The Silk shirts worn by the Soldiers under they're armor to 'stop' or slow down the bleeding caused by arrows

I have 2 questions about this

the main question is : What kind of silk was it, any special things or material added compared to the decorative clothing and dresses.?

second question. did it only slowdown arrow wounds or allso stab wounds. I doubt that it would stop slash wounds


thank you in advance, tujue

I think it could slow down and/or stop a slash wound as well. If you have ever deal with silk, you would find out that even a thin layer of silk could slow down the blades. Only the best of blades would cut through silk cleanly. That is why in many Asian stories the warriors or sword masters used silk to test the blades of the newly made or gained swords. My mom had a tailor shop, and I grew up with silks of many kinds. My childhood games were cutting up scrap fabrics and such. Some of those fabrics were different kinds of silk. I generally had a lot of trouble cutting up or stabbing through a thing layer of silk. I am talking about the material for the modern day business women's silk shell - very thin! And the sissors I used were the modern day sissors made of good steels (it had to in order to cut lots of fabrics every day in a tailor shop).

I heard Thailand police force used silk for their bullet proof vests. They weaved the silk threads in irragular weaves to strengthen its strength. It was as tough as the top grade American bullet proof vests.

I would not guess what type of silk was under the Mongolian soldiers' armors because I don't have any actual facts about them. However, I think it would be variety kinds of silk because they don't produce silk. Any silk they got were the ones robbed or traded from the Chinese merchants, so the silk could be in different forms.

^I was asking in general since this is a chinese forum lets hear about the chinese soldiers and there silken shirts

The picture you shown there looked more like nomadic soldiers, and I have heard of silken shirts of the Mongolian soldiers, but not the Chinese soldiers; i.e. I have never heard of Han Chinese soldiers wore silken shirts. Maybe some of the other CHF members know of this more. Any one?

that would be verry strange because silk is a chinese thing and It would realy suprise me if the Chinese never thought about that

Silk would most likely have just been part of their daily clothing. The armor would not that much different the a quilted garment that you would wear for warmth.
A silk padded garment would slow the blade. If a warrior had actual armor, he would just wear this over the undergarment.
If you look at many of the pictures of warriors you will see that many so no body armor at all.
I suggest that they did the same thing that the Arabs did in the crusades. You could not see their armor, as they wore it under their robes.
Watch the end of the movie The Emperor and the Assassin.

A padded silk under garment would also be a nice flexible protection for the armpit, where it is almost impossible to cover with any armor.
This would make a padded silk garment a much better protection and padding then the gambeson of the early Western medieval armor of the 13th and 14th Century.
The west did not have the access to silk and had to use cotton linen and wool. Because of that did not even cover the armpit so that they could have movement of the arm.

Actually, silk was considered a nobleman's clothing. In many dynasties, wearing silk were forbidden for commoners and definitely merchants. People did violate that law from time to time, but that was the law. The common soldiers in some of the dynasties were considered in very low status. They barely had food and sometimes they had no winter clothing. A lot of time, their mothers and wives had to make their clothing and shoes for them because the army issued clothing were not enough. I think it was highly unlikely that the common soldiers would have silk for their battle garments. The generals, yes. The common soldiers, no. Silk were also part of the tax. The common farmer's wife and daughter would make the silk to pay the tax and sell them to the rich and powerful people for money for the family or for themselves. Most family allowed the wives and daughters a share of the silk or embroidery money because that was the fruit of their labors. I remember my mother talked about how she and her sisters saved their embroidery money or silk money for snacks and colorful ribbons. She was mad at her elder brother at one time because she asked her brother who was going to the city to buy some nice silk thread for her embroidery (with her own money), but her brother just remembered to buy some colorful ribbons for the pretty girl next door!!! Mom looked she was still very mad when she told me that 40 years after that story.

However, in the very early time, like Shang and Zhou dynasties, many soldiers were noblemen's sons or descendents (at least the soldiers who were on the chariots), so they might wear silk. However, in the later Zhou dynasty (during the warring states), more commoners became the foot soldiers, and I doubt they wore silk at all.

Since I only know the general ideas about this, I think someone who has more information about the clothing of the ancient Han Chinese soldiers should either confirm this or disproof this.

Fireball,
I am not surprised that silk was only for the nobles, that is no surprise,.
When I wrote the above post I was assuming it was understood I was speaking about someone who could afford silk.

