The Warring States siege warfare movie "A Battle of Wits", starring Andy Lau, opens in Singapore today.

So far, the indications for its accuracy have not been good. The review in the papers yesterday basically said, "fun to watch but only if you forget about historical niggles like the African slaves and the heavy cavalry led by a female officer."

This thread is for members who've watched the movie to discuss the various aspects of siege warfare and other warfare (e.g. cavalry and infantry) depicted in the movie. If you're not sure if what you just watched is accurate from a historical point of view, ask your questions here.

This is the only relevant screen shot I could find for the film so far.

I have no seen the movie yet but so far, I can already see one inaccuracy on the posters. Namely stirrups on the cavalry.

lol, stirrups are definitly an eye sore. I see them everytime I watch a pre-stirrup era movie.

How many actors today can ride without stirrups?

At least Gandalf acted by Ian McKellen was not shown using stirrups when riding Shadowfax in the LoTR movies ...

In a way, I actually suspect the PLA to be able to ride without stirrups

What makes you think so?

Stirrups were everywhere to be seen in Hanwu Dadi...



That's because in the novel, Shadowfax was supposed to be ridden by Gandalf without any horse gear. The elves also rode without saddles, reins, and stirrups.

Shadowfax was supposed to be an intelligent horse ... if he accepts you, you just tell him where you want him to bring you.

But I confess I can't remember reading the part about elves riding without gears at all ... must recheck my DVD ... only elf shown in the movie riding was Legolas Greenleaf ... must check the book too. Tonight if I can manage it.

The swords and armour look Ok

I'm curious. Can someone give me a rundown of what this movie is about?

Actually, the swords are a little long for your average soldier.
Also, the forearm guard at the time were more likely metal than leather.

YZB, see this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=14386

There is no metal armour of the type you describe, in the central plains. Bronze was used for decoration essentially, and iron appears fairly late and as lamellar constructions.
Southern minorities have a different form of armour than did include bronze gorgets & bracers like this but there is no equvialent in China proper in metal that has been found to my knowledge. (based on Y. Hong, C. Dong & A. Dien as usual)

Yes, the swords are a little long perhaps, but some iron swords of immense lengths have been found.
IIRC there was one found even 1.4m long refered to in a late Warring States context in 'Weapons in Ancient China' although more commonly 1m or rather less is a typical iron sword.

....let's just hope that the swords blades don't wobble ala. modern Wushu when they do draw them from the scabbards.

The majority of the stirrup-related posts have been moved to a new thread in order to keep this one focused.

I believe the question is, comparing the few decorative forearm guard with how many leather ones ?

Since you know the metal bracers (of Dian/NanYue make) are decorated you must have seen the gold inlaid bronze bracer of a Dian king I am refering to. It is contemporary but unrelated to Zhou state armour styles & this is what I mentioned above.

There are no central plains metal bracers from this period so far found so one total is zero, the other of leather examples would be a handful found at best. This low sample has to do with survivability rather than preponderance since leather armours would have existed in great numbers at any one time even if only a portion of warriors wore armour.
The decorative forearms gaurds in 'barbarian' Yunnan are non-Chinese forms are not related to armour in the central plains, and follow a seperate evolution so do not contribute to a total. They are not even mentioned in Albert Dien's study of Chinese armour.
Leather only rarely survives and is more often deduced as being present only by paint pigments or lacquer coatings which reveal the presence of decayed armour. This suggests that bracers worn would be leather since this is what armour was made out of untill the later period of the warring States. Evidence for iron lamellar armour (physical and historical) is restricted to certain areas in China and absent in others so was never a universal type.

