Chinese, Southern minorities
Hi guys, I don't check the forum that often so I must have missed this post.
The gun in question is most likely from the Miao people, an ethnic minority living in large parts of southern China, including Hunan, Yunnan and Guizhou.
Miao soldiers were feared gunners, William Mesny faced them while leading Qing troops in the area and he hailed their skill as snipers.
Identifying features are the shape of the stock and the multitude of sheet metal bands holding the barrel in place. The standard Chinese musket had far fewer, and often narrower bands and a slightly different shape of stock.
Some interesting passages on these people, their muskets, and their skills with them are described in Ian Heath's Armies of the 19th century; China. (The original sources it quotes are long out of print and hard to get.)
David Leffman wrote an interesting book on Mesny, titled: "The Mercenary Mandarin: How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China" that will give some context to these guns.
A nice find!
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