Lets look at a couple of aspects to history:

1] How often is the common soldier depicted or written about.?

Even in the west, the commoner did not have armor unless he took it off a dead soldier.

2] We all know that lawful or not the ban on silk could be gotten around.

Filling the batting of the cheaper hemp or cotton garment with "leftover" scraps or covering a silk layer with cheap fabric would be a logical thing to do. And as a mother or wife, having full access to the silk from start to finish, I would do that for my loved one. Besides the legal aspect, a poor soldier's life would be a risk from his peers all being jelous of the nice garment. A heavy hemp outer layer would be wise so as not to call attention to the special garment.
We have no surviving examples because they would have long ago disintegrated. or if they made it back home would have been made into something else if at all usable.

thanks for the info everybody

but was it made out of special silk btw?

The tighter the weave the better I would think. From my own experience sewing, it is much easier to put a needle thru a fine fabric then a thick one.
Lets use a bit of common sence here.
A sheer see thru gauze silk is not going to do much good in stopping a blade or projectile.
If you really want to find out....
Go find some different qualities of silk and experiment. Then let us know your results, I would be interested.

Just as a side note, Has it been mentioned that there is a natural fire retardant quality to silk?
This would certainly help against flaming arrows etc.

I've read that the silk was "reeled" for strength, as opposed to some other form of making the shirt. But I am ignorant of the specifics and differences in the process, as I read it a long time ago.

As for common soldiers; I think ideally, the uniforms issued would be made of that material (since in better times, it was the tendency to issue reasonable equipment from armouries, rather than "bring your own blade".), but Fireball made a good point; sometimes, there were supply shortages.

Though if the Mongols were able to use it in large quantities, I don't see why industrialized China should have a more difficult time supplying at least an equivalent amount. (Though to be sure, I don't know if the Mongols used it for all of their people either.)

Here is some info I found on reeling silk:

A cabled silk yarn has more strength, per weight, than a cable of steel, but silk can be made so light that it will float on a breeze.


One of the wonders of Bombyx cocoons, is that they are spun by the caterpillar in a single unbroken strand. This strand usually ranges between 600 and 1500 meters in length; 1500 meters is nearly a mile. Most cocoon filaments aren't that long -- that's like a Grand Champion cocoon -- but they definitely do exist. The strand is called a bave; it is made of two tiny sub-strands called brins. The brins are made of a protein called fibroin, which is joined together by another protein called sericin, or silk gum. The sericin makes the cocoon shell tough and hard like paper, and is often useful in silk processing to keep the thread from shredding. Because they are made in single strands, the cocoons can actually be unwound, a process called reeling. In order to reel the cocoons, the pupa inside must be stifled, or killed, with heat so that it does not emerge and break a hole in that long fiber. Stifling is an issue for many strict vegetarians and vegans, who won't wear or work with this kind of silk because the bugs die in the process.


Spools of organzine and tram.
The individual bave is very fine, about two and a quarter million yards per pound. At this weight, it's too fine to be useful by itself, so the baves from multiple cocoons, from 6 to 100 depending on the end use, are reeled together. In order to unwind the cocoons, they are soaked in hot water, and the ends are located with a brush.

Reeling makes a fine, shiny fiber referred to as raw silk filament. The multiple baves in the filament are joined together by the sericin, which is softened but not dissolved by the hot water, so that raw silk looks like a single thread.

Raw silk can be made into a variety of beautiful and useful yarns; of these, only a few are of interest to the hand-spinner and knitter. Organzine is a two-or-more ply yarn which is made by twisting the raw silk filaments one direction and then plying them back the other direction; it is strong and fairly shiny. Most of the fine knitting silks are organzine yarns. Tram is made by twisting the fibers more gently in only one direction to make a soft singles yarn; tram is more often used for weaving weft, and for embroidery where it does not need to bear a lot of stress. Tram is the most shiny of silk yarns, but doesn't handle tension or abrasion as well as organzine. Tram and organzine yarns may be useful to you as a binder thread when spinning specialty yarns, or can be plied up with other fibers to add shine and color. Because they are not drafted from short fibers, these yarns are called reeled or "thrown" silks. Throwing refers to the twisting process; it is done in industry by special machines, but it can also be done at home using a spindle or a wheel. The general rule of thumb is that more twist means more strength, but less shine. Softly twisted silks sometimes pill or snag easily. Tightly twisted silks can be hard or harsh in the hand; many spinners remark on this with the sari silk waste yarns, which are made from the off-cuts of silk weaving looms. A lot of silk fabrics are made using organzine for the warp and tram for the weft; this produces a strong fabric but with a high sheen.