Only a handful of Warring States leather armours have been found in a state that allows reconstruction, body armour of the period of the majority of the Warring States period was leather (as per Y. Hong & A. Dien) and rarely survives compared to Han-era iron lamellar finds at armoury sites and in graves. Iron armour when it appeared was connected plates instead of larger cast iron items, i.e even helmets were made of lameller plates instead of one piece, and hence metal bracers have not been found either.
If bracers were worn then they were 'more likely leather than metal'.
If you have reason to believe otherwise I would ask you show even one metal bracer from a Zhou state or central plains context.
Below is based on an excavated leather armour tomb find of the Marquis Yi of Zeng. http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/courses/h...e/marquisyi.htm and refered to in most texts discussing ancient armours. At this time bronze was only a decorative element to add to leather armour, hence domes and other shapes.
The artist here has taken a small liberty with the colour of these bracers since the whole suit is the same material. The suit is correct, but I would have to check a couple of articles on this tomb to see if line drawings of the suit show these fore-arm gaurds.
{edit; it seems the fore-arm gaurds themselves are artistic license too!}




Only in the far South with non-Chinese minorities like the Dian culture are true metal bracers (bronze forearm armour) found. I think I showed one here;


Edit; imageshack link is broken, so I will need to repair & add it to my Dian swords thread and back here at a later date.

The problem here is that those survived 'armguards' have deteriorated to such a state that they cannot be convincingly argued that they were indeed armguards or anything else for that matter. I would ask you to provide a single piece that is intacted enough for us to agree what it really was. Hence, without conclusive evidence that those were indeed armguards, we are left with the sitaution where we know definitively that there were metal armguards in areas within the reaches of the people of Zhou at the time but we don't know if leather armguards was anywhere near them. They may have been brought there, may have been copies, take your pick. In the absense of evidence within the area, we are forced to look at the surrounding areas.

More over, while leather were used for armour. Single-piece helmets (doumou) were used during the Shang well into the Zhaguo times. The leather lamella helment you talked about were a minority. Hence, we cannot use pattern identitificaiton as a means to support the idea that armguards at the time were more likely leather than metal.

Let's introduce a bit of conventional research before inventing diffusions of armour styles that didnt exist. I did mention the Dian bracers in the far south from the beginning but to imagine them being worn by East Zhou soldiers is only imagination.
There is an established body of literature on what makes regional styles distinct, or non-Chinese forms, and to suggest as way of a hypothesis that such Dian forms were worn by Chinese is simply invention.

The suits of armour that have survived have infact been recreated extremely well, and if you opened any book on the subject you would see examples of this, and have a consistent story revealed about the appearance of iron and iron armour/weapons in China proper. (Wagner/Dien/Hong/Dong/Rawson etc.)
Iron lamellar armour is found in the late Warring States period. Both leather and iron armours have been found both from East Zhou and Han sites in condition to make conclusions.

Wujiang, I struggle to understand how you can deduce that metal bracers were used at all, or more common than leather armour, when none have ever been found. Ever. Fact.
You seem to have no academic or archaeological or historical basis for your conclusion that presumably the Dian culture armour styles were adopted and worn in the central plains. To make such a statement is totally without any merit, and in opposition to all that I have seen on the subject.
It seems bracers themselves are perhaps absent from the central plains since sleeved leather armours and later metal armours are used instead so the argument may be a red herring.
Excavated evidence shows East Zhou tomb figures with short lamellar sleeves (as shown in 'Chinese armour before the Tang dynasty'), there are actual finds of lamellar sleeves on leather suits & we have lamellar amour in Qin for study (some long lamellar sleeves for charioteers but no bracers).
This is why I felt there was some artistic license in the above example (the spear is a little archiac too, as well as the dhun being unusual and the belthook atypical...otherwise very good as an example of the leather armours (and colour) and basic warriors appearance).
Here is a line drawing from archaeological reconstruction (in both Dien & Hong's text); This is accurate, and based on the armour of the period that was physically found.




