On CHF, we have often discussed the importance of the modao 陌刀 as an infantry weapon in the Tang armies, for example in my recent translation of the military manual by General Li Jing: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...ic=774&st=0

From historical accounts, we know that the modao was a standard issue weapon by the beginning of the Tianbao reign period (742): the Jiu Tangshu biography of General Li Siye 李嗣业 states that "at the beginning of the Tianbao reign... the armies were beginning to use the modao" (天宝初…诸军初用陌刀). This may be inaccurate, since the modao is in the earlier treatise by Li Jing, and is also said in the Tongdian 通典 by Du You 杜佑 to have been known as the changdao 长刀 in the Northern Wei. The biography of Li Siye also refers to the modao alternatively as the changdao in some places, or as the dabang 大棒 (big stick) - this latter name is probably related to the modao's alternate name of daobang 刀梆 (sword stick) or modaobang 陌刀梆 in the Li Jing treatise.

The modao was a formidable weapon at close quarters, as seen in Li Siye's use of it to stabilise his wavering battle line at the battle of Xiangji Temple (香积寺) outside Chang'an in 757, which was decisive in retaking Chang'an from An Qingxu's troops. Li was the best wielder of the modao in the Tang army, and had served as a modao general (陌刀将) under Gao Xianzhi in 749-751. At Xiangji Temple, he stripped off his armour and shirt, and stood roaring at the charging enemy cavalry in front of his troops. Under the strokes of his modao, an enemy cavalryman and his horse would both be chopped into pieces, and after he had killed several tens of the enemy this way, Li's troops stood their ground. They advanced "like a wall" wielding their own modao, with Li Siye in the lead, and the enemy was driven back with heavy casualties.

Unfortunately, the appearance of the modao seems to have become a mystery as early as the Song dynasty, by which time it had fallen out of use. Most scholars speculate that it was the ancestor of the Song dynasty zhaodao 棹刀 (oar-glaive, often mistakenly written as diaodao 掉刀), shown in the following picture:



The zhaodao has a two-edged blade shaped like an oar's paddle, and a shaft that is much longer than the blade. However, Thomas Chen and I believe that the modao may actually be depicted in some Tang dynasty tomb murals, as seen below:



This Tang guardsman carries, besides his bowcase, sword and spear, a strange long weapon, half of which is scabbarded, hung from his belt above the sword. It has a spike at one end (the point of the spike is not clear in this scanned picture), and the unscabbarded part is probably wood.




The following picture shows a group of soldiers armed in the same way:



And in this third picture, which only came to my notice today, the guards are clearly holding the wooden part of the weapon and resting the blade on the ground. One of the weapons shows a taper towards the middle, and then a pronounced flare at the blade, while the other continues to taper without the flare. These may be variations of the same weapon.



Thomas Chen and I would propose that this is the long-lost modao. We would welcome your comments about this, or any additional artwork you may know about that could provide additional evidence.

Interesting,I used to think that modao is same as pudao......
Never thought it would be a straight double edge sword-polearm....

Forgive my lack fo imagination but that looks a lot like a Japanese No Da Chi is a sense... so was it basically a large twohanded long sword?

I would also have thought that it would be some sort of a pole arm blade variety.. but those picture looks like the blades are much longer than the shaft?

On the contrary, we believe that the unscabbarded half of the weapon was the end-spike and the shaft, while only the half that was scabbarded was a blade. Thus it is in a 1:1 shaft to blade ratio, like the podao/pudao.

Here is one more Tang mural depiction of the modao, passed to me today by Thomas Chen:



And a detail of the above picture:



Finally, this mural from the Northern Qi tomb of Lou Rui may depict an early version of the modao (then known as a changdao) being carried by horsemen!

If only the shafted half was the blade, what was the purpose of the hand held part being thiner on one part and wider on the other part?

Also, from the looks, it appears to be considerablly shorter than a average spear or polearm, probably somewhere between 1 to 1.5 meter?

About the thinner spike at the end, Thomas Chen and I have been speculating for some time. One possibility is that it was driven into the ground so that a few modao could be crossed together to form an anti-cavalry obstacle. Another that Thomas brought up today was that the modao could be stuck upright in the ground using the spike, while the crossbowmen and bowmen shot at the enemy using both hands. As mentioned in the Li Jing manual, each crossbowman or bowman would have a modao tied to his arm by a rope, and when the enemy came within 20 paces, he would put down his crossbow or bow, and take the modao up and engage the enemy at close quarters.

