| Abstract:This thesis is about the history of gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, especially of cannon. It focuses on China’s adoption of European cannon between1514, the year of the first arrival of a European ship at China’s coast, and1683, the capture of Taiwan by the Qing army, which can be seen as the endpoint of the violent Ming-Qing transition during the17th century. With Europe having the most advanced firearms in the world since about1500, firearm technology was among the first technologies in which Europe gained technology leadership, others being the optical and horological technologies. They were fore-runners in the non-monolithic long-lasting exchange process of technology leadership between China and the West from the Middle Age until the Industrial Revolution. China still had more iron casting expertise and a more developed agriculture than Europe during the17th century. Originally invented in China, improved gunpowder weapons were re-introduced by Europeans to China since the16th century.First, I describe when gunpowder and the first gunpowder weapons like fire lances, bombs, rockets and guns were developed in China during the Song dynasty (960-1279). Then, I go into the spread of this technology to Europe in particular, which occurred during the13th century in combination with the Mongol conquests of wide parts of Eurasia, as well as into further enhancements in Europe such as the invention of breech-loaders, muskets and improved gunpowder. I also sketch the wide use of firearms during the Yuan-Ming transition and the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) as well as their spread to Southeast Asia. After this, I describe how the Chinese used and produced European-derived breech-loading swivel guns (folangji) and muskets soon after1514and "red barbarian cannon"(hongyipao) since the1620s. The folangji played crucial roles during Qi Jiguang’s suppression of pirates in the1560s and during the defeat of the Japanese during their invasions of Korea (1592-1598). Also Christian convert Sun Yuanhua’s attempts to integrate European firearms into the late Ming army, the Jesuit’s service as cannon makers for the Chinese court and Koxinga’s success during the Sino-Dutch War (1661-1662) are described. With these findings, I present evidences for my two theses that (1) the technology of the humanity of today or in the past is not the result of efforts of a single civilization, such as the Chinese or the European one, but rather the result of combined efforts of various civilizations, and that (2) China was in fact eager and capable to adopt European cannon technology until1683. One major reason for the latter may be frequent warfare in China until1683which constituted a great incentive to adopt the foreign military technology.After this, I go into the fall-back of the Chinese cannon technology until the First Opium War (1839-1842) against Great Britain and discuss its reasons, one of them being a following relatively peaceful time in Qing China, the Pax Manjurica, whereas Europe underwent an extended "Warring States" period. I also stress that China’s living standard despite its evolving backwardness in military and other technologies was comparable to or even higher than the European one until the18th century. After this I shortly discuss answers for the following emergence of the so-called "Great Divergence" which is the following meteoric rise of European wealth and power, including Kenneth Pomeranz’stressing of Europe’s access to coal and colonies and Mark Elvin’s "high-level equilibrium trap." Then I compare China’s adoption of European advanced astronomy with the adoption of European advanced cannon, and shortly discuss why China finally could not compete with Europe in both knowledge fields. A major reason for China’s failing adoption of European advanced astronomy was the reluctance of the Jesuits, who were the major intellectual European-Chinese links until the end of the18th century, to teach the heretic Copernican heliocentric theory. |
