明崇禎年間廣東引進、仿鑄澳葡火器及其海防應用探析

In the late Ming Dynasty, especially during the Chongzhen period, Macao became an important window for China to learn new western firearms technology. In the second year of Chongzhen, to resist Li Kuiqi’s rebellion, Wang Zunde, the Governor of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, took the initiative to borrow cannons from the Portuguese government in Macao to prepare for war and then set off a western learning wave of imitating muskets and cannons in Guangdong. With the advantages of having a large number of craftsmen who make firearms, abundant iron materials and technical input from the Bocarro Casting Factory in Macao, as well as undertake the heavy task of “supplying cannon” for the Ming Dynasty in the middle and late Chongzhen period, Guangdong has become an important Western firearms production base in China. Its local image of “being good at using firearms” has become increasingly prominent. With the successful imitation of Western firearms, two major innovations appeared in Guangdong’s coastal defense at the end of the Ming Dynasty: one is that the Guangdong government initially constructed a coastal battery defence system, which laid an important foundation for the emergence of the Qing Dynasty’s sea defence turret pattern; Second, the musquetrie became an important seaboat firearm for the Shuizhai of Guangdong. In a word, during the Chongzhen period, Guangdong introduced and imitated the firearms of the Portuguese people in Macao, which not only played an important role in the history of firearms exchange between China and the West but also profoundly influenced the development of Guangdong’s coastal defence system in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.