at only 40 yards. Eyewitnesses of battles between musketeers and archers frequently mention that the muskets had the advantage in terms of effective range.

can you elaborate on the whole mongol trade thing?

I've seen it mentioned countless times but don't know what to look for to learn more

kek

The Opium war might not be History's biggest bullshit war but UK should admit they were wrong.

Make me, Zhang.

Guns are pretty prevalent in the Chinese army, but gun wielding troops have really low status and they only had matchlocks, which got outdated really quickly.

>This is a topic that I've spent a lot of time researching.
Evidently not.

academia.edu/20295276/The_Arquebus_Volley_Technique_in_China_c._1560_Evidence_from_the_Writings_of_Qi_Jiguang

Thanks for linking the article, it's well written, but it says pretty much the same thing I posted: drill was critical for musketeers and Chinese musketeers were generally poorly trained.

>Some of the confusion about Qi Jiguang’s use of arquebuses may lie in the apparently contradictory things he wrote about them. At times he seemed to despair of incorporating them in large numbers. But in such cases he didn’t blame the gun itself but his fellow officers, who, he believed, didn’t know how to train their troops properly

Would you let me fuck your Chink women if i admit?

>but it says pretty much the same thing I posted
>The only period sources I've ever seen in my years of research that treat the gun as a weapon requiring no skill or training come from China.
It boggles my mind that you have the gall to claim the article supports your claims when you making sweeping sourceless statements like this.

I would like to point out the reforms in the French army during the 100 years war, after much misery and stupidity, the French decided it would be a good idea to mass cannon bombards, and the rest is history.

The really good Chinese firearms come during the waning days of the Song dynasty, when they were teching up mass rockets and repeaters to stave off the mongols. The difference between these two examples being that the English are easier to beat than the Mongols.

East has pretty crappy iron. A cannon made there would have to be much thicker than iron made from europe.

Europe also had more heavy infantry than the east, making the gun way more useful to take out individuals where a crossbow or bow would be a better option in the east.

>But in such cases he didn’t blame the gun itself but his fellow officers, who, he believed, didn’t know how to train their troops properly
>Chinese musketeers were generally poorly trained.
To add to this Qi Jiguang was criticizing the stubbornness of northern soldiers/officers who preferred to handguns(as noted by He Rubin).

While the author claims the arquebuses declined after the pirate unrest the late Ming took a keen interest into these weapons.
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2014/11/matchlock-of-ming-dynasty.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/12/weather-proofed-arquebuses-of-ming.html
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2016/02/xu-guang-qi-victorious-troops-p1.html

because they are get KHAN'D

Basically the Chinese are a bunch of idiots and they thought they could maintain their border and way of life for all eternity without doing much to adapt to the world around them.
This is why China got fucking dominated by Europe later on. They stuck to the old ways while everyone else was innovating. They did upgrade their military to a certain extent, but they never used guns as much as Europeans did because of the aforementioned "if it ain't broke..." ideology.

When the Mongols conquered everything they actually did quite a good job of keeping the peace. Trade flourished because there was one faction in control of a huge chunk of what we call the silk road. That's it really. Travel was just easier for merchant caravans, so they went to far reaching places more often than they did before.

I don't know where you see a contradiction (or why you're so butthurt over this for that matter). Qi Jiguang was very much the exception that proves the rule- as your article acknowledges, the training system he developed for musketeers was spottily implemented in the south, was not successfully implemented in the north and did not influence the Ming court. And the fact that Qi Jiguang had little influence on the implementation and training of musketeers is further evidenced by the Ming's difficulties fighting back against Japanese musketeers in Korea just a few years later, and then their later failure to hold off gunless Manchus.

This is a claim made by a Chinese military manual in 1644:
"The bow and arrow are only able to hit the mark and kill the enemy if one has both skill and strength. The gun contains skill and strength itself, completely independent of the person. The stock and the sight supply the skill, and the long barrel and the pure powder supply the strength. Just get someone to wield the gun and you know that the skill and strength are present."