The next step for most silks is degumming. Degumming is a simmering process using an alkaline surfactant bath that removes the sericin, leaving the silk soft and shiny. Some commercial silk processors use an enzyme to assist with this, but others don't. Just like scouring the lanolin out of wool, degumming can be a progressive process -- you can partially, mostly, or fully degum silk. Most reeled silks are degummed in the yarn stage, before dyeing. Others are left raw, with the gum in. Certain fabrics are degummed after weaving, because the gum protects the thread from abrasion on the loom, but some are left raw, like silk organza. The gum gives the silk a stiff hand, which can be useful in certain situations, especially when the fabric should be sheer but fairly stiff.

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEATbombyx.html

Is it possible to find out how much silk Mongols did buy from Chinese market in old time.
as I remember silk undergarments were very common among mongols (specially countryside folks) even after introduction western style clothes.

^he said buy

I think the problem with Han Chinese was not because the supply for silk. It was more about whether it was "proper" for someone in certain rank to wear silk. A lot of these government officials were very stern about this. There were also restrictions about the colors for each group of people. Personally, I think they just wasted too much time on these sorts of things, but it had something to do with Yin and Yang and the order of the things in the universe, etc. Some of these Chinese officials dealt with these clothing issues like the sky would fall if people wore wrong types of clothing! Therefore, it would be hard for lowly soldiers to be issued government clothing of silk. From what I have read, the government issued military clothing (outside of armors) were generally made of fabrics other than silk. However, like kaiselin said, the women of the soldiers might sew silk inside of plain clothing for their sons and husbands because (1) they help keep warmth (2) they might protect the soldiers.

I only heard about the silk undershirt of the Mongolia soldiers and their reasons of wearing them to deflect arrows in recent years (within the last 10 years or so) on the internet from a source I am not quite sure of. Even though I also heard of the Mongolians wearing silk undershirt close to the modern time, I am not quite convinced that Genghis Khan's soldiers did the same -- I think I want some more reliable sources.

I believe the silk must be in the form of the whole cloth to be able to deflect arrows and sword slashes and stabs. Just using scraps of the silk won't do it. However, silk in any form is very good for keeping warm. It was better than down jackets or goose feathers and much lighter and more compact. I had personal experiences of that effect.

From my mom's description, the silk worm cocoons were put into a pot of hot water. Long chopsticks were used to stir the mixture and find the head of the threads. Once the threads were found, they were slowing pulled out and hand spin into individual yarns and then weaved into silk cloths of various kinds.

The heavy 織錦緞 (satin brocade) could be the best for protection because it has several layers of weaving. However, it could be a little bit stiff and heavy, and I am not sure it would be good for the soldier's movements if he wore it. In addition, it was the top kind of silk and very expensive. A common soldier's family might want to sell it to gain money to buy the soldier a better sword or better armor than what was issued to him by the army more so than to make it into clothing for the soldier. (IMO) I would rather buy my husband a real suit of armor than to give him silk clothing for the possible protection. Not to mention, I might get him into trouble with his officers if they saw the silk under the slashed common fabric of his clothing.

Isn't there an 'inferior' grade of silk made from the leftovers of a molted coccoon, versus one unraveled with the silkworm inside? I've heard that's what the Chinese taught to the Tibetans to keep a monopoly on high quality silk.


I want to say that this rougher form of silk was the sort used underneath armor.

The nomads probably got it from the Chinese anyways, makes sense, not like nomads grow their own silk worms. There's lots of info originating from China that's attributed to other peoples anyways (differential heat treatment in katanas, for example)

Some sources get ridiculous though. In libraries I've found books written in the 80's about the radical lightweight incredible near-magical silk armor of the mongols that was soooo completely different from clumsy iron

Did you even bother to do some passing research on the topic? It seems not. How restrictive a garment is, is not determined by the material alone, but by the way it is sewn and cut too. That's something owners of suits and trench coats are painfully aware of.
And knights clothed in iron armour would have moved about with all the agility of a metal statue, if it was not for the cut of every single piece of iron on their person. Furthermore, there's plenty pictures of european gambesons with close-sewned sleeves around, if only you would bother to resarch the topic before writing about it on the internet...

http://warriorsofhistory.com/research/14th...blois_coat2.jpg

Here's an example of an european arming coat.



