Two old cannons have recently appeared at a resource recycling station in Rizhao City, Shandong Province. (Picture / Retrieved from Weibo)
Two ancient cannons have recently appeared at a resource recycling station in Rizhao City, Shandong Province. Jing Qingxun, the first secretary of the Juxian Transportation Bureau in Yanzhuang Village, Yanzhuang Street, has a keen eye for treasures and believes that these two cannons are likely to be from the Qing Dynasty. I hurriedly took pictures of the cultural relics during the Kangxi period and asked my friend Sheng Guixi, who is interested in collecting and researching cultural relics, to identify them. After expert appraisal, it was determined to be a valuable ancient cultural relic, so that it was successfully returned to the Juzhou Museum in Tibet.
According to Lu media reports, Jing Qingxun inadvertently discovered that Xu Shanhe, a villager engaged in the purchase of waste products, had placed two ancient cannons in front of the purchase station. He stepped forward and took a closer look. I took a photo and asked my friend Sheng Guixi to identify it. Sheng Guixi saw it and thought it was genuine, and immediately reported it to Yu Wenguo, the second-level chief member of the Juxian Culture and Tourism Bureau, and Liu Yuntao, director of the Academic Research and Exchange Department of the Juguo Ancient City Management Service Center in Juxian County.
Afterwards, Sheng Guixi quickly contacted Jing Qingxun and waited for them to check. After on-site appraisal by Yu Wenguo, Liu Yuntao, Sheng Guixi and others, it was determined that the two cannons were genuine and successfully entered the Juzhou Museum on the same day. It is understood that the red-clothed cannon is also known as the “Hongyi Cannon”. Its prototype is the cannon with a long barrel and a spindle-shaped structure invented by Europeans in the 16th century. It was introduced to China in the late Ming Dynasty and was imitated.
In the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631), Houjin used Liu Han, a captive craftsman, to successfully imitate a Western cannon and named it “Tianyou Cheering General”. They used complex annealing and quenching procedures to process different parts of the cannon. However, because the word “Yi” violated the taboo of the Manchus, the Hongyi Cannon was renamed “Red Clothes Cannon”.
In the eighth year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1669), the Qing government appointed Nan Huairen, a Belgian, to design a variety of cannons. There are three types of cannons: the light cannon “Shenwei General”, the medium-sized cannon “Shengong General”, and the heavy cannon “Wucheng Yonggu General”. “type, recorded in the official book of the Qing Dynasty, “The Imperial Court of the Qing Dynasty”. It is reported that the two red-clothed cannons discovered this time belong to the “General Kamui” type of light cannons.