This is simply nonsensical reasoning and half true at best. Albert Dien doesnt even mention the Dian armours since they are non-Chinese and he concludes that up untill the Tang there is an entirely unique pattern of armour development in China. The Dian have their own religion, own weapons (primarily decorated battle-axes being notable) as well as useage of bronze neck & arm armour. None of these are found in ancient China.
Only in the Qin period do Chinese occupy this far south and there in NO evidence that there was an influence on Chinese culture in the East Zhou by these 'barbarian' armour and weapons style. Your idea has no basis any any artefact found, weapon or otherwise.
These were a tattooed people & outside Zhou system. They do not influence the central plains culture, but the central plain influenced them (as in Han period rock art showing a shaman wielding a ring pommeled dao and the appearance of Han weapons in graves and the disapearance of Dian styles over time).
see http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=13653
Here is an example of a Dian style forearm armour. Nothing like this has been found in ancient China, despite the fact bronze survives uniquely well.
Hence there was none to be found.


Really, to argue in the line of reasoning that tribal people wore armour like this therefore despite the lack of any in the Zhou states we can assume they are more common than leather is simply silly. We could then suggest that Chinese wore Sythian-style scale armour since they encountered steppes warriors even though none have been found or that Xiongnu used rotating ranks of crossbowmen. Neither of these are truths either.
Just as there are no Dian swords or battle axes wielded by Yan or Qin warriors there are no Dian bronze bracers worn by these Chinese troops.
(Dian warriors BTW went into battle bare footed, another contrast with Chinese appearances and battle kit).
For a better understanding of the way Dian & central plains cultures influenced I suggest specific commentary, ie;
Early Weapons Systems and Ethnic Identity in the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier
ASPAC ‘96, Edmonton, British Columbia
This is clear on the pattern of influence, as are Cheng Dong and Yang Hong.
Archaic/obselete Chinese forms persist in the south (according to 'Art & Archaeology in ancient China') as well as unique regional types exist (such as these bracers).
It is worth noting that certain types of Dian-Yunnan weapons bear a close relationship to bronze age Vietnamese swords and suggest the culture is regional/southern and equally seperate like 'Dong Son' cultural artefacts to the central plains culture.
Some swords I would consider broadly Dian are then labelled 'Vietnamese style' in private collections.

Yang Hong, the other notable commentator on ancient armours only mentions the Dian bracers in a seperate chapter to the east Zhou armours which mentions peripheral cultures and so makes no connection in the development of East Zhou.
...he calls them {Dian} 'minority' armours {in the same way as Ba culture is non-Chinese etc.} and is clear these are from Yunnan and a seperate non-Chinese culture. for example like the Liaoning culture swords of the far North are unrelated to Chinese weapons and eventually these people were subdued and took on Chinese ways (the swords of their culture disapear and Chinese style ge-dagger-axes are found instead in excavations).
Non-Chinese cultures typically adopt Chinese ways, not the other way around. The exceptions to the rule are the influence from the steppes but forget a Dian king tomb find in Yunnan as evidence that contemporary Zhou states wore armour like this too. That is counter-intuitive and devoid of evidence.
Between Dien & Hong they both say;
Dien; ‘metal armour began to appear in the late Warring States period’
Hong; there is an“unevenness of production of iron & steel weapons in China’ illustrates the variable quality of iron weapons and armour plates at the time. He emphasizes that apart from finds of bronze helmets and limited iron examples all the other excavated East Zhou armours are leather. He then mentions specific finds of iron weapons and armour as well as noting historical records of iron armed states, i.e Chu, Han, Zhongshan, (but not Qin which used some iron for tools but not weapons).
Cast iron (white iron) was common but Yang Hong's metallurgical analysis of iron armour of the late Warring States period shows it is of variable quality and still in its infancy. This agrees with Donald Wagners 'Iron & Steel in ancient China' as well a commentary on East Zhou iron at the Shaanxi museum by Mr. Wang.
Examples of iron armours are shown in several books. They are all lamellar armours, even in the post Zhou period.
If bracers were to be worn (and perhaps they weren't based on any evidence so far) then the construction would lend itself to leather, as well as the preponderance of armour materials would make leather the likely availible material.
Note; even in the early Han period leather armour is still being used (based on Korean site finds) and not untill bronze weapons are replaced under the expanded iron industry are even iron weapons universally used over bronze. Clearly leather armour was much more important in the preceding Zhou period.
This is simply nonsense even if you state it with authority. The finds of bronze helmets are listed from certain sites by Yang Hong and he make the completely opposite conclusion (emphatically) very clearly in his section on East Zhou armour with regards to the importance of leather armour and the rarity of bronze helmets. There are literally only a small sample of bronze helmets to study, and with the survivabilty of bronze this means there were only limited numbers placed in Zhou tombs. At the time of printing of 'Weapons in Ancient China' there were only 2 bronze helmets from West Zhou sites known of, and a handful from East Zhou sites. Don't let artwork in Manga comics fool you. Bronze swords and dagger-axes exist in huge numbers but bronze helmets are very rare objects. The Marquis of Zeng for example had several suits of leather and leather helmets in his one tomb.
Depictions of helmets in East Zhou art suggest a portion of all troops had head gear implying leather was used and hence the scarcity of surviving period armour. Armour ornaments of bronze, which attach to leather armour in Zhou times (as per Cheng Dong & Yang Hong) exist in great numbers & some variation yet bronze helmets are very rare objects.
From the earliest times these bronze helmets were remarkable items for high ranking people.
The idea of leathers importance is basically in consensus with the other sources I mentioned, and the fact the stone lamellar helmets & horse barding at the Qin tomb site are found in the absence of any evidence the Qin had iron armour (or even iron weapons) and hence all Qin armours are likely leather too. (as per Albert Diens paper & J. Rawson and other authors)

