Hongyipao

The hongyipao was a smoothbore muzzle-loading cannon introduced to China and Korea from the Portuguese colony of Macau in the early 17th century. The term "red barbarian cannon" derives from the weapons' supposed Dutch origins, as the Dutch were called "red haired barbarians" in China. However, the cannons were originally produced by the Portuguese at Macau, with the exception of two cannons dredged up from a Dutch ship in 1621. After the Ming dynasty suffered a series of defeats against the Manchus, they contacted the Portuguese to have iron cannons made for them. Attempts were made to bring Portuguese gunners to the north as well, but they were repeatedly turned away because Chinese officials harbored suspicions against them.

Several of the officials who supported the use of the new technology were Christians, among them Xu Guangqi (a convert of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci), and Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Shandong. The Chongzhen Emperor asked a German Jesuit, Father Johann Adam Schall von Bell, to establish a foundry in Beijing to cast the new cannons. The first pieces produced there could throw a forty pound shot. In 1623 some hongyipao were deployed to China's northern frontier at Sun Yuanhua's request under generals such as Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan. They were used to repel Nurhaci at the Battle of Ningyuan in 1626. After the Manchus captured a Ming artillery unit at Yongping in 1629, they too began production of the hongyipao. The Manchus, under Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji, used these cannons along with the "generalissimo" cannons (also of European design) to great effect at the Battle of Dalinghe in 1631.