Zhao Shizhen was a great military inventor and firearms development expert in the Ming Dynasty, and a native of Yueqing, Wenzhou. He has been very smart since he was a child. He was a student at the Imperial Academy and loved writing poetry. However, he is extremely obsessed with studying firearms. When Zhao Shizhen was in the twenty-fifth year of Wanli, he gave the Wanli Emperor of Ming Shenzong, who was in power at the time, a brochure - "Eight Harms in the Use of Soldiers", suggesting the production of wild bird guns. To put it bluntly, it is recommended to open firearms manufacturing factories across the country to manufacture foreign guns.
Anyone who has watched the movie "The Invincibles of the East" knows that the era in which the Invincibles of the East lived was the late Ming Dynasty. At this time, civilizations from other regions in the world had gradually penetrated into the Ming Dynasty. Whether it is the Windmill Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Japanese Kingdom, or the Franconian Kingdom (France), they have all used more powerful blunderbuss. The combat effectiveness of bird guns is more lethal than broadswords, long hairs, bows and arrows, and crossbows.
Zhao Shizhen developed and improved a variety of firearms throughout his life. Zhao Shizhen made elaborate drawings of the "Thunder Gun" and "Electric Gun" and sent them to the west to Emperor Wanli at the time, detailing the structure, manufacturing methods, usage techniques, lethality, etc. of these firearms, which won the novelty and appreciation of Emperor Wanli. . Zhao Shizhen is a person who pursues perfection and strives for excellence. Based on the original "Thunder Gun" that fired five bullets in a row, through continuous exploration and experimentation, he created a "Thunder Gun" that can fire eighteen bullets continuously. "Rocket Slide" brought his firearms research to a new level.
However, the imperial court did not pay much attention to his invention, and Zhao Shizhen's official position was at two levels with his research. He was a scientist who devoted himself to researching firearms for the country. However, the emperor and others only liked his calligraphy and were not interested in his research. Although Zhao Shizhen invented the "Thunder Gun" and other weapons during the anti-Japanese war. However, this invention was not recognized and taken seriously by the court, causing him to die in depression in his later years.