In 1517, a convoy of four sailing ships arrived in Canton, which escorted Pires, the first envoy sent by the Kingdom of Portugal to China. At that time, Fernand, the commander of the Portuguese fleet, who knew nothing about Oriental etiquette, ordered the firing of cannons in accordance with European practice, but was misunderstood by the Cantonese as wanting to fire cannons to cause trouble, causing a chaotic situation of "firing three guns and shocking the city". After some twists and turns, the suspicions of the Ming Dynasty gradually disappeared, but the Portuguese who caused the accident also received special attention from the Chinese side. Although the first impression of the Ming Dynasty officials on these people from the ocean was not good, their ship and the cannons on board left a deep impression on the Ming Dynasty**: "The guns fell into the rain, and they were invincible." Its gun is cast in copper, the big one is more than 1,000 catties, because of the name of the Franc machine. ”。This "Franc machine" was the name given to Portugal and Spain in the Ming Dynasty, and was later used to refer to this new type of firearm that "has not been superior to the best since ancient times".
All kinds of firearms produced in the Ming Dynasty, whether they were light guns or heavy "general guns", all had common shortcomings: front-loading, which required gunpowder and projectiles to be loaded from the barrel mouth;At the same time, after a shot, you need to wait for the barrel to cool down before you can continue to load gunpowder and projectiles, and the increase in the number of consecutive shots will also lead to the use of guns, which greatly limits the application of firearms in actual combat. In contrast, the "Franc machine" is much more advanced. The most wonderful thing about this kind of early European rear-loading gun, which was popular in the late 15th century to the early 16th century, was that it adopted the structure of the mother and the buckle, which better solved the problem of air holding in the tube. The sub-gun containing gunpowder and projectile is put into the mother chamber to fire, which avoids the direct contact between the chamber and gunpowder and projectiles, and the tube wall of the mother gun is thickened, which can withstand large chamber pressure and ensure the safety of launching. Since the sub-gun is single, it is possible to fire one sub-gun and replace it with another. A few sub-guns can be quickly replaced, and a huge lethality of "bullets falling like rain and being invincible" can be formed. Gun lugs are installed on both sides of the mother gun body of the Franc cannon, which is convenient for placing and rotating on the gun carriage, and is also equipped with a front sight and a light door, which greatly improves the accuracy of shooting.
Fortunately, the Ming court and scholars at that time were not stupid enough to regard the "Buddha Lang Machine", which was far more powerful than traditional Chinese firearms, as a "miraculous skill" of Westerners. In August 1522, there was an incident in which Portuguese ships provoked the Ming army outside the mouth of the Pearl River. As a result of this conflict, the Ming army defeated five ships and captured two ships and more than 20 Furlong cannons. Impressed by the power of the Franc machine, the local authorities in Guangdong immediately appealed to Emperor Sejong of the Ming Dynasty and requested that a decree be issued on the border to manufacture the Franc machine. The imperial court responded quickly, and the Ordnance Bureau of the Ministry of Industry manufactured 32 large Franc cannons and distributed them to various places for trial. Soon after the Francophone was introduced to China, the Ming Dynasty government and the opposition regarded it as a weapon against the enemy, and the copycat Francophone also equipped the Ming army at a very fast speed. By the middle of Jiajing, the Gansu frontier had been equipped with 1,158 Franc machine gun trucks, Ningxia 1,000, Guyuan 128, Datong 1,000, and a total of 3,286 Franc machines in these four places alone. The Ming Dynasty sailors were also equipped with a large number of Franc machines, the Fufu ship was equipped with 6 large Buddha machines, the Haicang ship was equipped with 4 large Buddha machines, and the Cangshan ship was equipped with 2 large Buddha machines. From Jiajing to Wanli, the Ming army was equipped with about forty or fifty thousand Franc machines.
