China's Legendary Swords
- Thread starter crobato
- Start date
That's a very good forum but quite hard core. You need to pass an exam to access certain forums in that site.
If I were you there is still a lot you can get by using search engine functions like google or yahoo.
I don't consider myself to be very good in Chinese history. There are many things I still have to learn.
If I were you there is still a lot you can get by using search engine functions like google or yahoo.
I don't consider myself to be very good in Chinese history. There are many things I still have to learn.
Thomas Chen has a write up that summarizes the history of Chinese sword development.
Chronology Table on 2500 years of Chinese sword technical development
Also great histories of Chinese jians and daos here.
Chronology Table on 2500 years of Chinese sword technical development
Also great histories of Chinese jians and daos here.
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Having a great sword makes a difference, in the way it handles, balances and inspires confidence on the user. Plus, in hand to hand fighting, blade would meet against blade, and the poorer blade would break. People don't seem to realize that the construction of a sword is both a delicate art and science, trying to obtain a balance between hardness for slicing power and penetration, an softness, to prevent the blade from becoming brittle and breaking.
For that reason, Chinese swordsmiths, like the famous Wu and Yue such as Ou Yezi and Ganjiang, were the among the earliest to realize the use of bimetallic construction. What the superstitious may attribute as myth and magic, the swordmakers were actually applying practical engineering and metallurgy. Bimetallic means that the sword is made of two different alloys. The first, around the cutting edges, is a sharper metal that forms the cutting blade. The second, around the core or the back, is a softer metal to absorb and cushion the impact, to prevent the blade from becoming brittle and break.
The Chinese call this process sanmai, or a three form sandwich construction, where two outer and harder metals form a sandwich with a softer metal core in the middle.
For that reason, Chinese swordsmiths, like the famous Wu and Yue such as Ou Yezi and Ganjiang, were the among the earliest to realize the use of bimetallic construction. What the superstitious may attribute as myth and magic, the swordmakers were actually applying practical engineering and metallurgy. Bimetallic means that the sword is made of two different alloys. The first, around the cutting edges, is a sharper metal that forms the cutting blade. The second, around the core or the back, is a softer metal to absorb and cushion the impact, to prevent the blade from becoming brittle and break.
The Chinese call this process sanmai, or a three form sandwich construction, where two outer and harder metals form a sandwich with a softer metal core in the middle.
I get your point but what I was trying to say, it's better to have quantity in terms of swords, because lets face it, in the end the sword is still a piece of metal used to cut flesh.
So what if your soldier has a i dunno xuan yun sword or whatever it was,but you would have spent great amount of resource and time to arm one man, while i could have 2 soldiers with crap bronze swords. But 2 on my guys would still kill your guy, it works the same in grand tactics and perhaps even higher levels. So in terms of warfare large amounts of inferior swords and spears are greater than few superior swords and spears. 1000 brigands are more than 1 hero in warfare.
'Hao han nan di si shou' Chinese saying translated (Even great warriors face difficulties fending off 4 hands)
So what if your soldier has a i dunno xuan yun sword or whatever it was,but you would have spent great amount of resource and time to arm one man, while i could have 2 soldiers with crap bronze swords. But 2 on my guys would still kill your guy, it works the same in grand tactics and perhaps even higher levels. So in terms of warfare large amounts of inferior swords and spears are greater than few superior swords and spears. 1000 brigands are more than 1 hero in warfare.
'Hao han nan di si shou' Chinese saying translated (Even great warriors face difficulties fending off 4 hands)
But that is still not the way the ancient Chinese worked on this. By using semi-mass manufacturing techniques like the blast furnace---which nobody else had till the Industrial Age---the Chinese got both quantity and quality at the same time.
Even in the Republican wars and World War II, Chinese soldiers armed with Miadaos and Dadaos were hacking through Japanese soldiers even when the latter used their guns and war issued swords to block the chop. But then Japanese war issued swords were not very not good but still, Chinese swords were still made in an admirable quality level even when everything else was not.
Everyone knows the story of the General Qi Jizheng who in the Ming Dynasty lamented on the decay of quality of Chinese swords and then imported lots of Japanese swords for his troops to fight the Japanese pirates (wokou) and the Mongols with great success. The decay of Ming sword quality has partly to do with corruption and greed, and in a macro-technology level, because China started to shift to using guns and artillery and putting less emphasis on sword making---a process that was reversed by the Qing. Of course, in the Qing, under Qianglong, who is a major sword collector, Chinese swordmaking reaches to new heights again.
Even in the Republican wars and World War II, Chinese soldiers armed with Miadaos and Dadaos were hacking through Japanese soldiers even when the latter used their guns and war issued swords to block the chop. But then Japanese war issued swords were not very not good but still, Chinese swords were still made in an admirable quality level even when everything else was not.
Everyone knows the story of the General Qi Jizheng who in the Ming Dynasty lamented on the decay of quality of Chinese swords and then imported lots of Japanese swords for his troops to fight the Japanese pirates (wokou) and the Mongols with great success. The decay of Ming sword quality has partly to do with corruption and greed, and in a macro-technology level, because China started to shift to using guns and artillery and putting less emphasis on sword making---a process that was reversed by the Qing. Of course, in the Qing, under Qianglong, who is a major sword collector, Chinese swordmaking reaches to new heights again.
Well if you can get quantity and quality at the same time great!
But I'm saying in warfare it is better to have 10000 bronze swords than 50 super bimetallic swords
@ the Japanese soldiers bit, Chinese soldiers are known for their skill in close quarter combat, even if they did not have the ma daos and da daos I believe their shuai jiao skills would easily defeat the Japanese.
I wasn't quite clear what you meant there so if I said anything irrelevant to what you said sorry lol.