After the re-exhibition, some exhibits that were rarely exhibited before were able to meet the public for a long time. What is particularly interesting is a unique19th century rifled gun body, and the introduction card is marked with "British Westworth front-loaded iron gun". What kind of gun is this and how did it come to China?
The first thing that can be determined is that this gun is obviously not the so-called "Westworth front iron gun". Westworth was originally a prestigious machinery manufacturer in Manchester, England. After the Crimean war, he began to set foot in arms manufacturing. Most guns produced by Westworth are mainly characterized by hexagonal chambers/holes and ammunition with hexagonal cross sections. The rifling of this gun body is well preserved, which is obviously eight grooves and slightly octagonal from the muzzle. This alone can rule out the possibility that the gun is a Westworth gun.
Although the gun body has rusted, you can still notice some inscriptions on the gun body when you zoom in with the camera lens. What is more obvious is the English inscription "loose" on the left side of the upper part of the gun ear hoop. According to this inscription, combined with the shape of the gun body, it can be immediately judged that this is a very unique British two-stage front-loaded mountain gun.
The so-called two-stage mountain gun, as the name implies, is that the middle part of the gun body (specifically, the gun ear hoop) is screwed tightly, and it can be twisted into two parts in the marching state, which is convenient for mules and horses (the British colonial army also used camels at that time) to carry. The "loose" on the left side of the gun ear hoop should be "tight" on the other side, but it can't be observed because it is displayed against the wall.) Rotating to the left can loosen the gun body, disassemble it into two parts, and rotating to the right can tighten the gun body.
The two-stage mountain gun is also equipped with an air-tight ring at the rotating joint of the two gun bodies, and its structure is very similar to the air-tight ring (so-called "steel ring" in the late Qing literature) used on the wedge Heng Pao bolt with explosives in the early days.
In the late1870s, Armstrong's Elswick Ordnance Company (EOC) first developed a 2.5-inch front-mounted two-stage mountain gun to replace the 7-pound front-mounted mountain gun of the British Army at that time. The idea is simple. The design of detachable gun body is adopted to extend the barrel length of mountain gun to increase its range and power.
From then on, this kind of gun was produced by RGF Royal Gun Factory owned by Britain, and it was called Mark II. Mark II and Mark I have the same appearance, but the design of the air-tight ring has changed, so the air-tight ring of the two can't be used universally. Guns made great contributions to Britain's foreign expansion in Victorian times. It was equipped with a large number of British colonial troops in India and Africa, and was also praised by the British poet Rudyard? Kipling played the leading role in the colonial poem Screw Gun.
Since then, the two kinds of British mountain guns that replaced it, 10 pound breech mountain gun and 2.75-inch in-tube mountain gun, also adopted two-stage design until they were replaced by 3.7-inch mountain guns in World War I.
However, there are still many differences in details between the two-stage mountain gun with front loading chamber exhibited by Junbo and the British standard 2.5-inch front loading two-stage mountain gun. The most obvious thing is that there is a small "step" at the front end of the ear hoop of the Junbo Tibetan gun, while the front end of the ear hoop of the British 2.5-inch two-section mountain gun, whether Mark I or Mark II, is smooth and has no "step"; Even the inscription position of Junbo Tibetan gun is different from that of British javelin. What is the reason?
The drawings of Elswick Gun Company in maritime museum, England, can just find two kinds of drawings of "2.5-inch 7-pound two-section mountain guns" produced by the company; The front end of the ear hoop of the two guns is the same as that of the Junbo Tibetan gun, and the details of each part of the gun body of one gun are exactly the same as that of the Junbo Tibetan gun.
Since 1862 Armstrong's cooperation with the British government was suspended, Elswick Artillery Company has become a fully commercialized arms company. Although the British army also ordered a large number of arms from it (for example, the Mark I 2.5-inch two-section mountain cannon was produced by the factory), its main business is still arms export. Weapons produced for the international market do not need to meet the specifications of the British military system, and it is normal to have various changes in details. The two-stage mountain gun collected by Junbo is obviously an export version of Armstrong's 2.5-inch two-stage mountain gun.
As the gun was exported by Armstrong Company, it probably came to China through the purchase of the late Qing government. But it is not clear who bought this Armstrong two-stage mountain gun when. It is very likely that the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Administration in Shanghai made a two-stage mountain gun in the style of Armstrong, but the inscription on Junbo's gun is in English, which is obviously the original product of a factory.
In the old photo gallery of the website of the National Library, there is an old photo called "Heavy Artillery of the Army outside the Customs", which was shot of a 2.5-inch two-stage mountain gun, with the front assembly line. The nominal shooting time of the website is about 1940. According to the military costumes in the photos, it is indeed possible to shoot during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period.
The two-stage mountain artillery, which once invaded the world for the expansion of the British Empire, was probably used by the China army for more than 50 years in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. This very rare 2.5-inch two-section mountain gun exported to Armstrong exhibited by Junbo is another small footnote of the extremely complicated world history and industrial history in the19th century.