16—17世纪中国火器知识谱系及其进路

The Pedigree and Approach of China’s Firearms Knowledge in the 16th to 17th Century

16—17世纪是西方崛起进而在全球范围扩展影响的时期,也是中西知识碰撞、交流的重要时期。以往研究认为,此一时期中国火器知识体系的形成是由简至繁、由表及里的欧化过程。但实际上,这一进路并不是以往研究认为的简单的直线式的发展过程,而是充满了起伏波折,呈现出波浪式前进的态势。此类知识于16—17世纪经过战争的试炼、促进和传播,军事将领和技术专家的知识权力、军事百科全书、耶稣会士东来引起的西学东渐等因素在其中均起了重要作用,最终实现了从以经验为主导到以数理科学为主导的路径转换,完成了以佛郎机铳和鸟铳为中心的知识体系向以红夷大炮为中心的知识体系变迁。在这一过程中,有火器知识的偶然性和碎片化的作用,有火器知识的内部结构和外部因素的相互影响,这些都可以在知识史的视角下得到强有力的观照与透视。

The 16 th to 17 th centuries were the period when the West rose and then expanded its influence on a global scale. It was also an important period when China and the West met, communicated and collided. Previous studies believed that the formation of the Chinese firearms knowledge system during this period was a process of Europeanization from simple to complex, from outside to inside. The trial, promotion and dissemination of this kind of knowledge through war in the 16 th and 17 th centuries. The intellectual power of military generals and technical experts, the military encyclopedia, and the eastward spread of Western learning caused by the arrival of the Jesuits all played an important role in it, and finally realized the experience-oriented to the mathematical science-oriented, and completed the change from the knowledge system centered on the Bird Gun and the Franc Gun to the knowledge system centered on the Hongyi cannon. This approach is not straight, but full of ups and downs, showing a wave-like progression. In this process, there are the contingency and fragmentation of firearm knowledge, the internal structure of firearm knowledge and the mutual influence of external factors, which can be strongly echoed from the perspective of knowledge history.