This is an extremely odd sentiment, since military manuals from this period in other countries are universally emphatic that musketeers must be well trained. And this doesn't seem to have been some isolated kook but rather an ingrained sentiment among the Chinese military.

Francisco de Sande, Spanish governor of the Phillipines, proposed an invasion of China in 1576 because "They are very poor marksmen, and their arquebuses are worthless." It doesn't seem that things changed much when the Manchus took over. During joint exercises between Qing and Korean musketeers, Korean general Sin Yu reported that the Qin troops were barely able to hit any targets.

>China lacks competition meymey
Yeah, it's not as if they're eternally struggling versus the eternal Steppe Barbarian, in addition to fights with some of their neighbors and among themselves.

>Korea
Remind me who conquered which again?

>Francisco de Sande, Spanish governor of the Phillipines, proposed an invasion of China in 1576 because "They are very poor marksmen, and their arquebuses are worthless."
Meanwhile Spain shat their pants *twice* when Chinese pirates threatened to invade the Philippines: Limahong's great raid and Koxinga's ultimatum. The first one they managed to survive due to luck and the cooperation of the Ming government. The second one they survived because Koxinga died of Malaria.

what do chinese pirates have to do with chinese arquebusier training

The irony that 1500s Spain thinks it can invade China while in the Philippines its colonial forces are scared as fuck of mere pirates from that region?

They coudn't even deal with the Chinese rebellion *within* the Philippines, until their native allies and Japanese exiles helped them out.

but what does that have to do with the original line of contention, that chinese musketry sucked ass?
you seem a wee bit triggered.

lmao just got into this thread for that silly line.

As for Chink musket I doubt it was very bad considering the Ming and Qing deployments of musketry ended Steppeniggery forever for China.

>I don't know where you see a contradiction (or why you're so butthurt over this for that matter).
I'm tired of so called "experts" that spout unsubstantiated claims when they can't even read the primary sources.

Nowhere does it state that the southern Ming(he even goes as far as to say how diverse the Ming army was) arquebusier was inferior to their Western counterparts.

If the Chinese didn't care about firearm innovation then the arquebus and breech loaders would have never been adopted(not to mention innovators like Zhao Shizhen).

> is further evidenced by the Ming's difficulties fighting back against Japanese musketeers in Korea just a few years later
The soldiers that participated in the Imjin War were mainly cavalry/mounted infantry that came from Liao garrison.

Qi was in charge of Ji garrison,when have I stated that northern Ming troops were arquebusier experts?

>and then their later failure to hold off gunless Manchus.
What does this prove about Ming arquebusiers?

The Manchus smashed through warwagons,cavalry and infantry alike.

>This is a claim made by a Chinese military manual in 1644:
Why cherrypick this specific passage when we have Jixiao Xinshu,Lianbing Shiji,Wubeizhi and many others?

The Shenjiying wasn't for show.

>Francisco de Sande, Spanish governor of the Phillipines
Note the context of the source he has an incentive to downplay Ming military strength(going as far as to claim he could conquer a province with 2,000-3,000 men).

Francisco de Sande never fought against Qi Jiguang's personal army or soldiers trained with Qi's methods in mind(hint not the dilapidated garrison soldiers he described).

>I'm tired of so called "experts" that spout unsubstantiated claims when they can't even read the primary sources.
Ah, a butthurt chink, that explains it.

>What does this prove about Ming arquebusiers? The Manchus smashed through warwagons,cavalry and infantry alike.

"When our troops are beaten, it is because they covet the enemy's horses; instead of hacking at the horses to bring the riders down, they hack at the [mounted barbarians], who shoot them with short arrows that are deadly within thirty paces. All the soldiers from Zhangzhou are able to fend off such arrows with their thick sleeping quilts and therefore often win. But the troops from Yanping and Jianning, relying on their firearms, have nothing with which to cover themselves, so they are defeated."

