Hi I've recently learnt that the swords used by samurais evolve from ancient chinese swords.
Since then I have develop an interest in ancient chinese swords.

I would like to learn more about the swords of China, some questions includes;


Did the ancient chinese invent the sword ? If not who influence them.


Besides Dao, Jin, Saber, Dagger, Sha what other names were given to Chinese swords and are
these names only used when refering to Chinese swords ?


The different styles of swordsmanship associated with different chinese swords.


How popular was the sword compare to other weapons used in ancient china ?
(amongst different class of people eg armies, royalty, civilians)



Would appreciate any information given. Hope I'm not asking too much, short one
sentence answer for each question will do if you are short of time.

I have visited Thomas Chen's website, the pictures were amazing. Thanks in advance.

Invented.

Technically, those are not names. Those are words. But the dao and jian are the most common one. Any more specific and it would be the type of dao or jian in question


Modern day swordplay are designed primarily for the liuyuedao. Any different 'styles' of swords would be more of a matter of adapting to using different types of swords. For example the wide and heavy podao or the tachi-infludence wodao.


Depends. Since the Han dynasty, it has been taken off the battlefield so soldiers doesn't use it. Even among civilians, most jianghu people don't prefer it either. The Jian was more prefer among the upper-class/educated class as the use of the jian are more complex thus more suited for those who are academics. The principles of swordsmanship could also be reflected onto other facts of life such as metaphysics and ethics. The jian was used as a symbol for both power and education. Most jiangs would carry a jian when commanding an army. The jian is the only weapon within teh chinese arsenal who has no negative image on it at all. Even the qiang can only say it isn't entirely negative.

I would need to clarify a couple of Wujiangs points.
The ancient Chinese did not invent the first sword, although they invented their own types of swords and did so independently. They are sometimes influenced in part by outside cultures on occasion although unique Chinese styles can be found nowhere else. I am not sure what Wujiang meant by 'invented' but it is true Chinese forms such as the jian and some other early blades are independant inventions. Swords exist much earlier in basically similar double edged forms to jian in Europe and the 'near-East', occuring independently. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_sword
There is no suggested connection between the regions weapons and the development and appearance of early Chinese swords show they come from shorter Chinese weapons like bronze double edged daggers and evolved over centuries into true bronze swords, and then later iron/steel swords.

The sword was a very popular weapon in ancient China from the Warring States period onwards. Earlier it was a self defense weapon but from the 4-5th century BC onwards it is a real battlefield tool.
It was a weapon for close combat since polearms are less useful in close fighting so it was either secondary or primary in application. Some troops were armed with swords and shields for specific battles or assualts. In the Han dynasty swordsmen deployments are mentioned in literature and also found depicted in Han art & artefacts, such as ceramic armies. It must be stressed though that long hafted (spear & halberds) and shorter weapons existed contemporaneously.
The sword was still on occasion used as a primary weapon in battle even after the Han period. Art from the Period of Disunity show battles were the vast majority of troops are armed with the early style dao and shield and polearm warriors are vastly outnumbered by swordsmen. Slightly later style weapons are depicted in other art in 'Weapons in Ancient China' were swordsmen fight halberdiers. The sword was not taken off the battlefield after the Han dynasty. The Han ring pommeled dao is used up untill around 500ad and is shown to be used in battle up untill that time since the swords were excellent weapons after generations of refinement.
The curved dao that occurs in China from about 500ad onwards, and was depicted in Tang art also, is a curving style sabre which is not a Chinese invention. These were adopted from either central Asian or Steppes horseman style blades and after this time the ancient style of dao goes out of use. I expect if I checked there would be seen on the battlefield too when conditions suited it....cavalry in particular.
It is Tang dynasty swords which influence the Japanese. In this way the curving form of sabre cannot be attributed unconditionally to Chinese even if the very high standard of sword making at the time can be.
The standard of steelwork in China was very high even in the earlier Han dynasty and the folded mid-carbon steel blades the Japanese are credited with clearly owe some debt to centuries of Chinese sword making before them.

So is it safe to say when the words dao and jian are spoken you immediately associate it with chinese swords ? Can the same be said for saber and daggers, were these words invented only for the chinese swords? eg you would not use saber for arab swords.



Its interesting how they occur independently yet are similar in looks if you don't look at it in too much detail. By the way is a dagger more of a knife than a sword ?

I'm very interested in this curved aspect of the sword . What was the function of introducing the curve ?
When you say the curve style were adopted from central aisa , which current day countries are we talking about. Also who are the steppes horseman , are they the descendants of any modern race ?

thanks

Wujiang, ... I have two questions: What is Liuyuedao? How can the qiang possesses a negative image? ... I mean "what negative image do the qiang possesses?"

Kenneth, on the curved swords. I've always heard they were probably a steppe nomad invention, but I thought the nature of being a nomad would make ironworking difficult.

Hmmm, actually I don't know much about nomad life. It would seem illogical to think that they did not produce their own metal weapons and had to rely on sedentary civilizations in trade, but how portable is a smithy?

the qiang doesn't have an negative image. In fact, the qiang has te most positive image second only to the jian. More often than not, the qiang as the king of weapons, was a symbol of leadership. But at the same time, it does, like the rest of the chinese arsenal, have a certain ominous aura to it. The jian is the only weapon that doesn't have this connotation.

*allowing for discussion room

Although Wujiang's dao is also called by some to be the Niuwei Dao, while a slimmer one with no flare is often called the Liuye Dao.

