Chapter 574: Dorgon's Hongyi Small Cannons

Because Li Zicheng had "played dead," the Shun side now counted the fourth year of Yongchang. The Qing side, meanwhile, was in the fourth year of Shunzhi — both "fourth years," which was quite a coincidence. And even more coincidental was that both the Qing and the Shun had chosen roughly the same development path — both were in the early-rise model of a Chinese-style feudal dynasty.

The Qing and Shun dynasties were, after all, newly risen Chinese-style feudal dynasties!

The Qing's Ten Banner system (the Eight Banners plus two Green Banners) was, to put it plainly, an upgraded version of the Ming military household system — not some institution brought in from the grasslands and the great desert.

The Shun's Old Camp soldier system, on the other hand, was "land granted to soldiers," similar to the early fubing system — early fubing soldiers had separate military registration, and it was only after the Kaihuang reforms of the Sui dynasty that they were merged into civilian registration. Now the Shun likewise separated soldier and farmer.

Beyond the Ten Banner system and the Old Camp soldier system, both the Shun and the Qing had also, one after the other, chosen the land system of equal-field distribution by headcount — a system later generations regarded as a "divine move."

This was in fact only natural. Neither the Shun nor the Qing had much population density in their territories — the land they held had been fought over back and forth in seesaw battles, so how many people could there be?

And wasn't a small population with plenty of land precisely the necessary condition for equal-field distribution by headcount? Even a smallholder economy required a certain scale; if a smallholder's operation was too small, it was very hard to sustain.

After equal-field distribution by headcount, it would have to be maintained for several decades before it could be counted a success, wouldn't it?

If it broke down after a mere three or five years and serious signs of land concentration began to appear again, that was not true success.

Or if, a few years after the land was distributed, the peasants abandoned their homes and ran off to America to become colonists, that would not be a sign that equal-field distribution had succeeded either.

Of course, if one peasant was allotted only one or two mu, it was normal for him to find it hard to get by. A family of five or six working a few mu of poor land was simply not a sustainable economic scale, and division would inevitably appear very quickly!

At present, neither the Shun nor the Qing had much population in their territories, enough to equal out into a sustainable farm-operation scale.

Moreover, for various reasons both sides had fallen out completely with the scholar-official class and could not obtain the latter's support at all. If they then went on to defend the scholar-officials' land ownership instead of adopting the equal-field system that most easily brought stability, wouldn't that make them idiots?

Li Guo and Dorgon were no fools; of course they knew what to do!

So by the fourth year of Qing Shunzhi, although the Qing dynasty's short-term trend did not look very good — in Shaanxi the Qing army had lost Yulin and Yan'an. In Shanxi the Qing army still had not been able to take Datong Prefecture, and had even allowed the anti-Qing base in the Lüliang Mountains to develop somewhat. And in Shandong, the Qing army had once again abandoned the Yishui camp and withdrawn from beneath the walls of Qufu.

But those who could truly see the situation clearly all understood that the Qing state's rule over the Central Plain was already fairly stable!

Because by the spring of the fourth year of Qing Shunzhi, one hundred thousand households of regular Green Banner officers and men, along with more than one and a half million households of poor peasants living in Henan, Shandong, Northern Zhili, and Shanxi province, had obtained the land they had dreamed of.

Among these, the land grants to poor commoners were maintained at roughly the standard of ten mu per mouth. Even taking the present climate into account, this amount of land was enough to keep people alive — and to let them live rather comfortably at that.

So in the regions where equal-field land grants had been completed, Han resistance had gradually died down! Even the Caozhou Ming force (the troops of Li Huajing and Gong Wencai), which had held out for more than a year under complete Qing encirclement, was defeated by Dodo at the end of the third year of Shunzhi.

Unable to hold Caozhou, Li Huajing and Gong Wencai were forced to break out with their remaining troops and went to join Shi Kefa, who was entrenched at Qufu.

Besides the defeat of the Caozhou Ming force, another piece of good fortune also fell upon Dorgon after the start of spring in the fourth year of Shunzhi — the envoy Bruce, dispatched by Lord Protector General Cromwell of the red-haired English nation, finally arrived in Beijing, and moreover presented to the Qing Imperial Uncle Prince Regent Dorgon the local specialties of the red-haired nation: twelve three-pounder Hongyi small cannons, plus twelve three-pounder cannons forged in Shengjing by Eight Banner Han craftsmen (under the guidance of Bruce and the other Englishmen).