They smashed through Ming arquebusiers, but couldn't defeat soldiers who armored themselves with blankets. Doesn't speak well for the arquebusiers.

>Why cherrypick this specific passage when we have Jixiao Xinshu,Lianbing Shiji,Wubeizhi and many others?
Why continue to pretend that Qi was the only general in China?

>Note the context of the source he has an incentive to downplay Ming military strength(going as far as to claim he could conquer a province with 2,000-3,000 men).
Mexico and Peru had been conquered with less within living memory, and the Chinese were being beaten off the coasts by ragtag groups of pirates. The plans for invasion were serious and thought out, not Sande bragging for the sake of bragging.

>then their later failure to hold off gunless Manchus.
Manchus had guns.
...from their Chinese subjects.
>Hong Taiji recognized that Ming Han Chinese defectors were needed by the Manchus in order to assist in the conquest of the Ming, explaining to other Manchus why he needed to treat the Ming defector General Hong Chengchou leniently.[51] The same posts were retained by Ming officers who defected to the Qing.[52] The Ming would not be easily defeated as acknowledged by Hong Taiji unless musket and cannon wielding Han Chinese troops were used alongside the Banners.[53] The Qing received the defection of Shen Zhixiang in 1638.[54] Among the Han officers who defected to the Qing were Shen Zhixiang, Ma Guangyuan, Wu Rujie, Zu Dashou, Quan Jie, Geng Zhongming, Zu Zehong, Zu Zepu, Zu Zerun, Deng Changchun, Wang Shixian, Hong Chengchou, Shang Kexi, Liu Wuyuan, Zu Kefa, Zhang Cunren, Meng Qiaofang, Kong Youde, Sun Dingliao.[55] Aristocratic and military ranks, silver, horses and official positions were given to Han Chinese defectors like Zhang Cunren, Sun Dingliao, Liu Wu, Liu Liangchen, Zu Zehong, Zu Zepu, Zu Kufa and Zu Zerun. Han Chinese defectors managed and organized a massive amount of the military strategy after 1631.[56]

>Sande bragging for the sake of bragging.
Philippine governor generals have a habit of bragging, lmao.
>Governor Dasmarinas: "Twenty-five Spaniards could conquer the entire Chinese Empire!"
>Head on spike by Flipchink rebels the next day.
Besides there's a vast world between Aztecs and...whoever lived in Peru, and China. If you have gunpowder and steel you're bound to trouble Spain.

Consider the fact that Spain couldn't even conquer the Philippines militarily: having instead to rely on a charm offensive playing on local rivalries between Animists and Muslims by converting animists along the way and using large bodies of Flip troops in beating other Pinoy scum and subsequently using Flips in anything they do in Asia.

Second this gentleman. The early guns were shitty. They couldn't fire in rain, took ages to reload and were not accurate and had very limited range and killing power. They were inferior to bows in every respect except manpower. Professional bowmen trained from childhood and had to be physically strong. They came from certain regions or peoples who knew how to use them because it was oart of their lifestyle. With guns however, you could arm a multitude of farmers with a primitive gun, line them up and tell them to shoot. Suddenly you can use peasants in a better way and you still had your professional bowmen with you anyway. It took time for the gun to get better. China probably didn't had the same problem so it didn't apply the solution it had.

too loud

>Ah, a butthurt chink, that explains it.
Calling me names doesn't do your "extensive" research any favors when you can't even read your primary sources.

>Why continue to pretend that Qi was the only general in China?
I don't. You have to realize that southern mercenary contingents also served in the north.

You are the one using the 1644 passage to distort Ming attitudes towards firearm innovation and usage.

Going back to Andrade's article there was no typical Ming army when southwestern native auxiliaries,hereditary/border/imperial garrisons,southern mercenaries,militias and Japanese prisoners used the arquebus.

