Searching through the articles in this forum, I saw a contemporary Qing record on the
Taiwanese Tengpai-bearers(employed against Russians at Albazin) saying that their tengpai
could defend 'arrows and bullets'.

Another description of Tengpai from the Osprey's "Boxers' rebellion" said that the
Qing army employed two ranks of tengpai bearers in the frontmost line when facing enemy riflemen(or arquebusiers?), implying that Qing commanders regarded that tengpai was to some extent resistant to bullets.

Are there any datas concerning the tengpai's defensive capabilities against bullets?
I would be very thankful.

I have heard and read that the Black Flag Army of Liu Yongfu in late Qing dynasty has used Tengpai against the French soldiers in Vietnam when French was trying to take over Vietnam. He and his soldiers were very successful in fighting the French!

I read that they DO use Tengpai against the French soldiers' gun fires. Now, I am NOT sure how powerful were the fire powers of those French soldiers' weapons. I do know the following facts:

1. Vietnam is a very wet country, and you know that guns sometimes would get into trouble in a very wet country even in modern times!!!

2. The Colonial soldiers from France might NOT have the most modern weapons of their days because they (and their government) knew that they would be facing fairly primitive weapons, like swords and arrows, and very few canons!!! Why waste the good weapons on soldiers who would only fight the weak natives!? The best weapons would be in the hands of their navy and some of their elite forces guarding their ships against other modern colonial powers, like England or some other Western powers, right?

3. The Chinese Tengpai were supposed to be made very, very well, and I believe with some sort of actual physics behind it that could effectively deflect lower powered bullets. The Shan Teng (mountain vines, I guess a certain kind of vines) are supposed to be fairly flexible and strong, and the Tengpai usually (I heard, but I don't know for sure) were covered with a very thick layer of Tong Yiu (a kind of oil, I have no idea what it is) that is very solid (and generally used on Chinese paper umbrellas to repel water and make it hard). I heard that a good Tengpai is very hard and solid, but still very, very light (very crucial to be able to hold it and dodge bullets by jumping or rolling around). Its surface also has a bit of a give due to the properties of both Shan Teng and hardened Tong Yiu, and thus it would also give a bit of deflecting property when the bullet hits it!

4. Then, there were the trainings of the Tengpai soldiers. I heard/read that the Black Flag soldiers were trained as the traditional Chinese Tengpai soldiers in their traditional martial art methods; i.e. to NOT stand still behind the Tengpai when the bullets came at them (like some of those Western soldiers at the same time period )!!! They were taught to use the methods of Di Tang Quan ("di4" - earth. "tang?" - I forgot which word was used. "quan2" - fist. This is a kind of martial art that have the person rolls around on the ground a lot) and/or probably some other martial art methods to roll with the force of the bullets when the bullets hit the Tengpai in order to further deflect the bullets. That was how most of the late Qing or early Republic period Martial Artists' or Masters' way to "dodge the bullets". Anyway, when the firepower became more powerful, these methods became useless! Many martial artists and masters gave up around WWII time and refused to teach any more young men (or women) especially their own children the old martial arts so that these young people would NOT be stupid enough to think that they could face down the modern guns and canons and die!!! I think a huge chunk of Chinese ancient Martial Art were lost during that period of time because of such sentiments!!! These old masters really did NOT care that they have caused some valuable knowledge to be totally lost to time because they just wanted to see their loved ones NOT to die in wars and stupid armed conflicts that were happening all around them!!! I really could not blame them when I look back the history of the last 100 years of China and Chinese, but I really regret it a lot!!! (Note: I read as well as was told such sentiments by older Chinese, some of them these old Martial Art masters, over and over again every where I met them all throughout my life!!! )

Anyway, I got a lot of these information from old interviews published on old martial art magazines and books from Taiwan when I was growing up. Then, there were the old masters or old masters' children or ex-disciples (like my father) themselves that I have talked to. I cant' give you actual sources or documentations at this time because I really have to dig for them and I am very lazy to do so. However, I am hoping to include some of these stories (with sources) in my future books (if I ever publish them )!

The Shan Teng would be rattan, a vine-like relative of bamboo. It is very hard, light and flexible, giving it good shock absorbing properties. The Tong Yiu would be Tung oil, a kind of natural oil still used today to give a sort of hard polyurethane type coating to wood. The combination should indeed give some resistance to low powered bullets.

Thank you for the detailed information

Josh

Thanks Josh! The words and information you have provided are just the words I am trying to say and not quite sure about!

Thanks Josh,
I ran across the character for Tong Yiu and wondered if that might be Tung oil. Thanks for confirming that.

Hello Sinsigel,

I believe the tengpai soldiers were said to be from Fujian not Taiwan.

