Interesting comparison between different warships of the Far East in the sixteenth and seventeenth century

I came across this interesting comparison at Baidu Tieba, although the original post has since been deleted. The original comparison is a simple table written entirely in Chinese, so I translated the table to English and added a few commentaries.

Weight of Cannon (lbs)*	<500	500	1000	1500	2000	3000	4000>
Sixteenth Century Portuguese Galley	34+
Ming Dynasty Feng Zhou (early)	30+
Ming Dynasty Feng Zhou (late)	14+
Mark 1 Warship of Qi Ji Guang's fleet (early)	9+	1
Mark 1 Warship of Qi Ji Guang's fleet (late)	14+		2
Tekkōsen	48 – 70	3
Geobukseon**	20 – 30+
Advanced Ming Dynasty War Junk	30+	14 – 22				6 – 8
Koxinga-era Gong Chuan	100 – 200+	20+					1
Dutch Hired Vessel 'Graaf Hendrik'	?	?	8	10	8	8	2
Mông Đồng							1 – 2

* Although weight of shot is a more reliable measure of firepower, Chinese records seldom mention them. Chinese gunners also frequently loaded their guns with multiple smaller shots in addition to the main shot (which made them less powerful), making measurement purely by weight of shot very misleading.

** This assume a late variant of Geobukseon/Turtle ship with significantly improved armaments, due to the fact that very little is known about the early, Imjin War-era Geobukseon.

Feng Zhou (封舟, lit. 'Investiture ship')

A Qing Dynasty Feng Zhou, from 'Ce Feng Liu Qiu Tu (《冊封琉球圖》)'.

Read more

Swords and sabres of the Ming Dynasty

Drawings of various types of Ming Dynasty swords and sabres. From left to right: Two Jian, a Yao Dao, a Chang Dao, and a Duan Dao. From 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.

Classification of Chinese swords often posed a great challenge to Westerners (and just as confusing to the Chinese themselves) because Chinese swords do not fit readily into existing typologies. The Chinese also lacked an authoritative, systematic typology of sword types such as that of the Oakeshott typology.

This blog post is intended to be an introductory article to the swords and sabres of the Ming Dynasty. Please note that the terms used here are what we call "collector's jargon" (i.e. classification used by sword collectors and antique sellers). They are not historical terms*, and are not meant to be academically authoritative (although most Chinese academics do follow the classification).

Historical terms for one-handed Chinese sabre are Yao Dao (腰刀), Duan Dao (短刀, short sabre), Gun Dao (滾刀, lit. 'Rolling sabre', exact meaning unknown), Shou Dao (手刀, lit 'Hand sabre') and Ma Dao (馬刀, cavalry sabre). All of these terms are generic.

Read more

Hu Dun Pao (虎蹲砲)

A Hu Dun Pao in remarkable preservation condition.

Hu Dun Pao (虎蹲砲, lit. 'Tiger crouching cannon') was a type of iron cannon widely used by the Ming army. It was perhaps the weapon that best represents the Chinese artillery doctrine of the Ming period.

Read more