Although there are rather rare finds of bronze helmets from the Shang to the East Zhou, and of course I am aware of this since I have mentioned it many times on CHF and posted pictures, at the same time there is no bronze body armour mentioned in an East Zhou context in any publication. This is very clear.
The fact the Chinese didnt cast iron helmets is a little odd, but it is still a fact nonetheless (even in the Han period). Bronze may have had an appeal & lustre iron didnt to justify some officers wearing it. When iron appears it is constructed in another fashion.
The iron helmets are therefore lamellar, and there are no cast bronze bracers or iron bracers in the Zhou-state armies either.


If you want to see what leather helmets and armour look like then there is this (one of several armours found).
They are clear enough to show that the form of armour in leather was also lamellar. The sleeves are clear. The helmet is clear. Most armour of the period was leather (as revealed by decayed traces) and a few allow for reconstruction.

That you havent been aware of this particular tomb find suggests to me you haven't properly absorbed the present literature and research on ancient Chinese armours. It is from the Marquis' tomb I mentioned earlier.



Many faint traces of leather armour have been found, or occasionally lacquered outer skins from decayed armour, (specific tomb examples named by Yang Hong) but metal armour is much more rare and appears late, even though the traces of surviving metal items would be much clearer had they been there to be found (iron or bronze).
A paradox?
It is only if you choose to believe the opposite of what evidence reveals.

Evidence shows that bracers of bronze are worn by southern non-Chinese peoples in areas outside of the central plains. None occur in ancient China itself since it has a seperate tradition.
Leather is more common in the Zhou-era, and metal body armour arrives late, and as a lamellar form in the central plains, and this a uniquely internal Chinese development.

The problem here is that you still have not yet given me any evidence that leather braces existed back then. Thus, all you have offered is deduction based on certain related evidence just as I have. In fact, I believe we are looking at the same pieces of evidence. we are just interpreting them differently. For example, your attempt to draw some kind of relation between the material of the forarm guards as we are talking about with armour sleeves is as irrelevent as saying that the forarm guards were made from stone because city walls are made of stones. The fact that you are even bringing it up is enough to raise some questions.

To imply that either one of us lack academic or archaeological or historical basis or taking Manga comics as sources is completely baseless, highly disrespectful and unbecoming of CHF.

As Liang Jieming mentioned on another thread, the hot air balloons used like parachutes do not belong in Warring States warfare at all. In fact, there is no evidence of hot air balloons being used this way in any period of Chinese history.

