Research On Jesus Affected In Chinese Firearms From 16-18 Centuries

Jesuit who came to China on 16-18 century proved a major event in Sino-Western cultural exchanges history. Jesuit made great contribution not only on religious culture extension, but the thorough interchange on firearm technology. Jesuit and Chinese enlightened gentry made joint efforts which developed Chinese firearm technology to an unprecedented height through Ming and Qing period.This paper set out to conduct an in-depth investigation of the Jesuits who had made a substantial impact on the firearm evolution in China from 16 th to 18 th century under the context of firearm developmental imparity between China and the Western world. Built from previous researches on similar subjects, the author aims to further clarify the development and evolution of firearms in China during this particular period in order to unfold the reasons and revelations behind the gains and losses of military technology communications. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the analysis of the causes of how Jesuits had successfully established their foothold in China: cultural adaptation and scientific mission. The unique status of the Jesuits also entailed inherent limitations on their spread of firearms. The second part of the Paper devotes largely to the study of introducing, manufacturing and promoting of Western firearms by the Jesuits in China whose helpful efforts not only swiftly narrowed the gap between Chinese firearms and their Western counterparts but also yielded some high-performance firearms by combining merits from both worlds. Somehow, due to the absence of modern sciences in China, the level of development of the Chinese firearms was yet to reach the Western height. The third part of the Paper discusses the disseminations of firearm technologies and warfare theories by the Jesuits who had imported from the West technological advancements and scientific methodologies, made certain key improvements to the cannons, spread modern strategies of war and led to the birth of Chinese firearm forces. As a result of changed social environment, the Lockdown policy pursued by the Qing Dynasty from late 18 th century had caused not only the stagnation in firearm development but also the nation to lag behind the Western world in technology and social advancements.The last part of the Paper provides summarization of the entire article: the Jesuits’ introduction of both firearms and firearm technologies to China had substantially facilitated the development of the Chinese ancient military, significantly closed the gap in firearm development between China and the West and thrust Chinese ancient military to a new summit during the 16 th and 18 th century. This Paper carefully studies the subject of the Jesuits’ dissemination of Western firearms in China and both positive impacts and restraining factors of this process, providing a refreshing interpretation of Chinese military technological history in this era.