>They smashed through Ming arquebusiers, but couldn't defeat soldiers who armored themselves with blankets. Doesn't speak well for the arquebusiers.
Way to distort a passage. The gun bei was far from useless.
greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/2015/11/gun-bei.html

Primary sources even note that Jurchen armor resisted Ming and Korean shots. #67
historum.com/asian-history/121374-tang-army-vs-late-ming-army-7.html

>Mexico and Peru had been conquered with less within living memory
Are you seriously trying to equate Amerindian civilizations with Ming China? see Qi Jiguang destroyed far more Wokou in pitched battles than the Spanish garrison ever did.

WRONG
Whilst Pax Mongolia was certainly useful, it was not just that. You know the concept of guilds right, in Europe it was mainly to prevent goods being sold to often thus lowering its worth, e.g. if you're a carpenter guild, you'll only make 50 chairs per year, so if 50 chairs have been sold you'll pay people off to stop them making chairs. Whereas in china it was moreso the technique, previously it was only one or two guilds that knew the recipe of how to make gunpowder. But when the mongols came, they let the techniques spread, as it meant the spreading of power, thus making these guilds less dangerous to mongol rule

They did, but the Qing Dynasty brought a horse nomad culture with an affinity for horse archery as the top, dominating class of people. This showed in their forms of war. They had musket and other gunpowder weapons too... but the form of war that won the Manchu tribes China was not guns... it was their steeds and arrows (and some traitorous Han)

If by "fighting back against Japanese musketeers" you mean "having trouble taking Japanese fortresses in Korea", yes, the Ming were having trouble with that. But that's caused more by heavily defended Japanese fortifications (and one freak accident involving gunpowder) rather than the musket.

All but two land battles that involve Ming in the entire Imjin War were sieges.

For those two exceptions, one battle happened in a rain (so Japanese can't use their muskets), the other one was a Chinese victory.

Keep in mind that the so-called "blankets" are often 2.5 inches in thickness, and basically functions as a ultra-thick gambeson.

And troops still wore metal armors beneath the blanket.

[spoiler] METAL SLUG [/spoiler]

Where are the musket infantry in this picture? I see guys carrying black sticks which might be either muskets or swords on the left side, but they're also carrying quivers of arrows and bows on their hips.

China didn't abandon guns.

China didn't want wealth flowing out of their country into europe, only accept wealth from europe for local product
this led to a refusal of purchasing european products like firearms in bulk in order to retain wealth from the european powers
it's the reason why there was a majority of english silver in china by the time the first opium war arised

>Calling me names doesn't do your "extensive" research any favors when you can't even read your primary sources.
You keep putting in quotation marks words that I never used- a classic sign that you're suffering from cognitive dissonance and arguing with a hallucination of what your opponent's position actually is. It's a great advantage for you to be able to read the primary sources, but you still haven't formulated a coherent counter-argument. You make the point, which is very true, that the Chinese army was very diverse. Yet you keep wanting to pretend that Qi's attitudes and methods towards firearms should count and the attitudes of any other commander or region who didn't give firearms training respect shouldn't.

>You are the one using the 1644 passage to distort Ming attitudes towards firearm innovation and usage.
Every source that contradicts your preferred interpretation of history is a misrepresentation or distortion. Got it. So why are there many foreign sources which describe Chinese musketeers as poor? Even if we take into account regional differences, and make the reasonable assumption that there must have been well-trained musketeers -somewhere- in China, we still have to consider the country as a whole and not cherry-pick those regiments and pretend that they were the norm in the entire country. It seems that the Chinese were overall not very good with their muskets because so many foreign sources describe them unfavorably.

Martini Martino, missionary to China: "For such is the quickness and nimbleness of the Tartars (in which they excel all Nations, and in which they place their chief art) that in a trice, they either prvail in their Designs, or retire: and the little skill the Chineses had in the use of Musquets, was no small hinderance to the War. For the Tartars quickness and nimbleness not giving them time to charge again, being astonished with the suddain inundation of armed men, they presently fled which way soever they could."