Here's an example of a period illustration showing people in what we believe to be gambesons.

Which periode? English archers, swedish free peasants and the retainers of knights were all required to own armour by law, to name a few instances.

Greetings Ianus,
I see you are a bit aggressive out of the starting gate, Eh?

As far as for Swedes go I can not speak, I have no idea as to what they were required to wear, as I was speaking of English/ French and Burgundian gambesons.
Retainer knights were expected to have their own armor, but it was not always up to date. The lower/ poorer you were in ranking the older the armor would be. Not every knight / squire and peasant was armed and dressed for a hollywood movie. You seriously don't think that every soldier wore a pigfaced bassent?



Hmm , maybe a bit of passing politeness would have worked here?
If we are to use your example, of the most up to date fashion, then I would be incorrect, but I was not referring to the nobility. I was referring to was earlier period gambesons that would have been worn under chain mail ( if you had some).
Please re read what I wrote:






Oh yeas, even with that error you point out, who are you to know that I have done no research in this subject?
1] I majored in costuming, specializing in the early medieval clothing...... so I have done the research.
2] I am also a tailor by trade so I know how clothing is constructed.
3] I have made padded / quilted garments and know where they bind and restrict movement when being worn in active physical activities for martial arts / self defense classes.
4] because I have custom designed and worn for myself padded garments used in active ( barroom style) fencing.

The areas that would be restrictive such as the armpit and the elbow might / could have fabric covering the area, and not just an open hole, but the padding would be much less in those areas if you want full movement in a tightly cut garment. Especially in the 14th c when the usual cut of the sleeve was quite high in the pit. As they were just beginning to understand how to make the bias in the fabric work for you as a natural ease in the fit of a garment.
It is very difficult to pad the armpit enough and I know cause I have been hit there too many times …Ouch

If silk were used it would give the protection or at least slow down a slash or puncture that an uncovered / un padded area would not.


The picture you show is I believe a Pourpoint worn by Charles of Blois. Not a gambeson.
It is an example of late period transitional ( after 1350 )
And although it evolved from a gambeson , it was no longer worn as an undergarment to pad the body when wearing chain mail, but was now worn as an outer garment.
Your example is a very early version of this style which became much more common in the 15th
century and quite the latest in fashion for only the wealthiest of nobles at that time..

1] I doubt if this example you show would have been worn with armor over it because of the ball buttons.
a] the mail would have gotten caught on the buttons if mail was worn.
b] The buttons would have been in the way of the straps for the vambraces (arm armor)( and excurse me if I did not use the current proper term for the armor, that too varied from region to region and period to period )

2] It is most likely that the reason this example survived is that it was not worn in battle but for dress
(Sort of like the reason there are so many examples of balls and chain weapons is because they were used once and the user found out it was more dangerous to himself then to the intended victim and threw the weapon over in a corner of the armory., Much of what has survived is the stuff that was not used.)

The cut of the sleeve indicates late period. The sleeve would have been cut in two pieces with a seam running from pit to wrist and a second one from neck to elbow and then down to the outer wrist.
The pattern would have been cut on the bias so to use the natural stretch of the bias at the elbow and pit..
Since I was not referring to high fashion, but what the peasants would have worn, I think this is a not a good example to try to refute my statements.
Even granting all those things,
You can see though that there is not a lot of bulk under the pit indicating that there is not as many layers of padding there.
But even then it would not have been as comfortable as what we are used to wearing. In our modern clothing there is usually allowed a 1 to 3 inch ease in the armpit area. This cut would have dug into the pit.

In my earlier post, I was referring to the gambeson ( French) or Wammes (German / English) which were the were made out of leather or padded fabric and worn under chain mail. The sleeves were made separate and sewn on loosely from front to back or tied on with laces. You would not know that the armpit was open unless the arm was raised. And you do not usually see this depicted in illustrations. Because they would have been covered by not only the chain mail( if the peasant had some, but also a surcote and or a tunic over the mail.
I also was not referring to the nobility and someone who would have the most current of styles. The example you show is high fashion in the late 14th c. The nobles would be parading around the Pas d’ arms tournament strutting like peacocks in the garment you show.
The only lower class you would see wearing anything like this would be the peasant wearing a Cote Hardy( what we think of as a jesters outfit)

But the lower you were in rank the less up to date your armor was. You simply could not afford what the nobles wore. So in that regard I am not so far from the correct period reference. Not every soldier was able to be high fashion. Not even all knights would be able to afford to stay up to date. And I can assure you that the artist used a bit of artistic licence.
the peasants would have been wearing old rusty beat up barral helms if they were that lucky to have anything. Corboullie(sp?) (leather boiled in wax) half helms would have been much more likely.

