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though they also had some on their war junks. The war junks were of much smaller size than the large men of war of the British navy. Generally they only had one gun deck although they were beginning to realise that they needed to have better ships and Mackenzie1 records that a start had been made as early as 1841. The batteries of the various forts were not short in numbers of guns, and Mackenzie records that the North Wangtung fort mounted 167 guns ranging in size from 3 to 64 pounders. What they did lack was the ability to aim them efficiently. Their accuracy was not good, and Mackenzie notes: "The carriages are also most clumsy, and owing to this they are unable to train the piece to bear on any particular object, but fire it off point blank"17. It is, therefore, no surprise that they were no match for the European ships, or even the gun boats such as the Nemesis which only mounted a couple of 32 pounders.
One would have expected the shore batteries to have given a better account for themselves; however, even the batteries at the Bogue Forts were not well directed. Ouchterlony said of their efforts to dislodge a battery of howitzers set up in the middle of South Wangtung, an island well within range of the fort: "...it will convey some idea of their miserable deficiency in gunnery, to remark that during all that time, although many guns in the southern horns of the half-moon batteries on Wangtung bore upon it, not a single casualty occurred amongst Captain Knowles' party."
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As regards field guns, the Chinese did not have much use for them as they were generally on the defensive. However, they did have an interesting variety that was mounted on a form of wheelbarrow, but these were only found in an arsenal and not in service. They also used gingals (also spelt gingall or jingal, from the Hindustani jangal), which is a large musket about twenty pounds in weight and when fired is supported either on a swivel mounting or by a second man. A photograph taken around 1910 by Leone Nani20 shows a large matchlock musket being supported on an assistant's shoulder, and specimens of similar dimensions, probably dating from the early twentieth century, were seen in the New Territories of Hong Kong in the 1970s by the author. Weapons of similar size (about eight feet long) but of more modern design were also in use at the time of the Boxer uprising (1900)21. The size of its shot varied. Loch22 observed gingals that required three men to operate and which fired a ball of about 2 pounds. However,