http://elib.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/techlibrar...e/moreimage.htm

Includes six sections:

农业机械 - Farming equipment

纺织机械 - Weaving equipment

车辆 - Land transport

船舶 - Water transport

军用机械 - Military equipment (including crossbows, crossbow triggers, siege crossbows, warships, and siege engines)

天文仪器与计时器 - Astronomical and time-measuring equipment

The headings are in Chinese, but you can ask other members for translations if you wish. Pictures are large and may take a long time to load.

Recommended: http://elib.lib.tsinghua.edu.cn/techlibrar...military/25.jpg
(a cool booby trap using a few crossbows and a tripwire)

Here are lots of pics of Chinese warships and other ships!

http://www.cdnsp.com.tw/musea/musea03/musea03.htm

http://www.cdnsp.com.tw/musea/musea04/musea04.htm

(headings in Chinese again)

Beautiful. Will keep me occupied with lots of new things to build for many, many moons to come.

Thanks a lot for all your info. It is very useful.

I would like to ask for your (and everybody) kind assistance in obtaining images and original texts from "Wu bei zhi" (Mao Yuan Yi, 1629), "Wu jing zong yao" (Zeng Gung Liang, 1043), "Jixiao xinshu" and "Lianbing shiji" (both by Qi Jiguang, the end of XVI centure).

Especially I am interested in description of battle formations and tactics.

I intend to make this post a storehouse for images of ancient Chinese weapons.
"Ancient," for my purposes, will mean of Han Dynasty or older origin.
Weapons are arranged by type, then by age. I am sorry that I cannot post direct
images for most of these weapons, but the hyperlinks should take you directly to
the weapon images. Thanks to all those who have put these images on the Web.

Jade ceremonial ge dagger-axe, Shang period.


Zhou ge dagger-axe.

Click to view attachment
Another bronze ge dagger-axe, Zhou dynasty. Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Leungting WingTsun.

Bronze ge dagger-axe, Warring States era, Hebei.

Bronze sword of the King of Yue, Spring/Autumn period, Hubei.
(Is this authentic? It doesn't look bronze, and seems impossibly well-preserved).


Bronze sword hilt, Warring States.

Bronze swords, Han period.

Click to view attachment
Bronze pi recovered from Qinshihuang's terra cotta army, Qin Dynasty, Xi'an. Click to enlarge.

Ritual bronze qi axe, Western Zhou era.

Bronze mao spearheads, Warring States, from Sichuan province near Pengzhou.

Sketch of ancient Chinese crossbow, period and location unknown.

Click to view attachment
4 war arrows, bronze-headed, recovered from Qinshihuang's terracotta army, late 3d century B.C., Xi'an. Courtesy of
travelchinaguide.com. Note that the two further arrows are shorter and blunt-headed; what is their purpose?

the first Ge I recognise as one belonging to Richard Nable, and presently on loan to the Young museum. Thanks for that, becuase as I re-check I see he has updated some images there and has a stunning new crossbow mechanism and end piece with inlaid silver. Wow.
He had discussed with me how the addition of silver to bronze was at its height during the warring period (i.e the best Tang fire gilding on silver is not so precisely controlled as this). The craftsmanship is amazing.
http://www.youngmuseum.com/the_richard_nable_collection.htm

The bronze sword of the King of Yue is authentic, and famous. It is often reproduced in texts and is the most commonly refered to example of bi-metallic swords from the late spring and autumn period.
It is bronze, but there is a process which produced the diamond pattern on the blade...a google search will find the details.

The close detail of the sword hilt is Richards too..and is a cirlce hilted warrign states period sword...probably 3rd century BC.

The Han swords I would consider more likely warring states pieces, as I have seen a number of these short 'trident gaurd' style blades..but never heard of them during Han so far.

The spear heads look odd, but I should comment that in the south of China forms persisted much later than the central plains, so Shang style spears and West ZHou stlye swords can be found there as late as East Zhou.

Yes, that's Nable. There are several other weapon images from that museum I haven't put here yet.

As a beginner, I expect bronze to look brown or, if old, green. Yet I see this sword is not the only bronze with a blue-gray color: Thomas Chen has a blue-gray bronze sword on his site that I would have mistaken for iron.



Interesting. Does "circle hilted" refer to the pommel, or the two round disks in the middle of the handgrip? Would I be right to think that the hilt's handgrip section would once have been wrapped in bone, horn, wire, or the like?

