2 April 2017

Zhi Heng Chong (直橫銃)

Drawing of a Zhi Heng Chong, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.
Zhi Heng Chong (直橫銃, lit. 'Vertical and horizontal gun') is essentially three San Yan Chong (三眼銃) strapped together, with one handgonne pointing forward and two handgonnes pointing sideways. All handgonnes are connected to a single fuse so that they will all fire at the same time.

Barring very specific circumstances (i.e. shooting at enemy wall-scaling troops from loop hole), this weapon is extremely impractical, as it is very top-heavy, and the sideway-pointing handgonnes have no other function other than killing friendly troops.

5 comments:

  1. Hi again. I'm currently reading Swope's "Military collapse of China's Ming Dynasty 1618-44", where he makes a side comment about scholars with no military experience coming up with weapons and tactics which look good on paper, but were of little practical application (and largely ignored by actual military men). Would this weapon fall in to this category?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, almost certainly. That being said, military men and weapon artisans weren't completely immune to this either, although they seems to do it for more pragmatic reasons (impress the no-military-experience-civil-officials with flashy stuffs to secure funding, for example)

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    2. Maybe it is only used for shooting at enemy wall-scaling troops from loop hole. I wouldn't call it completely impractical.

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    3. @TheXanian
      If that's the case, Wu Bei Zhi certainly didn't mention it.

      Delete
  2. Having all three guns at the same level field in 3 different directions is still pretty far-fetched for shooting at wall-scaling enemies. Breaking out of encirclement, like a river behind your back perhaps?

    This definitely sounds like something never used.

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