Wu Lei Shen Ji (五雷神機), San Jie Shen Ji (三捷神機) and Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji (萬勝佛狼機)

UPDATED MAY 9, 2022

Wu Lei Shen Ji (五雷神機, lit. 'Five thunders divine engine')

Drawing of a Wu Lei Shen Ji, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.

The Wu Lei Shen Ji was a "proto-matchlock gun" with five rotating gun barrels, which enabled its user to fire multiple shots in rapid succession. Designed at the turn of the seventeenth century in an effort to upgrade obsolete Chinese handgonnes to a comparable standard as matchlock arquebus while retaining simplicity and high rate of fire of older handgonne designs, the Wu Lei Shen Ji was equipped with a gun sight, a wooden pole stock that bent downward at one end to facilitate aiming, as well as a simple thumb-pressed matchlock mechanism, likely a serpentine (slow match clamp) mounted on a flat spring.

Despite the aforementioned improvements, the Wu Lei Shen Ji was not considered a true matchlock gun, as it still retained handgonne-style gun barrels without a flash pan and forged with less sophisticated methods. Furthermore, it was employed in a manner very different from that of a typical matchlock arquebus or musket: rather than bracing the stock against the right shoulder and pulling the trigger with the right index finger, the gunner tucked the wooden pole under his right armpit and pressed the serpentine into the touch hole with his left thumb to fire.

Interestingly, the Wu Lei Shen Ji shared many similarities with the Xun Lei Chong (迅雷銃), including identical barrel length and calibre. This suggests that one may have inspired the other.

Shan Jie Shen Ji (三捷神機, lit. 'Three triumphs divine engine')

Drawing of a San Jie Shen Ji, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.

The San Jie Shen Ji was identical to the Wu Lei Shen Ji in every respect, except it only had three gun barrels. It was also quite similar, though probably unrelated to, other triple-barreled matchlock handgonnes such as the San Shen Tang (三神鎲).

Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji (萬勝佛狼機, lit. 'Ten thousand victories Frankish engine')

A Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji, three loading chambers and a leather chamber holster, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.

The Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji was a variant of the Wu Lei Shen Ji / San Jie Shen Ji that utilised long loading chambers—essentially pre-loaded, quick-exchangeable gun barrels—in place of rotating barrels to achieve a high rate of fire.

Despite being named after—and inspired by—the breech-loading swivel gun, the Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji was loaded from the muzzle rather than the breech (which eliminated the gas leakage problem that plagued most pre-modern breechloaders). It still retained the wedge used by breech-loading guns to lock the chambers in place; however, in this case the wedge was used to prevent the loading chambers from sliding out of the gun barrel.

Being a single-barrelled gun, the Wan Sheng Fo Lang Ji was lighter and better balanced than its front-heavy, multi-barrelled counterparts, and traded a modicum of firing rate for a better sustained rate of fire (as its spent chambers could be individually reloaded).