The blade looks thin to me,but won't the blade be out of shape after a few battles as it's used to slash horses,armor and rider?

If I am not wrong, the blade would be slightly wider than a peidao and its back thickness greater, so as to be used effectively with lesser risk of breaking apart...

This little modao mystery had occupied me for a couple of years... I hope that a modao would be excavated sometime and somewhere in China forward... for us to examine...

If the mural paintings are accurately depicting the modao, they could be casually regarded as the precursor/predecessor of the polearms equipped by the Ming and Qing armies with a blade vs handle length ratio of 1:1...

With regards to the spike on the handle-shaft... it is interesting to note that the polearms of the Song Dynasty also had the same feature... Check out this portion of an original Song painting:

http://forums.swordforum.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=547458

AHHH!!! Eurika!!! lol, i see now, man i have poor imaginations doh.

That would have made the Tang infantries incerdiablly well rounded when the crossbowmen can defend themself like that. incrediable though, that's a serious stroke of genius of practicality.

I've noticed 'spear heads' on the ends of glaives used in 3-Kingdoms art before, maybe they were used for propping against charges (I always thought they were just another end to kill people with)

So this modao is possibly 1:1 blade:grip ratio, with an oar shaped double-edged(?) blade, and a spike at the pommel end.

I also noticed in pictures of it, the grip is thicker than that of spear and sword grips. I think this is a very strange quality.

Another question though, why would horsemen need the spike at the end if it's main use was to set up barriers?

Though the portable barrier set up makes a lot of sense for crossbowmens. and i could see the incrediably tactical flexibility this would bring to any army armed with them.

Perhaps they were dragoons, and fought dismounted? Or it was just how the weapon was made, and might as well leave on the spike

Thanks yun! I was wondering what a Modao would be like.
What techniques were used with it?

Another use of it could be that when cavalry wanted to put the pole-arm down somewhere and use their hands for swords and bows, they would just stick the pole-arm upright in the ground and come back for it later. Most of the Song pole-arms would have a short spike called the zun at the rear end, but this is the first time I have seen a long spike like the one Thomas pointed out.

As for the modao, it was primarily an infantry weapon, because it could not be wielded effectively on horseback without the danger of killing your own horse. Lances would be much more practical for cavalry. The horsemen in the Northern Qi mural are not cavalry, but rather guards in a procession. There are more pictures of guards on foot carrying this kind of weapon in the Lou Rui tomb.

Thomas originally thought that what was depicted was a flagpole or an unstrung bow. But looking at all the evidence, we now find it far more likely that this was a bladed weapon.

Why does the handle looks so thick though? in several picture the men were also holding spears, and it was obvious that the Mo Dao handle seems significantly thicker than the spear one????

I can think of some basic tactics with such a weapons though as it is quiet obvious.

The men all spike their Mo Dao to the ground in a single close line forming a barrier (if u use thick enough density should be quiet solid) and then line up in 2-3 lines of standard crossbow formations behind it, then start firing at the enemy, if the enemies gets close they'll have to figure out ways pass the blade bariier while ur pointing a crossbow at them in pointblank. and if a big melee erupts the men can just run up and grab the blade then charge into the fray immediately.

so what is the meaning of the name, 陌刀?

hi Yun...

Check out the pic from Liang jieming's website....

Modao and combined arms (crossbows etc) diamond-shaped formation from Tang dynasty military manual "Tai Bai Ying Jing":



http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...sesiegewarfare/

Thomas,

I wasn't able to pull up this website. Is this the correct link?

Cheers

Chris

link works for me
click on some of the links on his site; the image will be there

can anyone translate the words? I can read a few but I'd like a literate person's input



looks more like 1.7-1.9m

The modao probably has a long pedigree, being known as the changdao in the later part of the Age of Fragmentation. It could even be linked with Chen An's 1.68m 'great sword' (da dao) in 323, although Chen wielded it with one arm.

link:
http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...troduction.html

now can someone tell me how that formation can work in warhammer fantasy ?

I have a suggestion... what if the sheathed thing is just an unstrung bow? All the guys carrying them have arrows, but I don't see a bow with them (or is there? I might've just seen it wrong)

and is the modao double bladed or single bladed?

