ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the use of heavy artillery by the Ming Chinese and their Manchu adversaries in the early to mid-seventeenth century. The Chinese developed gunpowder weapons though their subsequent widespread use and dissemination throughout Asia is less well documented, particularly by English language scholars. The first weapon to achieve widespread use was the folangji, so named for the Chinese term for Franks and thereby denoting 'Frankish gun'. Furthermore, even though they were successful in most of the early clashes, the Latter Jin demonstrated their awareness of the importance of firearms by issuing directives to outfit Liaodong soldiers with guns as early as 1622. Xu Guangqi stressed that the Ming needed to manufacture large numbers of guns and use them in defensive positions and obtaining proper guidance and training in their use was critical. The Jin Khan also used their own siege guns to take out outlying Ming defensive towers.