The original Franc machine was made of copper, in order to make it light and flexible, and later because copper was expensive and iron was cheap and easy to obtain, the Ming Dynasty's domestic Franc machine gradually began to be made of iron. As the most important firearm of the Ming army, there are many types of localized Franc machines, from more than 1,000 catties of "invincible generals" to hundreds of catties of ordinary Franc machines, and then to more than a dozen catties of Wansheng Franc machines and horse Franc machines, all kinds of types, becoming one of the most important ones that the Ming Dynasty relied on in internal and external wars. Tang Shunzhi, a famous scholar and military strategist in the Jiajing period, clearly sorted the main weapons of the Ming army: "Among the weapons, the first is the big Buddha Langji, followed by the bird, and then the bow and arrow." Hu Zongxian, who presided over the anti-Japanese war on the southeast coast, also believed that "in the city defense, the Francois is the most advantageous, followed by the bow and crossbow, and as for the use of knives and axes, it is the most efficient means." During the Wanli War, Li Rusong led 40,000 Ming troops across the Yalu River to fight, carrying breathtaking top-of-the-line firearms and equipment from the 16th century. Among the many firearms of the Ming army, the most striking is still the "Francophone" from foreign countries.
The "Great General Cannon" used by the Ming Army in the DPRK was a heavy Franc machine, 1 in length4 meters, caliber 110 mm, weighing 1050 pounds, each equipped with 3 sub-cannons, fired in turn, "a shot of 500 sons, more than 20 zhang wide, can penetrate everyone", its power is very amazing. The Ming Dynasty faced the technological innovation and challenge of Dutch cannonsDuring the Imchen War, the Ming Dynasty's "Franc Machine" once dominated East Asia, however, as the Dutch brought giant warships and powerful artillery to East Asia, the Ming Dynasty began to feel another leap in firearms manufacturing technology in Western European countries. In 1601, the Dutch launched a surprise attack on Macao, and many Ming Dynasty ambassadors were shocked by its size. According to the "Cantonese Sword Edition", the Dutch warship "had a very large boat, wrapped in copper leaves, and entered the water two zhang", a description that truly shows the height and sturdiness of the Dutch warship. The giant boat cannon relied on by the Dutch was placed under the two-zhang giant iron cannon, and its power could crack the stone city and shake for dozens of miles, which dwarfed the "Franc machine" that had been widely used by the Ming Dynasty army at that time. The Ming army was amazed, "Although I have a sharp blade, I can't be the enemy;."Although there are sharp soldiers, do not fight". Fujian Governor Huang Chengxuan even used the term "pebbles hitting stones" to describe the equipment gap between China and the Netherlands.
Therefore, the Dutch at that time were called "Hongmaoyi", and the cannon they used was also called "Hongyi Cannon". In fact, the "Hongyi Cannon" is a front-loading smoothbore gun, with a caliber of more than 100 mm, mostly iron cannons, and some of them are made of copper, and their weight ranges from 70 catties to 10,000 catties. The ammunition is front-loaded, the weight is large, up to a few catties to more than ten catties, and the projectile is a spherical solid bullet made of stone, iron, lead and other materials. Most of the military and political figures of the Ming Dynasty regarded the "Hongyi Cannon" with praise and admiration. Xu Guangqi wrote in a letter in July of the first year of the Apocalypse (1621): "The fierceness of the husband's weapon, to kill hundreds of thousands of people in one shot, is now extremely powerful in the west, and there is nothing to add. Mao Ruizheng regarded the Franco machine as a "common skill", and Shen Defu regarded the Franco machine as a "stupid thing". This shows that by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the importance of the Franc machine in the Ming army's artillery was no longer as important as the "Hongyi cannon". In the first year of the Apocalypse (1621), the minister of the Ming Dynasty went to Macao with the military department to hire gunners and buy artillery, and finally purchased 26 "Hongyi cannons" from the Portuguese, and took 7 Westerner leaders, 1 interpreter, and 16 service personnel and 100 Portuguese soldiers to Beijing, thousands of miles away.
In the sixth year of Chongzhen (1633), Xu Guangqi recommended the Jesuit priest John Tang to be in charge of establishing a cannon foundry. During this time, they built a total of 20 artillery pieces, the caliber was enough to hold the next 40 pounds of ammunition;Each of the cannons required two soldiers or a camel to carry. In 1639, the twelfth year of Chongzhen, John Tang not only established a cannon foundry near the Forbidden City, but also successfully cast 20 Western cannons with excellent performance. Subsequently, he achieved remarkable results, successfully building 500 Western artillery pieces of various types.