I was pretty surprised to find these #Chinese (?) inscriptions on an old cannon in Budapest. Can someone tell me what they say?

@buherator I'm basically at elementary schoolkid reading level, and this is written in classical Chinese which means that facing this I'm basically illiterate, but the name 南懷仁 is present in the inscription, which is the Chinese name for this guy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Verbiest

@buherator I think it's this: http://www.battle-of-qurman.com.cn/literature/Stary-Verbiest-1994.pdf Check out page 219 for a picture which looks very similar to your inscription, and page 220 for the statement that one of these cannons is in Budapest (:

I think the script on the very farthest left side of your image isn't Chinese, but rather the Manchu script. If so, that would confirm that these are indeed the described cannons.

@cxiao Thanks! This is wild!

"Verbiest undertook many projects, including [...] the casting of 132 cannons for the imperial army"

This is at least a hint about how these cannons could end up in Europe!

@buherator Wish I could find a better image that isn't a grainy book scan, though 😆

@cxiao This is it! And here's a better picture (of a different instance of the same type): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cannon_of_Ferdinand_Verbiest_in_Hakozaki_Shrine.jpg

Thank you very much, can't wait to read the story behind these!

@buherator Nice!!! These are beautifully cast, and it's super interesting how they ended up all over the world :D