I may be a bit rusty on some of my knowledge, I studied this 35 years ago.
I know what I am talking about probably a lot more on this subject then in anything concerning Chinese history. I am not the end-all expert in this subject…..But…….

I think that you could have read my post a bit better and been a little less aggressive in your assumption that I did not know anything about this. I did not go into greater detail because we are on a forum pertaining to China.

Yes, I agree that we could be more on topic here.

Ianus, I'm sure you could've been more polite too; I don't think Kaiselin is the kind of person who deserves such an aggressive hammering. I hope that this argument carries no further and that the two of you may find someway to patch this.

Back on track.

Thank you Yang Zongbao,
I appreciate your support.

Ianus, No hard feelings I hope, We just try to be a bit more polite in our approach.,
As an aside, I wanted to tell you I had never seen that picture of the Pourpoint you used, very nice example. thanks for showing it , even if it was a later version of what I had been talking about.

Hey Kaiselin, do you know of the designs of Chinese 'gambeson' equivalents? The sort of military clothing worn underneath armor. I don't think I've seen a Chinese quilted armor/undershirt design before.

Hi TMPikachu,
I wish I could help you. I am a rank beginner in Chinese historical clothing. I am even weaker in my knowledge of their armor and weapons. That is just another thing that I am here to learn.

So much to still learn and so little time.

While silk may be a very tough material and would be perfect for armour, there were cheaper alternatives. According to the book The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention by Robert Temple, the some Chinese generals actually used paper for their soldiers' armour. Paper armour can protect a soldier from arrows well enough (as for being cut by a sword, I do not know; and I personally doubt that paper armour could protect a soldier from a flamethrower ), and is very likely to be cheaper to produce than silk armour.

I googled 'Paper armour', and that led me... straight back to CHF with a link to a discussion about paper armour: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2616

^It was accualy carboard compressed paper = cardboard

more like a Papier-mâché


but Silk was worn under there armor so that was a secundary line of defense sort of speak

A heavy silk over laid with a mash made of a paper mixed with silk fibers would be a very strong and fairly light protection. If it was made on a form you would be able to mold to fit individual bodies. It would be something that you could make without many tools and not need a forge the short ends and wast products off of looms could be used,
If the paper armor was varnished it would become fairly waterproof if kept in good repair.

From the pictures I have seen in the book, "中國古代服飾研究" (the Research of Chinese Ancient Fashions") by 沈從文教授 (Professor Shen Congwen), Chinese Generals and soldiers always wore a kind of robes or short shirts they generally wore, when they were not wearing armors, underneath the armors. I think, in this way, they could easily took out their armors without changing or adding other clothing when the armors were not in use. Some of the upper level Commanders or Generals even had large sleeves that would be difficult to get to their weapons. I think it was to show that they wouldn't and shouldn't generally be in the actual battles themselves. Most soldiers's shirts and some Generals' robes had the sensible small sleeves that would not interfere wielding the weapons. The soldiers' shirts and pants and shoes and the Generals' robes and shoes and probably pants (couldn't really see them under the robes) were a little different from the styles worn by common people or officials who were not in the armies. You might want to search for the actual photos in Chinese museums or archaeology sites to see the details. I was actually going around the Terra Cotta soldiers' sculptures to look at their hair styles and kneeling down to look at their pants, etc. -- Not to mention I was looking at the behinds and underneath of the Han dynasty animal scultures and found that they were anatomically realistic in every details! I like the Han dynasty artists for that reasons. Now, if they would have thought about doing the same thing for the human sculptures, we would have something equivalent of or more interesting than the Greek and some Roman sculptures.

I would guess the materials in the great Commanders and Generals robes were silk or with some leathers/furs in Winter. Most soldiers would be wearing things made of cheaper fabrics other than silk, like 葛 (ge3 - Kudzu, Pueraria lobata） or 麻 (ma2 - linen, Cannabis) or, later, cotton.

