The Ming dynasty continued to improve on gunpowder weapons from the Yuan and Song dynasties as part of its military. During the early Ming period larger and more cannons were used in warfare. In the early 16th century Turkish and Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and matchlock firearms were incorporated into the Ming arsenal. In the 17th century Dutch culverin were incorporated as well and became known as hongyipao. At the very end of the Ming dynasty, around 1642, Chinese combined European cannon designs with indigenous casting methods to create composite metal cannons that exemplified the best attributes of both iron and bronze cannons. While firearms never completely displaced the bow and arrow, by the end of the 16th century more firearms than bows were being ordered for production by the government, and no crossbows were mentioned at all.

Early Ming period

Firearm warfare In China, cannons started playing a significant role in siege battles during the mid 14th century. For example, in 1358 during the Siege of Shaoxing the Ming army attacked the city and the defenders "used ... fire tubes to attack the enemy's advance guard". The siege was won by the defenders, whose "fire tubes went off all at once, and the [attacker's] great army could not stand against them and had to withdraw." In 1363 Chen Youliang failed to take Nanchang, defended by Ming commander Deng Yu, due to the defenders' use of cannons and was forced to set up a blockade in an attempt to starve them out. Cannons were also used on the frontier as garrison artillery from 1412 onwards.

Cannons were less useful for the besieging army. In the Siege of Suzhou of 1366, the Ming army fielded 2,400 large and small cannons in addition to 480 trebuchets, but neither were able to breach the city walls despite "the noise of the guns and the paos went day and night and didn't stop." Chinese city walls tend to be much thicker than other parts of the world, and Suzhou was no different. Contemporary documents show that the wall had a width of 11 meters at the base, a height of 7 meters, and a length of 17 kilometers. The city defenses were eventually overcome through a breach in the gates made by traditional manual mining and battering. This was only possible because the defenders were already starving by mid-autumn of 1367 and unable to put up a proper resistance, succumbing to the onslaught of a frontal assault.

In 1388 cannons were used against war elephants successfully during the Ming–Mong Mao War and again in 1421 during the Lam Sơn uprising. In 1414 the Ming army clashed with an Oirat force near the Tula River and frightened them so much with their guns that the Oirats fled without their spare horses, only to be ambushed by concealed Chinese guns. According to a Chinese observer the Oirats avoided battle several days later, "fearing that the guns had arrived again."

Cannons were less decisive in naval battles. In the Battle of Lake Poyang on 29 August 1363 Zhu Yuanzhang's fleet arrived armed with "fire bombs, fire guns, fire arrows, fire seeds [probably grenades], large and small fire lances, large and small 'commander' fire-tubes, large and small iron bombs, rockets." His fleet engaged Chen's under orders to "get close to the enemy's ships and first set off gunpowder weapons (發火器), then bows and crossbows, and finally attack their ships with short range weapons." However it was fire bombs hurled using ship mounted trebuchets that succeeded in "burning twenty or more enemy vessels and killing or drowning many enemy troops." Zhu eventually came out victorious by ramming and burning the enemy fleet with fire ships. While guns were used during the battle, ultimately they were not pivotal to success, and the battle was won using incendiary weapons.

Number of gunners The Ming dynasty founder Zhu Yuanzhang, who declared his reign to be the era of Hongwu, or "Great Martiality," made prolific use of gunpowder weapons for his time. Early Ming military codes stipulated that ideally 10 percent of all soldiers should be gunners. By 1380, twelve years after the Ming dynasty's founding, the Ming army boasted around 130,000 gunners out of its 1.3 to 1.8 million strong army. At the outbreak of the Ming–Mong Mao War (1386–1388), the Ming general Mu Ying was ordered to produce a couple thousand hand cannons. Under Zhu Yuanzhang's successors, the percentage of gunners climbed higher and by the 1440s it reached 20 percent. In 1466 the ideal composition was 30 percent. In the aftermath of the Tumu Crisis of 1449, government authorities around the Tumu region collected from the field 5,000 sets of abandoned armour, 6,000 helmets, 30,000 firearms, 1,800 containers of gunpowder, and 440,000 crossbow bolts.

Ammunition Gunpowder corning had been developed by 1370 to increase the explosive power of land mines. It's argued that corned gunpowder may have been used for guns as well according to one record of a fire-tube shooting a projectile 457 meters, which was probably only possible at the time with the usage of corned powder. Around the same time Ming guns transitioned from stone shots to iron ammunition, which has greater density than stone. They also made use of shells since at least 1412.

Types of cannons The Hongwu Emperor created a Bureau of Armaments (軍器局) which was tasked with producing every three years 3,000 handheld bronze guns, 3,000 signal cannons, and ammunition as well as accoutrements such as ramrods. His Armory Bureau (兵仗局) was responsible for producing types of guns known as "great generals," "secondary generals," "tertiary generals," and "gate-seizing generals." Other firearms such as "miraculous [fire] lances," "miraculous guns," and "horse-beheading guns" were also produced. It is unclear what proportion or how many of each type were actually manufactured.