Thanks Thomas.


chris

I think you're correct, TMPikachu. Certainly in the cases of the guardsman in the cloak (the second picture in Yun's first post) and the group of armoured men (the one from the sword forum that Yun links to in that same post) I am fairly sure that the item in question is just a cased, unstrung, composite bow. The other images I'm not quite so sure about.

As TMPikachu says, these two pictures both show men who have a quiver of arrows, but - if the item in question is a modao - would not have bows. They also carry swords - would a soldier with a modao carry an ordinary sword as well? The "sheathed thing" is shown just where you'd expect a cased bow to be, on the left balancing the quiver. The bowcases carried during the Tang period were usually for an unstrung, not a strung, bow. The shape of the "thing", broad and flat in the arm but narrower at the end, is a very close match for the front view of some types of Chinese composite bow - see for example the reconstructions at http://www.atarn.org/chinese/khotan_bow.htm and the Wei figurines at http://www.atarn.org/letters/ltr_jun04.htm (though both of these are earlier in date and show shorter bows, they have the same broad flat arms). My only reservation is that the modao/bow seems to be straight, whereas most unstrung composite bows take up a reverse curve - as in the mural from Prince Yide's tomb at http://www.orientarch.uni-halle.de/ca/afra...xt/nmodels2.htm.

That is precisely the reason why, despite original suspicions like yours, I came to favour the interpretation of the object in question as a sword-like weapon. Also, there are actually numerous examples of Tang troops (both guardsmen and cavalry) depicted with quivers and swords, and even lances or spears, but without bows. And where unstrung bows are depicted, they are often shown in the style you have already noted in the Prince Yide tomb: curved backwards and with tiger skin covers. Here is another example from the tomb of Prince Zhanghuai:



If unstrung bows could be depicted in this three-dimensional style in some Tang art, I find it strange that they would be depicted as flat and straight elsewhere.

going a bit off topic here Yun, but I was wondering, did Tang have quivers for carrying strung bows too? Like on campaign, I would imagine always having a bow ready would be convenient.


and in that combined arms formation, does everyone have modao+crossbow, or is it some with modao, some with crossbow?

and is it a defensive formation, or do they charge forward? Why a diamond arrangement, instead of a square?

Certainly there were bowcases ('quivers' are for arrows) for carrying strung bows - that would in fact be the standard form for field armies. You don't want to string your bow only when someone's charging you. The figurine on the right in this picture, from the tomb of Tang eunuch Yang Sixu, is carrying two such bowcases:

http://img193.echo.cx/my.php?image=yangsix...figurine9ti.jpg



There are many terms that I don't understand in that diagram. Thomas Chen is also in the process of trying to interpret it, and we would appreciate help from those who have some knowledge of the Taibai Yinjing. My impression of the Taibai Yinjing is that it contains some formations that are more a product of imagination and mysticism than of military realities.

As for the question of what the 陌 in 陌刀 means, I have no idea and I don't think anyone has either. The word literally means 'path', more specifically a small path between two rice fields.

Unless the pictures in question are showing a different type of bow? Not all bows need have a reverse curve.

Yang Hong (1992 p.246) says that Tang Liu Dian lists four types of bow; including the"long bow": "The long bow made of mulberry or three-bristle cudrania, was used by the infantry, while the horn bow made of tendon and horn was used by the cavalry". Whether he means a mulberry-wood self-bow or a compound bow of mulberry-wood strips, could this be a bow that was more or less straight when unstrung? It may be worth noting that the pictures of the maybe-modao do show a much longer bow than the "normal" reverse-curved bow in the other sources; so could they be Yang's "long bow"?.

Just a thought, would it be possible that it is a big sword without a wooden handle so people just hold the metal part (the thinner side). Like how you hold a sword of the Uruk Hai from Lord of the Rings

Illogical ? yeah, I thought so too.

Maybe it is like 'if the number is as numerous as rice in a field, then this blade will hack a path through them'

Just a suggestion, but you really should go in through the main index page because the site is in frames and going direct to an internal page will not allow you to browse anywhere else because the site menu and links would be in an unloaded top frame.

(authors.history-forum.com/liang_jieming/chinesesiegewarfare)

Getting a bit side-tracked away from the modao..


Two dissertations on Tang military...

Lai, Swee Fo. "The military and defense system under the Tang dynasty". Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Princeton University, 1986.