Regarding your main question a proper weapons ballistic expert (or someone who access to the raw data they would draw on) would be needed to answer it properly. But do consider that a Russian operated musket firing an iron ball in 1685 would have very different ballistic/penetrative qualities from say, a British operated Martini Enfield two hundred years later. The Martin Enfield uses a .303 calibre rifle bullet that comes out of the muzzle at a speedy 2200 ft per second; the rifle is said to have an effective range of 1000 yards and a maximum range of 2000 yards not unlike very modern rifles.

I imagine it might be possible for the tengpai to have some effect against the former (deflecting the musket ball not blocking it per se especially when the musket is firing from some distance, causing rapidly loss in ball velocity/momentum) but if Qing commanders actually thought that mere tengpais could block or deflect Martini Enfield bullets (fired from at any range really) they would quickly have discovered their mistake.

Best, Richard

Hi Richard,

Please see my previous post about how Chinese Tengpai soldiers were supposed to be able to use Tengpai against the fairly modern fire power; i.e. around late 19th century. A late Qing dynasty military commander, Liu Yong-Fu, did use Tengpai to fight the French army's guns and did win his battles at the time when French was trying to take over Vietnam. I have read a few Chinese accounts/interviews of people who either were associated with General Liu or were involved with the Black Flag Army of General Liu or were disciples of Huang Fei Hong who was a miliary trainer, I believe, for General Liu at one time or another. Anyway, just because "some" Chinese soldiers "did" win against the fairly modern gun fire of a colonial power with the Tengpai soldiers, the French, a few years prior to the Boxer Rebellion, therefore, Cixi and her government officials erroneously believed that the claims of some ambitious Boxer leaders, who were actually using B.S. to gather power and money, that they could use magic power to deflect bullets and cannon balls!!! Most of these people (the Qing government officials and the average people who believed those Boxer leaders) really had no clear ideas about how exactly the Black Flag Army and General Liu had "actually" won his battle with his Tengpai soldiers against the French army's more modern weapons because the battles all happened in Vietnam, and NOT in China itself, and Vietnam was really far, far, far away at that time to most of Chinese, especially to the Qing Royal Court in Beijing!!! They (Cixi and her officials) believed that the official Qing (Manchurian) army could have won the battles against the West easily with the Boxer leaders' magic power if the lowly Han General (Liu Yong-fu) in the border lands could win with the Tengpai soldiers (without the magics) easily (well, it seems easy to the high officials) against one of the great colonial powers, the French!!! The two types of mentalities (Cixi's and her Qing's high officials' stupidity and General Liu's real military genius) could not and should not be mixed together when we look at Tengpai soldiers vs. bullets!!!

Warm Regards,
fireball

Thanks very much fireball - and warm greetings! - that makes a lot of sense. Even advanced modern bureaucracies often supports wishful thinking at the highest level.

Also, it would be interesting to trace the development of this and similar ideas both in China and elsewhere in the 19th C that one could achieve some invulnerability to bullets.

Cheers, Richard

Hi Richard,

I grew up with some of the most wishful thinking people in Taiwan, and I saw that many Chinese and Americans (and people from other nations) in today's world (and in the past) are/were also with similar wishful thinking. I have learned that many people would not want to open their eyes and see what are right in front of them or use their brains to evaluate politicians' and other ambitious people's rhetorics! Therefore, we got very bad leaders elected or supported onto the leadership for the nations in the world many times while good leaders lost or killed. Even when these bad leaders made many obvious mistakes and showed that they were really corrupt and stupid, some people would still support them in power due to more wishful thinking or for their own power or wealth or special privileges under such leaders!!! It is/was the greatest sadness for me when I read historical accounts whether the history happened 2000 years ago or being created today!

History might be like lessons to help today's people to NOT make the same mistakes again! However, we seem to NOT like to learn those lessons or just totally ignore the lessons altogether!!! To see how many people have died and hurt and/or wasted their precious talents and/or their lives to support such leaders ...

Warm Regards,
fireball

[quote]I grew up with some of the most wishful thinking people in Taiwan, and I saw that many Chinese and Americans (and people from other nations) in today's world (and in the past) are/were also with similar wishful thinking. I have learned that many people would not want to open their eyes and see what are right in front of them or use their brains to evaluate politicians' and other ambitious people's rhetorics! Therefore, we got very bad leaders elected or supported onto the leadership for the nations in the world many times while good leaders lost or killed. Even when these bad leaders made many obvious mistakes and showed that they were really corrupt and stupid, some people would still support them in power due to more wishful thinking or for their own power or wealth or special privileges under such leaders!!! It is/was the greatest sadness for me when I read historical accounts whether the history happened 2000 years ago or being created today![/quot

"Good" and "Bad" have never become polars for politicians to swing around. It is BENEFITS that make them spring. In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran could be a great leader, while those who vanguard vices and vouchsafe vicious violation still becomes popular. Vox populi after all is not a form of idealism, but a mean to justify for political purposes. Prudent people who participate in politics certainly recognise the deception hiding under every words and every speeches. That is the nature of this world, shall never dissapear, vacant or vanish!