Bruce had in fact arrived in Shengjing long before, but Dorgon had not immediately summoned them to Beijing. This was because Dorgon did not trust these red-haired foreign devils — who didn't know that Zhu Cilang had opened a commercial market in Shanghai to attract foreign merchants, and was on excellent terms with the red-haired and yellow-haired foreigners?

Why would this red-haired nation want to be friendly with the Qing? Could there be some trick in it?

So Dorgon followed Fan Wencheng's advice and decided to test the red-haired foreigners — hadn't they said their nation's specialty was cannons?

Then let them pass on a bit of cannon-casting skill to the Plain White Banner Han troops left to garrison Shengjing!

And indeed, these red-haired foreigners proved quite obliging. After busying themselves for the better part of a year, they finally helped the Plain White Banner Han craftsmen produce twelve three-pounder Hongyi cannons — in truth, a three-pounder cannon presented no insurmountable technical difficulty for Qing craftsmen.

In terms of casting difficulty, a twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon was far harder!

It was just that the three-pounder demanded higher standards of weight and precision, and also required purpose-built carriages, so it took a bit of time.

In addition, the efficiency of the Manchu Qing's "banner-run" handicraft industry was also a bit low. The craftsmen were all banner slaves and not very willing to learn new things — the twelve-pounder Hongyi cannon was something they had long been familiar with, and all sorts of "rules" had been worked out, such as how much material it consumed, how much time it took, and what the reject rate was; everyone from top to bottom had the figures.

So the craftsmen ran little risk in casting cannons, were unlikely to be punished, and lived rather secure lives.

But the three-pounder was a new product; if something went wrong and it blew up when the Prince Regent came to inspect the cannons, whose fault would that be?

Now that the Qing Ten Banner laws were strict, such an incident would mean an investigation into responsibility, and it was quite possible someone would lose his head.

Innovation was a risky business!

Still, after a long spell of dawdling, the twelve three-pounder Hongyi cannons were finally cast successfully.

And during this period, Bruce had also trained a batch of "Hongyi small cannon" crews for the Plain White Banner's Hongyi cannon niru.

On the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the fourth year of Qing Shunzhi, a test firing was held on the parade ground of the Fengtai camp!

"Boom-boom-boom—"

The dense sound of cannon fire rang out. The muzzles of eight randomly selected three-pounders continuously spat flame and smoke, and all fired at once, volley after volley of shot flying toward several dozen wooden targets three or four hundred paces ahead. Before long, more than half of them had been smashed to splinters.

Seated on a raised platform to watch the firing, the Qing Imperial Uncle Prince Regent Dorgon could not hide the smile on his face no matter how hard he tried.

Ever since the Battle of Blood Stream, he had been fretting over how to move quickly against the Ming army's cannons — he was a military man who had fought for half his life, understood something of artillery himself, was a master at employing cavalry, and knew well the power of coordinated cavalry and artillery.

But even he had never imagined the Ming army could make their cannons "fly"!

In past battles between Ming and Qing, because the Qing army possessed overwhelming cavalry superiority, it held the initiative on the battlefield, and its troops could maneuver at will. The Ming army, by contrast, had to maintain formation and found it difficult to maneuver.

Under such circumstances, the Ming army's cannons — which were extremely troublesome to deploy (great general cannons, crouching tiger cannons, assault cannons, Folangji cannons) — could basically not bring their power to bear: the swiftly moving Qing army simply would not give the Ming artillerymen much time to set up.

Yet the Ming cannons that appeared on the Blood Stream battlefield could maneuver rapidly, deploy rapidly, and fire at a very high rate!

Their appearance could at least offset the Qing army's maneuver advantage in battle, making the Qing army's assembly positions on the battlefield highly vulnerable to bombardment!

Moreover, the Qing army's shield carts and artillery positions would likewise be destroyed by these new-model cannons of extreme mobility and rapid fire.

So for the past half year and more, Dorgon had been constantly pressing the Han craftsmen of every banner to speed up improvements to the great general cannon, trying to use a great general cannon on a two-wheeled carriage to counter the Ming army's new-model artillery.

But the great general cannon's range was too short; even if it could open fire quickly after the carriage was improved, it would still be very hard pressed to counter the Ming army's new-model artillery.

And this problem had now, thanks to the help of the English friends, been perfectly solved!

(End of Chapter)