David A. Graff. "Early T'ang Generalship and the Textual Tradition". Thesis (Ph. D.) -- Princeton University, 1995... The above dissertation focuses about the Tang generals' understanding of Sun Tzu and other military texts...

Both are available via www.umi.com

David is a specialist on the military of the Age of Fragmentation and Tang periods and is the author of the book "Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900"; his webpage is:
http://www.k-state.edu/history/faculty/Graff/

A diamond is a square

Although you might be noting orientation, and orientation certainly matters, it doesn't seem likely that a diamond would always escape being turned into a square by the simple maneuvers of enemy troops

I have recently come across a possible origin of the name 'modao': a kind of dao called a 'lumo dao' commissioned by Cao Pi in 219, which had the same character for 'mo'.

It's a pity that the original pictures I uploaded on Imageshack for this thread have now expired. If anyone wants e-mailed copies of the pics, just PM me.

what is the character for 'lu' part of 'lu modao' ?

露陌刀

See http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=8748

Yun, I know this is old thread, but is it possible for you to re-upload those missing images in your first post? I want to see what the modao look like.

Peng,

I think Yang Zongbao has a number of them. It might be easier for him to upload them than for me.

Zongbao, can you help? If you don't have the pics, I can e-mail them to you.

No, I have them. I'll go ahead and fix the links.

EDIT:

Alright--I've uploaded most of them where I thought they should go, though I had some slight uncertainty with the "Group of soldiers" picture and the tomb mural with a bunch of Imperial Guardsmen. I could have mixed them or put them in the wrong place.

I also do not remember which one is supposed to be the Diaodao picture, as my stash of six "Modao" pics you sent me is used save one of the lone guardsman below (which I do not think was supposed to represent the Diaodao).

Ah, thanks!

Would the modao be the origin for the Okinawan martial arts of using an oar for weapon? Sure its scaled down without a blade but still the same concept.

No one dares sure know what is "陌刀" today. however, perhaps we can speculate on.
"陌" in the ancient Chinese, there are long and narrow meaning，and 《武经总要》 draw corresponding to this description of this weapon in the Song dynasty. Although it is several hundred years after.
It should be a long straight blade, and a long handle, as a whole strip of

so， perhaps this is the 陌刀

Yeah, I didn't send you the zhaodao picture that time. Here it is:



That is the "oar-glaive" of Song times, which I don't think was related to the modao at all although some historians do.

Hmm, I personally don't think it looks quite like it. The Modao from what I see looks more like some evolution of the saber. The Zhaodao picture on the other hand looks like it has an elongated and beefed up spearhead instead which could conceivably expand use to slashing or cutting aside from stabbing.

Jeff2K, sorry, I don't know if it's easy to trace a usage for the oar back to the Modao, but it seems a bit more likely that the techniques may have just developed specifically for the tool itself rather than developed from the techniques of such an old weapon. Who knows though?

Again Zizizi, nice pictures. Do you have a dating for the first one perhaps, and perhaps more explanation on the possibility of it being a Modao?

the "iron skeleton"on the first picture, the length is more than 1.2 meters, is found that it was molding in the Tang Dynasty.
You know, people generally think that Tang sword could be divided into four types，横、陌、仪、障
Hengdao is very common, not like this
According to records, yidao should be more gorgeous, this is too simple
zhangdao was used in self-defense. it is certainly not 1.2 meters long
And the most critical, it is the double-edged sword on the picture. 障刀、横刀、仪刀 are single-bladed sword.
so.....

That first picture includes the blade and the tang that was inserted into the wooden hilt, but not the hilt itself since it would have rotted away long ago. The hilt was probably longer than the tang, so the full weapon including hilt may have been even longer than 1.2 meters.

Of course，According to records,the length of it should be two~ three meters

Which records?

《旧唐书之杜伏威阚棱传》:“阚棱齐州临济人,善用大刀,长一丈,施两刃,名为拍刀,每一举斩毙数人,前无当者”
the “拍” and the “陌” Should be homonym

More likely to be a transcription error, if they are indeed the same weapon. It is written as 拍刃 in Jiu Tangshu but as 拍刀 in Xin Tangshu. See the sixth paragraph at http://military.china.com/zh_cn/history2/0...12306609_1.html

One zhang 丈, by Tang standards, is 3 meters.