The outbreak of the "Opium War" in 1840 was the beginning of modern history in Chinese history, originally indulged in the illusion of the Heavenly Dynasty, the Manchu Qing Court, which regarded other countries as barbarians in the distance, when faced with the bombardment of the Western powers' strong ships and cannons, suddenly found that their original pride in riding and shooting skills was actually not worth mentioning, the Manchu Qing soldiers' large knives and spears were almost powerless to fight back before the cannons.
The Manchu Qing was surprised to find that it was no longer the world boss, and even began to lag behind the world, and what happened in the next hundred years proved that the Qing Dynasty was actually at least a hundred years behind the world, and if we trace back to the roots, we can find that this super empire that originally enjoyed the world's fame began with its decline from being unable to resist the enemy's strong ships and cannons.
However, this is not due to the lack of intelligence of Chinese to make a strong enough cannon, in fact, as early as the Opium War many years ago, there was a weapon expert named Dai Zi, who was able to make a powerful enough weapon, and the firearms he produced were at an absolute first-class level in the world at that time, which could make the emissaries of many Western powers marvel at it.
Born in 1649, Dai Zi was a Han Chinese, who showed extraordinary wisdom and wisdom from an early age, as well as lofty ideals corresponding to wisdom and wisdom, and at the age of eleven, he wrote the poem "There is a ability to Kuang Sheji, no plan to retreat from hunger and cold" to encourage himself, showing an extremely strong feeling of serving the country, relying on his own talents and skills to assist the state Kuangfu Sheji.
When he grew up, Dai Zi was proficient in military tactics and could write poetry and painting, but the most famous was his mechanical craftsmanship, he once made a famous firearm at the age of seventeen, somewhat similar to today's pistol, which could hit targets a hundred steps away, and was small and portable, more powerful than the bow and crossbow, so he became famous.
When the Imperial Court's Prince Jieshu of Kang was ordered to conquer Geng Jingzhong's rebellion, he specially invited Dai Zi to go to the army to give advice, and Dai Zi did come up with many ideas of great effect to suppress the rebellion, and made considerable merits. After the success of the counter-rebellion, Prince Kang wrote to the Kangxi Emperor, listing Dai Zi's exploits and introducing his talents, so Kangxi summoned Dai Zi and appointed him as an attendant of the Hanlin Academy.
During the counter-rebellion of Prince Kang, Dai Zi once presented him with a weapon called "Lianzhu Fire Hammer", which can fire 28 bullets in a row, not only the accuracy is very high, but also the range is also very long, the most important thing is that the lethality is quite strong, even if it is 250 meters away, it can also shoot through the enemy's heavy armor, which is regarded by many people as the initial prototype of the machine gun, such a weapon level was already the world's leading at that time, but it was not widely used.
In the twenty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1686), the Dutch emissaries offered the bird gun, believing that china could not have a more advanced weapon, and Dai Zi immediately improved on the basis of his guns, creating ten more powerful guns, so that the Dutch emissaries could return in ashes. A year later, Dai Zi was ordered to invent the "Sky Cannon", which was extremely powerful and played an important role in the Battle of Zhaomodo, which quelled the Gardan Rebellion.
It can be said that Dai Zi was definitely the first-class weapons expert in the world, and later during the Opium War, the so-called "strong ship cannon" of the Western powers was actually built by Dai Zi as early as the Kangxi period, if Kangxi did not kill this person, the weapons of the Great Qing dynasty could be comparable to that of the West, and even the Eight-Nation Alliance army might not dare to come.
However, in order to maintain their "riding and shooting superiority", the Manchu Qing did not allow the Han to specialize in these techniques to consolidate their rule, and later the Kangxi Emperor listened to the rumors of the Western missionary Nan Huairen and exiled Dai Zi to the bitter cold frontier, so that Dai Zi died in poverty.