>Way to distort a passage. The gun bei was far from useless.
I never said that it was. Again, you fail at reading comprehension. I was half-joking that the Chinese soldier's blankets were more effective against the Manchus than their guns.

>Are you seriously trying to equate Amerindian civilizations with Ming China?
Only in that it wasn't unreasonable to believe that a small, well-trained Spanish army was likely to have great success against a much larger army less skilled in war.

>Qi Jiguang destroyed far more Wokou in pitched battles than the Spanish garrison ever did.
Cool, that's completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with Chinese musketeers.

>But that's caused more by heavily defended Japanese fortifications (and one freak accident involving gunpowder) rather than the musket.

"The Japanese vanguard of a hundred or more arrived under the fortifications. They fanned out and took cover in the fields in groups of three and five. They fired their muskets at the top of the fortifications for a while, then stopped. They left and then returned again. The men on the fortifications respond with [Chinese-style] “victory guns,” and the Japanese main body sent out skirmishers from a distance to engage them. They advanced cautiously so the guns fired but did not hit them, while the Japanese bullets hit the men on the fortifications, many of whom fell dead."

>For those two exceptions, one battle happened in a rain (so Japanese can't use their muskets),
The Japanese could use their muskets in rain. See pic.

And from the same article you posted:
Wu writes, "[Northern military leaders] conservatively believed that large-caliber guns, for the attack of fortified positions, were superior, and they didn't apply the guns of southern battlefields, such as the arquebus..., to northern battlefields. In contrast, the Japanese military continued using the arquebus- this light gun- and were able to fight circles around the Ming troops."

Because Industrial Revolution?

Anyone have a good book on history of gunpowder/muzzleloader and development of various types of black powder weapons.

In 1840, when she arrived off their coast, the Chinese called the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) ship Nemesis, the devil ship.

She was the first British ocean-going iron warship. In addition to two masts, she was powered by two two sixty horsepower Forrester steam engines driving paddle wheels. She was armed with two pivot-mounted 32 pounder and four 6 pounder guns, and a rocket launcher.

>“The very first rocket fired from the Nemesis was seen to enter the large junk… and almost the instant afterwards it blew up with a terrific explosion, launching into eternity every soul on board, and pouring forth its blaze like the mighty rush of fire from a volcano.

>“The instantaneous destruction of the huge body seemed appalling to both sides engaged. The smoke, and flame, and thunder of the explosion, with the broken fragments falling round, and even portions of dissevered bodies scattering as they fell, were enough to strike with awe, if not fear, the stoutest heart that looked upon it.”

The battle had been joined at 8 am, and by 11.30 the Chinese junks had surrendered. No British were killed, but between 500-600 Chinese died. The Island of Hong Kong became a British possession, and was to remain so until the 1990s.

Firepower by BP Hughes.
Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe by Burt Hall.

The one issue I have with both of these is that they constantly describe muskets negatively because they compare them to modern rifles, not the medieval weapons they replaced.

One book that I'd definitely -not- recommend is Firearms: A Global History to 1700 by Kenneth Chase, as the author actually knows very little about the military history of the period.

If you're really interested in muskets you'll probably get more enjoyment out of reading the primary sources. Uncheck the 2nd collection when you search since that's behind a paywall. quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?page=simple;g=eebogroup

>cognitive dissonance
How is it cognitive dissonance that you lack the ability to read Ming sources in their original form?

Your original post is full of generalizations that comes from shoddy research.

>Every source that contradicts your preferred interpretation of history is a misrepresentation or distortion.
Don't try to weasel your way out of this.

You are using a 1644 passage to tar the entire Ming military establishment when I have mountain next to a molehill in regards to were military manuals(not just by Qi Jiguang),innovators such as Zhao Shizhen and the Imperial Shenjiying that were focused on improving and using firearms.