Most early Ming guns weighed two to three kilograms while guns considered "large" at the time weighed around 75 kilograms. During Siege of Suzhou in 1366 the Ming army fielded "large" cannons weighing up to 80 kilograms, which were about a meter in length, and had a muzzle diameter of about 21 centimeters. A gun known as the "Great Bowl-Mouth Tube" (大碗口筒) dated to 1372 weighs only 15.75 kilograms and was 36.5 centimeters long, its muzzle 11 centimeters in diameter. Other excavated guns of this type range from 8.35 to 26.5 kilograms. They were usually mounted on ships or gates as defensive weapons. Accuracy was low and they were limited to a range of only 50 paces or so. Some exceptionally large cannons exist such as three specimens cast in 1377, each around one meter in length, supported by two trunnions on each side, weighing over 150 kg, and with a muzzle diameter of 21 cm. A metallographic study of one of these cannons showed that it was likely made of cast steel rather than iron.

Early Ming cannons coalesced into a few typical designs. There was the crouching tiger cannon, a small cannon fitted with a metal collar and two legs for support. There was a middling cannon known as the "awe-inspiring long range cannon" which added a sight and weighed around 85 kilograms. Larger cannons such as the great general and great divine cannons were also developed and at least 300 of them were being made in 1465. The muzzle loading wrought iron "great general cannon" (大將軍炮) weighed up to 360 kilograms and could fire a 4.8 kilogram lead ball. The "great general cannon" has been used to refer to cannons of various sizes, some as heavy as 500 kg. Its heavier variant, the "great divine cannon" (大神銃), could weigh up to 600 kilograms and was capable of firing several iron balls and upward of a hundred iron shots at once. These were the last indigenous Chinese cannon designs prior to the incorporation of European models in the 16th century.

The Huolongjing provides descriptions of early Ming cannons:

Crouching tiger cannon (hudunpao)

Long range awe-inspiring cannon (weiyuanpao)

Thousand ball thunder cannon (qianzileipao)

Stagnation of large artillery development While China was the birthplace of gunpowder the guns there remained relatively small and light, weighing less than 80 kilograms or less for the large ones, and only a couple kilograms at most for the small ones during the early Ming era. The exception to this are three cannons cast in 1377, each around one meter in length, supported by two trunnions on each side, weighing over 440 kg, and with a muzzle diameter of 21 cm. A metallographic study of one of these cannons showed that it was made of cast steel rather than iron. Firearms had proliferated throughout China during the 13th and 14th centuries, and became a common sight during sieges, but super large cannons never developed in China.

Nomad theory Asianist Kenneth Chase argues that gun development stagnated during the Ming dynasty due to the type of enemy faced by the Chinese: horse nomads. Chase argues that guns were not particularly useful against these opponents. Guns were supposedly problematic to deploy against nomads because of their size and slow speed, drawing out supply chains, and creating logistical challenges. Theoretically, the more mobile nomads took the initiative in sallying, retreating, and engaging at will. Chinese armies therefore relied less heavily on guns in warfare than Europeans, who fought large infantry battles and sieges which favored guns, or so Chase argues.

However, the Chase hypothesis has been criticized by Tonio Andrade. According to Andrade, the Chinese themselves considered guns to be highly valuable against nomads. During the Ming-Mongol wars of the 1300s and early 1400s, guns were utilized. In October 1428, the Xuande Emperor led an imperial border unit of 3,000 against a roughly equal force of Mongols. The Ming opened fire on the Mongols using handheld firearms and killed more than half of them. Firearms were also used in defending against a Mongol invasion in 1449 and guns were in high demand along the northern borders where gun emplacements were common. Several sources make it clear that Chinese military leaders found guns to be highly effective against nomads throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. The military scholar Weng Wanda goes as far as to claim that only with firearms could one hope to succeed against the fast moving Mongols, and purchased special guns for both the Great Wall defenses and offensive troops who fought in the steppes. Andrade also points out that Chase downplays the amount of warfare going on outside of the northern frontier, specifically southern China where huge infantry battles and sieges such as in Europe were the norm. In 1368 the Ming army invaded Sichuan, Mongolia, and Yunnan. Although little mention of firearm is used in accounts of the Mongolia campaign, Ming cannons readily routed the war elephants of Yunnan, and in the case of Sichuan, both sides employed equally potent firearms. When the Ming founder Zhu Yuanzhang died, the civil war which ensued had Chinese armies fighting one another, again with equally powerful firearms. After the usurper Yongle's victory, the Ming embarked upon yet another five expeditions into Mongolia alongside an invasion of Dai Viet, many of their troops wielding firearms. In 1414 the Ming army clashed with an Oirat force near the Tula River and frightened them so much with their guns that the Oirats fled without their spare horses, only to be ambushed by concealed Chinese guns. According to a Chinese observer the Oirats avoided battle several days later, "fearing that the guns had arrived again." In Vietnam, as with Yunnan, the war elephants fared poorly and were defeated with a combination of arrows and firearms. Chinese firearms were used in defensive fortifications to some effect, but were ineffective at targeting individual targets such as Vietnamese guerillas presented themselves.

Economic theory