Hello,

like TMPikachu I looking for more Information about the Silk "Gambesons" of Chinese Armour.
Have anyone Informations about the "How to make..."? I like to try to reconstruct some parts of chinese Armour for myself.

Chances are that the silk worn at the time was what we now call "raw silk". It's very tough, and about as rough as silk gets.
From actually wearing it, yes, it will slow a strike (which, I imagine is why most images of warriors wearing silk under their armour have poofy sleeves and pants legs) by binding the weapon in the cloth.
The difficulty in cutting it made a lot of difference with Asian weapons which were so often made to be razor sharp, but less effective as an armour against European weapons which so often just broke your bones It's main benefit against Europeans was that the arrows wouldn't cut the cloth, so they would push the silk into the wound, preventing the barbs on the back ends of most arrows from biting, and thus making it safer and easier to pull the arrows out.

It is Really good padding, though. Far better than a Gambeson and it breathes better too. Making you overheat less.

@Nighthawk, based on what few images I could find, my local SCA group came to the conclusion that the easiest thing to do would be to modify generally available Persian designs to at least Look Chinese. I don't know how accurate it will be, but there being no better images any of us could find, it's what we're doing...

Nighthawk, and TMP
If I may add a bit of info here. I can not give all the proper names for the Persian garments since that was not my field of study, but I do remember reading that the Persians armor was sewn inside their clothing. The European crusaders thought at first that they were not wearing armor at all, but later found out that it was between quilted layers.
Taran ap Dafydd's idea of looking at Persian clothing is a valid idea.
If you look at the development of Western European clothing there is a direct influence coming from contact with the foreign styles the crusaders saw while on crusade.
It is not that far of an extension and in fact quite logical to think that there would have also been an exchange of ideas between the Persians and the Chinese both in influencing clothing styles and armor.

The development of the Western knights surcoat was partly in response to copying the Persians customs of wearing the armor underneath the outer garment. The reasons for this were many, one was the cloth slightly shaded the armor so that it would not get quite as hot under the sun. It would not be as hot to wear or touch. The cloth covering would also reduce the reflective glare. You also can not forget that it was much more attractive to not see the armor as well as the hidden armor could be worn in as everyday wear to protect yourself without insulting a possible enemy or contact if you were meeting with them.

As for accuracy in making your armor, if this theory ( of using Persian clothing with the armor hidden )is correct, I would use the idea of hiding the armor whether it be chain mail, corboulie( leather boiled in wax), plates of medal, or even the silk and papermashe spoken of in one of the earlier posts quilted in the proper period Chinese garments rather then using Persian clothing. In justification of the armor, I would find period pictures depicting Chinese soldiers to use as primary sourcing, and say that the idea had probably been exchanged by the Silk Road trading.


(Edited for clarification )

Hello Kaiselin,

let me repeat to see that I understand everything right.
The trick was that between Layers of woll, silk or others was plates, chains or waxed leather was integrated?
It seems this is a early form of an active armour.
So I have only to look for a pattern of a gambeson (I am sure that the chinese word is an other) and integrate the armour?

Yes that is basically what I would suggest.

One source you might use is the quilted clothing you see in peasant clothing.

But your will notice in most pictures of Chinese warriors, you do not see the tell tell lines that would indicate quilting.

My guess is that there would be many layers of clothing.
first layer would be just a simple silk, cotton, or hemp garment.

The armor layer would be between the undergarment and outer garment.
Or the outer garment would be made up of a number of layers of fabric like a sandwich with an additional layer of heavy decorative fabric as the outer layer. ( that one would not be quilted and just stratigically tacked to the underlayers so as not to shift.)

The actual protective armor parts would be sewn into place between two layers of fabric. the method of holding the armor in place might be as simple as tieing it or riviting it to the garment but i would think that if sandwiched between two layers and sewn into place that would be much like an early European cote of plates. Over this layer would be the outer garment. In Persian clothing it would be a full robe ( I don't know the name of the garment) or this would be the surcoat of the early medieval knight.

And if you chose to use mail as the inter layer of protection, all that would take is tieing it a regular intervals to keep it from shifting within the garment.

Remember this is all guessing, but educated guessing

It is just an exaggerated step from Persian to Chinese. They had contact through the Silk Road before Europeans did.

If you are trying to document this step and can not find the writen documentation, a step by step example of using period paintings to show a logical evolution from Persian to Chinese would be a good argument if you are questioned. Who knows, maybe it is the opposite. It would not surprise me to find that it was the Chinese that inspired the Persian armor.

