Codex · Weapons
Tiger Cannon
虎炮Hǔpào
A ranged Phantom Edge that breaks distant formations and detonates explosive enemies, according to coverage of the August 2026 State of Play; Chinese coverage calls it 虎炮.
What the name means
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 虎 | hǔ | tiger |
| 炮 | pào | cannon (earlier 砲, a stone-throwing trebuchet) |
The real culture behind it
The obvious ancestor is the Ming crouching tiger cannon (虎蹲炮): a light iron gun about 2 chi (60–65 cm) long and 36 jin (about 21 kg), firing up to a hundred small shot. Its muzzle rested on a clawed iron support and it was staked to the ground against recoil, so it squatted like a tiger. General Qi Jiguang is credited with refining it against the wokou pirates, and Ming troops still used it in the Imjin War in Korea (1592–1598).
Even the character has a history: before gunpowder, 炮 was written 砲, with the stone radical, for a stone-throwing trebuchet. The tiger, meanwhile, is the Chinese emblem of martial force, from the bronze tiger tallies that mobilised armies to the elite guards called 虎贲. Linking the game’s cannon to the hudun pao is our comparison.
Go deeper
- Tiger Cannon & the Ming Crouching Tiger CannonThe crouching tiger cannon (虎蹲炮) was a staked-down Ming scatter-shot gun used by Qi Jiguang's armies — and the closest real match for Phantom Blade Zero's Tiger Cannon.
- Phantom Blade Zero Weapons & Their Real Chinese OriginsEvery Phantom Blade Zero weapon named so far, from Sanguine to the Tiger Cannon, matched to its real Chinese counterpart: jian, dao, miao dao, guandao and more.
Sources & further reading
- Wccftech: State of Play summary — 55 weapons, iron fists and shielded foes (Aug 2026)
- gcores: State of Play summary (18 Aug 2026)
- Hu dun pao (Wikipedia)
Game details come from official material and press coverage; names marked “fan reading” will be checked against the retail build. Anything labelled as our reading is interpretation, not a developer statement.