>>213971276
They tried rolling out bronze cannons that they bought from the Dutch in like 1590 against Russian scouts in the late 1700s thinking that a scouting ship was a warship. By around 1830 or so they were buying arms from the Dutch and trying to start modernizing their construction because they were told the British were conquering Asia and defeated the Qing dynasty, which 99% of the warlords that ran the country refused to do.