Research on the Sources of Ballistics Data of Chinese Translations of Artillery Works in the Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasties

By comparing ballistics content in Western artillery books with Chinese translations of firearm works, this article points out that the ballistics data in Ming dynasty artillery literature were principally derived from Spanish artillery works of the late 16th century. The data contained in La obra manual y platica de la artillería was the most extensively circulated information in China and the Spanish empire, and the ballistics knowledge in this book was inherited from Tartaglia's theory of New Science. Additionally, the table of distances in Ferdinand Verbiest's Qiongli xue (穷理学) has been identified as translated from Moretti's Trattato dell'artiglieria, which was founded on Galileo's theory of parabolic motion. However, in using these data, the Qiongli xue still follows Aristotle's theory of motion. Ballistics data became significantly more valuable during the late Ming to early Qing dynasties, reflecting the evolution of European ballistics theory from Tartaglia to Galileo.