Gunpowder is one of the "four great inventions" of ancient China, and China's use of gunpowder is not only earlier, but also in a leading position in history for a long time, and has also developed many guns with excellent performance, which has greatly changed the war situation of ancient warfare.
After entering the Qing Dynasty, in the Kangxi Dynasty and before, the gun manufacturing technology benefited from the support of the emperor and the reality that the Qing Dynasty was unstable, and was further developed. However, as the emperor's interest waned, the world was calmed down, and the swords and guns were put into storage. With the passage of time, the gun form and tactics are far behind Europe, still stuck in the arquebus gun era, military theory is mainly based on cold weapons, lack of equipment and skilled use of guns and artillery troops, seriously affecting the combat effectiveness of the army. By the time of the Opium War, although the Qing army did use some guns, the range and power were completely incomparable with the British army equipped with firing front-loading guns and new artillery. The Opium War caused some Chinese to wake up and understand the huge differences between China and foreign countries, and thus began to study and manufacture new guns.
Gun Lifting: One of the firearms of the Qing Dynasty
The early research and manufacture of new guns was initiated by a small number of enlightened local officials and people of insight. The former has actual combat experience and hopes to resist foreign insults through new weapons; the latter, because they cannot lead troops to fight, often focus on translating books and theoretical research in foreign languages, hoping that more people will "open their eyes to see the world". Both played a positive role in the early manufacture of guns. However, such a development led by a small number of enlightened people has the problem of "people walking tea and cool", and after one person leaves office or dies, its results are often shelved; and its influence is limited in the environment of "people's wisdom is not opened"; they are also unable to buy machines and carry out large-scale production.
During the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the current situation of repeated defeats of the traditional army in the early stage, compared with the foreign gun team equipped with new guns, also made the Qing Dynasty greatly touched, making the Qing Dynasty gradually believe that "foreign guns and foreign cannons" can solve its own "internal and external troubles" to maintain its own rule. By the time of the Western Affairs Movement, the manufacture of new guns and artillery was imminent as the main point of army reform, and with the joint launch of the Foreign Affairs Movement by powerful figures Yi, Zuo Zongtang, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and others, it became possible to open arsenals and mass-produce guns and artillery.
Under the active promotion of the foreign affairs movement, arsenals and gun manufacturing in various places also developed rapidly. In 1861, Zuo Zongtang established the Anqingnei Ordnance Institute, initially successfully trial-produced steam engines, and later produced guns, gunpowder, steamships, etc.; in 1865, Li Hongzhang established the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau, which was customized by rong Hong, a scholar who stayed in the foreign country, and initially only had more than 60 Chinese and foreign craftsmen, and later gradually expanded, becoming a major center of military production in early modern China, which could build 1500 small-caliber continuous guns every year. The Hanyang Gun Factory in the 1890s was another center of gun production in the late Qing Dynasty. Famous military industries in modern times, such as the Tianjin Machinery Bureau and the Jinling Machinery Bureau, have also developed. From the beginning of the Western Affairs Movement to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty's rule, there were as many as 35 arsenals of a certain scale in the country. The establishment of these arsenals initially established a complete gun manufacturing industry, so that the new guns and guns could be installed on a large scale. According to statistics, a total of 273,000 rifles, 17,000 carbines, more than 200 machine guns and nearly 4,000 artillery pieces were manufactured during the same period, which basically met the needs of building a new army.
Gangnam Manufacturing General Administration
In terms of gun production technology, it basically catered to the idea of the Westerners at that time in rapidly integrating with the international standards in weapons manufacturing, introduced a large number of international advanced gun manufacturing technology, and paid attention to the cultivation of domestic craftsmen and technical personnel. Under the impetus of this concept, a group of skilled craftsmen gradually emerged, and the famous domestic rifle Hanyang-made Type 88 of this period was innovated according to the Mauser Type 88 rifle, and was still in production until 1948.
Hanyang-made Type 88 rifle
In terms of firearms, from the original shotgun and lift gun to the production of single-shot, continuous-firing rear firing pin guns, by 1897 it was possible to imitate the German 1887 Mauser rifle representing the international first-class level.
Artillery, because it can arm the army while meeting the needs of battleships and coastal defense, is more concerned by the members of the Western faction. In 1874, the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Gun Factory began to imitate the world's most advanced Armstrong front-loading rifled guns at that time, and later the arsenals began to imitate the more advanced Krupp post-loading rifled guns; these large guns were mainly used to build coastal batteries.
However, these gun production industries developed on the basis of the feudal system also contain many drawbacks under the brilliance of paper figures. First of all, although the Qing Dynasty promoted the production of guns on a large scale, it never established a standard equipment system, and it did not care about the batch loading and upgrading of guns and guns. Each arsenal often chooses to imitate the guns and cannons of different countries in Britain, France, Prussia, and the United States, resulting in a variety of weapons, different ammunition, and unable to unify logistics and command work. Second, the profound national crisis at that time, especially foreign aggression, caused the Qing government to spend a lot of money on coastal defense and customized warships; it weakened the budget for the training of the army and reduced the strength of the army. In addition, the Westerners only emphasized weapons and equipment, believing that guns and artillery were enough to defeat, and did not care about establishing a tactical system commensurate with the modern army, a situation that did not change until the emergence of armies that adopted the Western-style army training system in the late Qing Dynasty, such as the Yi Army and the Beiyang New Army. Finally, the military industry during the period of the Western Affairs Movement was more deeply influenced by the feudal system than the civilian industry that arose later, and many of the systems were copied from the ancient official handicraft industry, the enthusiasm of the workers was not high, the efficiency was low, and the quality of the guns and guns produced was also insufficient.
Despite the above shortcomings, the manufacture of guns and cannons during the Western Affairs Movement achieved a start from scratch. The arsenal promoted the large-scale production of guns and cannons, the "long guns and big knives" type of cold weapons troops were gradually eliminated, and the Chinese army embarked on a process of modernization in weapons. Although during the Qing government period, due to various reasons, the use of guns and artillery did not enable the army to achieve its due combat effectiveness, nor could it save the rule of the Qing Dynasty, in the later Republic of China period, the industrial base and talents of the gun manufacturing industry blossomed and came to fruition, stimulated domestic production, and also ensured a certain level of equipment in the chinese army's guns and artillery, and prepared for victory in the anti-aggression war. It can be said that China's gun manufacturing industry is not only the embodiment of the continuous struggle of the Chinese people, but also a microcosm of China's industrial development in modern times.