A curved blade in a cutting action is improved over a straight blade since the blade naturally drags at the cut even with a simple swing. The mechanics of this can be felt but handling sabres and katana (and cutting with them). The curved blade is also suited to a horseman since it can thrust and not be stuck in the body the same way as a straight sword if used from a mounted position. In this way it has been associated with steppes horsemen originally although Turkic origins are possible. Thomas Chen (who isnt often here much anymore it seems) could give more specifics or a final answer. The development of weapons after the Han dynasty is not an area I have put much attention on and these curved swords I tend to associate more with comparitively 'late' dynasties. By the Song times most of the types of 'modern' style Chinese swords and weapons that are used have already appeared but naming them and identifying each is more for a modern martial artist or broader sword historians area.



The life of a nomad was not as backwards as might be thought. Although Sima Qian has been praised for being the 'first' anthropological account of another peoples by his writings on the Xiongnu it seems aspects of what he wrote must rely on hearsay and bias of the times. On specific aspects he has been found to be actually wrong. It just goes to show that such ancient histories are no more credible than many modern histories (if not more so) and should not be taken alone as a final word or complete. Even sites in East Zhou and Han times included true settlements. Settlements as focuses of production existed even in ancient China so the later steppes people would also have centres to produce weapons if need be.
http://xiongnu.boom.ru/review.htm

&

Thanks a lot ... I like that photo. ... Now, it makes sense. ... After surfing the site, I am going to spend a lot of my spare time learning more about the history of Chinese weapons. ...

This is from Thomas's website;
This type of saber was used by Mongol cavalry in the Yuan army and was the ancestor of the Ming and Qing dynasties' willow leaf and goosequill sabers (liuyedao and yanmaodao).



The influence of this sword spread with the Mongol conquests and was adopted by cultures in the near East and the Far East (i.e http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talwar). Curving swords did exist earlier although Chinese dao of even the Tang era were not curved in the style we might consider as one characteristic of a sabre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre). The existence of sabre-like weapons from around the 8th century is noted by Thomas. In Muslim motifs the 'sword of the prophet' is often shown as a true scimitar and such a dating makes this 8th century date possible although later Muslim swords which commerorate this are modern representations only.
That the Tang would be influenced by central Asian or nomadic peoples swords is likely as it was a very cosmopolitian time where representations of foreigners and foreign animals and the movement of traders and merchants (inc. Persians & Arabs) were all features of the age. http://www.silk-road.com/artl/tang.shtml
& http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhib...ang/essay1.html
With the success of Mongol warriors it seems the influence of the sword style was spread across the Eurasian contenient.

Yep that makes a lot of sense, the slicing and jabbing action works better with a
curved blade. One more question in regards to wearing a sword. Most of the time
I've seen illustrations of it being worn around the waist , but sometimes I've seen it
strap to the back. Are there any particular reasons for the different styles. Does it have
to do with preference of the swordsman or more with the size/weight/built of the sword ?

Saber and dagger are not Chinese words at all. The Chinese word for a saber is dao 刀 (although a saber is usually curved while a dao need not be), and the word for dagger is bishou 匕首. Saber derives from a French word, which derives from a German word, which derives from a Hungarian word. Dagger derives from an Old French word which may derive from Vulgar Latin. This is according to the Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com/index.php :



Arab curved swords are usually called scimitars, but that word is not Arab or Turkish, and seems to have appeared in French and Italian out of nowhere. It may come from the Persian word for a sword, shamshir/shimshir:



To add to the confusion, the ancient Persian word shamshir eventually became synonymous with the scimitar-type curved saber after the Persians switched to using such sabers, even though the original Persian shamshir was straight and double-edged.

The real Arab word for sword is Sayf or Saif, and early Arab swords were (contrary to stereotype) straight-bladed and double-edged like a jian. The curved 'scimitar' weapon was introduced by Turkic nomads around the late 8th century, roughly at the time it also appears in one case in Tang China (namely a figurine from the tomb of eunuch-general Yang Sixu, mid-8th century). But Arabs actually continued to use mainly straight swords for several centuries after that, and it was only with increasing Turkish influence in the Middle East that they gradually switched.

[This means my Syed character in the RPG would be quite unusual for using a 'scimitar' in AD 753.]

I know that Tang dynasty had a great influence on Japanese sword making, but I've read that the curved katana was something the Japanese developed independently.

Is it possible that, through trade with the Tang, central asian style curved swords reached Japan?

Thanks for the interesting /complicated history of the word saber.

According to Thomas Chen's site, this niuwei dao is only used by militia and civilians.

The Liuye and yanmao dao were used by the military.

No, the Liuyuedao as shown was never employed my the military.

The yaodao and peidao were the most common of military swords

And in my description of Shah to the GM, I mentioned he used 2 straight shortswords of Persian design. ;-)

But that isn't a liuyedao. It's a niuweidao, is it not?

Not by my findings it isn't

Perhaps an agreement to disagree between Thomas Chen and Wujiang's beliefs should be enacted.

q: Pls. define what do you mean by breaking a jian or a dao?

From snapping/dulling the blade and/or seperating the blade from handle & hilt.

(Practical & Impractical [aka. Freak accident])

Had a brain freeze when asking that question.

Wujiang, did you ever make a thread that just has a big list with images of all these sword types?

Yes, the thread is here: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...c=8538&st=0

However, it was controversial because not everyone agreed with Wujiang's identifications. A lot of it revolved around the difference between liuyedao and niuweidao.