> It seems that the Chinese were overall not very good with their muskets because so many foreign sources describe them unfavorably.
Take the context of Martino's quote.

Ming soldiers of that period were even worse than their Imjin war counterparts and the musketeers he was describing were northern men(who eschewed the weapon).

Again,I already explained why Sande's quote is unreliable as he never actually fought against those forces and he has a huge incentive to downplay the Ming.

>Again, you fail at reading comprehension.
Nice back peddling. You didn't understand what those blankets were and attempted to use this quote to smear the performance of late Ming arquebusiers.

Note that Jurchen armor warded off Korean bullets as well.

>Only in that it wasn't unreasonable to believe that a small, well-trained Spanish army was likely to have great success against a much larger army less skilled in war.
The Spanish forces in Manila were military pygmies threatened by the very same "rag tag" pirates that were dwarfed by their continental counterparts.

Even at the height of the Wokou raids they never had the ability to control an entire province.

First off,I would like to apologize for my previous tone. I'm just tired of sweeping claims supported by one liners.

The whole reason why I referenced Qi Jiguang was seeing how the arquebuse was initially a southern weapon the majority of arquebusiers would have been southern men.

What I am disagree with is your notion that the the Ming made no attempts to train their arquebusiers,engage in innovation or that northern arquebusiers were the only notable contingents(or even the norm).

I have no disagreements that late Ming soldiers(regardless of their equipment) were of less than stellar quality,the Ming had issues with quality control and how their implementation was hampered by entrenched attitudes in the north.

I'm not this poster by the way.
Japanese arquebusiers played a role in defensive sieges but they were far from the only factor(Byeokjegwan and Jiksan show that Ming forces can at the very least stalemate numerically superior forces).

The actual infantry man was developed by Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, a man amply neglected by Anglosaxon historiography.

Ceriñola battle, I guess.

Cerignola, in Italian

>First off,I would like to apologize for my previous tone. I'm just tired of sweeping claims supported by one liners.
Thanks. This is Veeky Forums, not Historum, and we're limited by the medium. Generalized and unsourced claims come with the territory. I don't mind backing up my position with sources, but it's not worth my time to add caveats to every generalization and cite sources unless there's somebody interested in discussing them.

>What I am disagree with is your notion that the the Ming made no attempts to train their arquebusiers,engage in innovation or that northern arquebusiers were the only notable contingents(or even the norm).

We agree much more than we disagree- you've been fairly uncharitable in your interpretation of my position. It is not my position that Chinese arquebusiers were never trained, but that they were more often than not poorly trained. I also never said that Chinese never attempted to innovate firearms- maybe you're confusing me with another poster. I concede that you have a fair point that I was mostly focused on the north and that southern attitudes were very different.

>Note that Jurchen armor warded off Korean bullets as well.
I don't understand your point. The blankets in the quoted text were used to fend off Manchu arrows, not Chinese bullets. I was not criticizing the penetrative power of Chinese muskets.

>You are using a 1644 passage to tar the entire Ming military establishment when I have mountain next to a molehill in regards to were military manuals(not just by Qi Jiguang),innovators such as Zhao Shizhen and the Imperial Shenjiying that were focused on improving and using firearms.

There is a big difference between the ideal set out in military manuals and the actual results in practice. For example, there was one English military writer named Leonard Digges writing around 1590 who stated that even a soldier trained for seven years could not be considered an expert, and that he would refuse to pay any musketeer who couldn't hit a man-sized target at 175 yards. It's hard to believe that he ever got these results in practice.

>tfw people don't know Hong Kong was meant to be for life

>government policy makes you only buy in silver
>start selling opium to get silver back
>government chimps out over this
Truly barbaric that they followed the yikes

Europeans had the scientific method.

>The Island of Hong Kong became a British possession, and was to remain so until the 1990s.