In the end, when beautitude has been removed from the painting, what remains is the true brutal mechanism of survival, the system which humans must conform and obey to live in this nature!

Regarding the Blackflags Army which operated in North Vietnam led by Liu Yong-Fu (劉永福) there were several sources written in English & Vietnamese would provide much more details as follows:


General Liu


Liu Yong-Fu ( 劉永福) was born in the year of 1837, from Qinzhou (钦州市), Guangxi of Hakka descendants; his parents were extreme poor therefore he didn't have any formal schooling and that he was being illiterated until his death in 1917. He became transient after both of his parents and uncle passed away in 1853. During the Taping Rebellion period, he joined the group which led by Wu Yuan-Ching, which headquarter located in Nanning just to receive his daily rations to support himself (when he was 21 years old). After Wu YuanChing got killed in 1863, Liu Yong-Fu joined the remnant of Wu AhChung whose led their infamous Blackflags troop of about 200 into Annam in 1865. Liu kept on recruiting additional members and when his troops reached SonTay, the Blackflags troop number had increased to 500. Liu took over the control of the Lao Cai, which was an important economic port of North Vietnam and Canton and received an honorable title of General from the King of Annam. The Blackflags troops attacked another remnant of the Taiping, the Yellowflag troops which led by Huang ChungYing to seize complete control of the commerce in this region in 1869 and later Liu joined force with the Qing's troops to annihilate the Yellowflags troops and eliminated Huang ChungYing in 1875.

The first skirmish between the Blackflags troops and the French troops in Vietnam took place on 12/18/1873 when Liu received order from the King of Annam to lead his troop to confront about 200 French soldiers which led by captain Garnier near Hanoi (present capitol of Vietnam). The Blackflags and Annamese couldn't confront the modern firepower of the French troops therefore they withdrew after they engaged and suffered heavy casualties merely 30 minutes; Captain Garnier led about 18 French troops and about 30 local recruits to pursue the Blackflag & Annamese troops. Garnier and his soldiers got ambush by another group of Blackflags troops and he was being killed right at O Cau Giay, right outside of Hanoi. After this victory, Liu was promoted to rank of Deputy Commandant in the Northern Region of Vietnam. Liu continued to exert his influence in the whole norther region of Vietnam and he was basically established complete control despite of the fact that he was still operated as a general of the Nguyen's court. Liu returned to visit his ancestor's place in China during the Lunar New Year of 1882 and the Qing's court also welcomed him back like a general and hero as well.


The Cau Giay bridge near Hanoi

The second batter between the Blackflags and French troops was recorded as follows:

Per the 1874's Agreement between the French and Annamese, the French side was allowed to retain a port of 100 soldiers to secure their commerce at Don Thuy (near Hanoi) by the Red river. On 03/26/1882, the French Commandant in Saigon assigned a seasoned general (Henri Riviere) who led about 230 troops to establish control along their assigned ports along the Red river. By Feb. of 1983, Riviere received another 750 troops to establish control along the coal mines in the northern region. The Qing's court then assigned Liu and his Blackflags troops to engage with the French troop in North Vietnam (Annam was under the Qing's protectorate); On May 19, 1883 Gen. Riviere led about 500 troops to attack Son Tay province from Hanoi. When Riviere's troops reached Cau Giay, they were being ambushed by Liu's troops and during the heated of the battle, a canon unit of the French was captured by the Blackflags troops; Riviere himself then led a platoon during his attempt to recapture this canon unit; Gen. Riviere was hit and killed during this battle along with another 57 soldiers as well as 76 wounded; Liu ordered his troops to behead Riviere and those French soldiers and staked their heads along the local villages while buried their corps on the roadways.

After this battle, Liu was continue to lead the Blackflags troops to engage the French in Hung Hoa, Lang Son, and Tuyen Quang provinces as well. After the brief encounter between the French and Qing's troops in 1884-1885, Gen. Liu was ordered to return Quangzhou and became the Commandant of this region. In 1894, after the Nippon & China first engagement at war; Gen. Liu was assigned to become the commandant of Formosa (Taiwan).

Sources:

- Viet Nam Su Luoc (Tran Trong Kim) 1919
- Black Flags in Vietnam (Henry McAleary) 1967
- Quoc Trieu Chanh Bien Toat Yeu (Cao Xuan Duc) 1909

well eventually they got to a point where the Boxers got destroied...realising that it wasnt so bullt proof haha but anyways...even chinese call it stupid...i am from taiwan and i never thought they would say tht tengpai really was..tht effective.