GZ gave you some excelant pictures as examples of the clothing worn by archers.
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...c=25677&hl=

On the archer on the horse, note that it looks like it is quilted.

The center archer in the yellow cote, looks like it is either studded over the whole garment, or those are perhaps dimples where something is tied or rivited between layers.

Little bit of trouble with your guesses, though Kaiselin...

At the very least, leg, arm, and chest armour were quite obviously worn outside the cloth by Chinese warriors, according to every image I have found. The cloth (assuming silk, because that amount of Anything else would be ungodly hot and hard to move in) "poofs" out of the joints in the armour. At the shoulders/armpits, the elbows, the hips, and the knees.
It's really rather odd.


This is really the best image I have been able to find (thnks David Sloan, wherever you are hiding).
As you can see, the bottom layer appears to be a typical T-tunic you ight see on anyone. It could be leather or silk or cotton or anything. Though we figure it's a really light-weight leather.
Next up is a seemingly Perian cut silk tunic that comes down on the arms to just cover the elbows and the upward edge of the vambraces (which are apparently attached to the bottom tunic). On the legs it is bloused into the boots/lower-leg armour.
On top of that is the main body of the armour. Cut to allow the movement of the arms. The scalloping, we think, is the decorative edging of the leather to which the scales of the armour are attached (whether scale, or lamellar).
And finally, a layer of heavier leather, perhaps hardened, to reinforce around the kidneys and the collar-bone.


As you can see, it is similar, though not identical, to many Persian styles.
Granted, it's supposed to be an officer's outfit, but the Chinese were particularly bad about recording anything about their common soldiers...

I hope that helps some, Nighthawk.


Oh, Kaiselin, those dimpled cloth armours in the pics from GZ are Brigandine. The Chinese, especially the Qing dynasty, used a lot of brigandine.
Edit: Couple links for other miages I've found of Chinese armour. Multiple periods:
http://www3.uakron.edu/worldciv/china/ch-armor.html
http://chinese-armour.freewebspace.com/photo.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...n_Horseback.jpg

I am not disputing what you say about the exterior armor.
This thread is about the silk shirt and if it added any protection.
I may have confused the issue by linking to the other post,
I was replying to Knighthawks inquiry about making a period Chinese undergarment that would have been the equivalent to a western gambeson and how it could be made.
I was quite careful to say that I was guessing.

I only linked to to those pictures as an example of what the inter garment might have been like if added armor was added to a silk shirt hidden under other clothing.

And just as a side comment, armor being ungodly hot is usually not as much as an issue as if it protects or not. It is true silk would be cooler then other fabrics and would be the first choice if affordable. But once again we have disgussed the merits of silk vs other fabrics earlier in this thread. and you will note that throughout this thread there is a good deal of conjecture.

I have this bad habit of following the course of the conversation. I made my initial post about raw silk and guess I made the mistake of mentioning Persian designs, which you took and ran with and I replied. Then Nighthawk asked some questions of both of us and it got even further derailed...

But if you and Nighthawk want to get back on track, I'm cool with that, too. Though I think we've just about exhausted the possibilities in that direction...

Back to basic request.

As far as I could, for a variety of sources, the silk was in a similar way as today produced and therefore probably had the same stiffness. So the type of silk seems to be raw silk. It seems that Polyamid and silk are very close in the physis.

Here some facts of silk
Density 1,25 g/cm³
Fiber Density 12-25 µm
tears at a length of 50 km
Tensile strength 350 MPa
Strain 24 %
Modulus (stiffness) the highest of all natural fibers
Moisture absorption <30% of the net weight
wet strengh about 85% of dry strength

If we assume that an arrow with the force of a 50 pound bow is shooted, I do not think the pure silk dissuade him.
But as already noted, which is a composite armor, I think it was probably quite an arrow could hold.

Unfortunately, I have no data on arrow and power of impact. This one could make it possible to calculate how many layers of silk would be a move to stop it.

Hope this information is usefull.

Silk does have an added advantage against arrows.
Consider that most arrowheads are barbed, so that removing an arrow from the wound causes more damage, whether you push it the rest of the way through or yank it back out the way it went in.
Silk doesn't tear so easily so the arrow quite often pushes the silk into the wound, protecting the flesh from being caught on the barbs of the arrowhead. Careful effort allows the arrow to be removed without additional damage.