Professor Michael Chung received his PhD in history from Emory University in 2025, and his BA and MPhil from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2012 and 2016 respectively. Chung’s research centers on the early Qing dynasty, with a focus on the transfer of European artillery technology and the formation of the Hanjun Eight Banners. As a digital humanist, Chung is currently developing a database of 17th- and 18th-century bannermen using text mining, and a Manchu OCR system based on a fine-tuned vision-language model.

Research Interests

Qing history, Military history, Manchu Studies, Text-mining, AI/ML, Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

Representative Publications

Chung, Yan Hon Michael. “Negotiation and Innovation: Artillery Technology, Ethnicity, and Formation of the Hanjun.” Late Imperial China 45, no. 2 (2024): 153-191.

Chung, Yan Hon Michael. “The Development and Impact of Hong Taiji’s Artillery Corps (1631–1643).” Journal of Chinese Military History 10, 2 (2021): 1-40.

Chung, Yan Hon Michael. “The Introduction of European-Style Artillery and the Reform of Siege Tactics in 17th Century China—a Case Study of the Tragedy of Jiangyin (1645).” Journal of Chinese Military History 9, 1 (2020): 1-37.