I said your idea lacks any real academic or archaeological or historical evidence. If that isn't true then some evidence would be nice. It sounds offensive, but I am trying to have an academic discussion instead of 'could have' type-evidence.
Please show how your deduction on East Zhou warriors appearances is based 'certain related evidence' and tell me it isn't only the distant Dian culture armours again.
That is bizzare logic when ancient China is not the same as modern China's boundaries nor are the Nanyue people the same as Chinese people. There is a reason regional patterns of armours or cultural styles can be seen as distinct from another, or why I can say a sword or object is 'Dian' and not 'Chinese'. They aren't subtle differences either. Dian are even perhaps more like an ancient Vietnamese than a Chinese, and hence Albert Dien neglecting them and Yang Hong having them in a seperate chapter with other 'minority' weapons. We shouldn't imagine such Dian weapons or armour in Chinese hands and then try to argue that way.
Just to remember what started this whole thing you had said To which I have pointed to all availible evidence that metal bracers were not used in China or even by Chinese, and that if bracers did even exist that leather was the primary availible material of the time. To claim metal was more common is then hardly down to different interpretation since metal body armour is a late innovation and has only been found as lamellar plates (as in the Han period). Check any of the authors I gave above.
I aren't trying to debate this with you because it is fun but because I think we should be a bit more responsible with what is put forward as 'fact'.

I just concluded the artist version earlier was taking liberties (much like the movie) because there are no leather bracers shown either in excavation nor tomb warrior images. I have looked at what evidence there is and in fact there is no sign of bracers in any text. No bracers have been found in China in the East Zhou period. Why not assume Chinese rode elephants into battle too?
There is no evidence of metal bracers except for in non-Zhou & non-Chinese 'babarian' cultures, and there is no evidence of bracers at all since lamellar sleeves were used instead, most typically short sleeves.
My latest contention is that there were no bracers worn as far as we can tell either way. I mentioned this above and it is based on a review of evidence before I posted. Anything else is just imagination instead of evidence (hence comic books), just like dressing a Chinese in Sythian scale armour. By your logic this is quite sensible, even if there is no evidence.
I have quoted all the relevant texts and scholars that write in English, included diagrams and made summaries of their points.

Neither metal bracers existed, nor were bronze helmets common. Leather was certainly the primary armour of the period and was untill the Han dynasty.
If you think any of this is contentious then bring in a few real quotes, sources or images of your own.
To make such statements (without any sources) is certainly 'unbecoming' of a history forum and misleading when actual studies and authorities of the period say otherwise.


Metal armour was only unevenly used in China in the late Zhou period. The way Chinese worked iron armour was lamellar, and no bronze armour has ever been found. This is not my fancy, but is a fact.
I clearly said there is not even evidence of bracers in the armour of the period at all once I took a closer look, leather or otherwise. This is what I recently posted above after reviewing images and authors. Check if you doubt it.
Your own comments are misleading if they are at odds with authors on the subject. In all fairness if such statements arent corrected and a 'reality check' made then CHF would be pretty useless as a resource.
Please give some sources or pictures if you want to argue otherwise that;
.... bronze helmets were more common than leather, or metal bracers were at all worn by East Zhou troops, etc.

To have an academic discussion is to at the very least to an open mind to accept the possibility of a relation when timeline and geographical proximity is close enough. You have done so far nothing but stroke your own puppet theory while at the same time refusing to explore other ideas. The fact that Yang Hong and Albert Dian did not address this connection does not mean I should dismissed it as they did. People once dismissed that the chinese could have raised hundreds of thousands of men in the warring states era, basing it on evidence by proxy that the west themselves couldn't have done it. Without direct evidence, everything is deductions only.

As I have said before, you have completely failed to produce any definitive evidence that leather braces exist. Rather, like me, you used other evidence such as what the armour were more likely to have been made of etc as evidence by proxy. In that context, you and I are doing the same thing. The difference between you and me is that I accept that your theory is a possibility. You on the other hand dismisses everything that doesn't match what your belief.