The circle refers to the 2 circles along the hilt, to aid in binding cord for grip.
Here is a diagram below; (already posted under 'bronze sword' thread)

Also images of bronze weapons at;

Ge;
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...&threadid=44473
Swords;
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...&threadid=44472

plus a close study of a couple of warring states era swords (and one fake there too)
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...25&pagenumber=1

beautiful pictures

Click to view attachment
Bronze double ge ji dagger-axe, Warring States period, Hubei province.

Click to view attachment
Bronze jian two-edged sword of the King of Wu, Spring-Autumn period, Shanxi province.

Click to view attachment
Bronze jian two-edged sword, Warring States period, Henan province.

Click to view attachment
Bronze jian two-edged sword, Warring States period, Hunan province.

Click to view attachment
Spearhead, Shang Dynasty.

Click to view attachment
Spearhead of the King of Wu, Spring-Autumn period, Hubei province.

Click to view attachment
Dragon boat axe head, Spring-Autumn period, Zhejiang province.

All images courtesy of Yin Cheng Gong Fa Association (website).

Note: I have moved the arrows from Qinshihuang's tomb up into post #1.

They could be signal arrows.Arrows with holes in them so that when they are shot,they will produce a whistling sound.Used to direct troops during a battle. My guess that they are blunt is that they don't want it to hit their own guys. Imagine giving the order to fire a whistling arrow with a normal tip and 1 cockeye guy shot it and it landed on the head of your leading general and killed him.

Not all weapons are pretty, as iron rusts away into rather unattractive and brittle blades, but it shouldnt be neglected as part of the ancient Chinese arsenal.
Here are some iron swords from Han (although note; swords of 40cm-60cm still exist contemporarily).
The swords of the ceramic warriors at Yangling tomb (west Han) were of iron, and with a long tang for a hilt. The warriors were made 60cm tall, so the 30cm minature swords represent blades of around 1m at full size. Much like the top blade below..(but the picture is upside down). Shorter ring hilted swords of bronze (most around 60cm, but one as large as 90cm) exist too...as well as iron short swords.
Below is from John Piscopo...avid sword collector.

PS; I will find an answer to the blunt arrows of Qin tonight in my texts.....I saw them at Xian but didnt think about it too much. I seem to recall they were for training according to one of our hosts. I will confirm this as I have a number of books on the terracota warriors I purchased recently that should mention them if I get some passages translated.





&



Note also these are the same Sichuan/Yunnan swords that I posted in one of the above links...and I havent seen any with blades before, but John seems to of come accross some.

(opps; not having luck attaching more than one image. I will add the third pic directly below.)

Here are some more images of weapons recovered from the terracotta army. Click to enlarge. All are from BMY.com's excellent site on the terracotta army museum{link}.

I suspect the crossbow is a reconstruction.

And continuing from BMY.com, some more weapons from Qinshihuang's army.

(As I gradually approach my global limit on filespace).

And finally, two more swords from the terracotta army, also courtesy of BMY.com.

Only 17 swords were among the 40,000 weapons recovered from the terracotta army: five of them are here.

A mixed assortment of Chinese weapons from Zhou to Han.
on the left are 2 minature crossbow mechanisms from tomb warriors (ie; not real weapons) and one full sized late warrign states-Han mechanism.
A crossbolt bolt.
A Han 'ji' halberd which replaced the archiac dagger axe,
A Han 'Tsah' trident spear..and another Han spear from the same item seemily missing the cross piece.
Above is an ordinary Zhou dagger axe.
Beside this is a hollow hilted bronze shortsword, possibly late Sring & Autumn or early warring states period.
Next is an unusual tube hilted dagger axe 'ge' with a design of an dragon or a lion at the rear. These tube hilted dagger axes seem to be a stlye of the Beijing/north area during Zhou when China had regional variations in the material culture.
The last piece is dagger with an intricate hilt, probably cast using the 'lost wax' method where a wx model is repleced by the molten bronze. It was said to be SPring & Autumn but similar stlye daggers exist from Zhou to Qin, although very very rare.



a sword spear 'pi' made for an important person evidently, with silver inlay at the base of the blade and an inlaid 'zhun' (pronounded as Dhun) polearm end also.
Warring States period.

A Qin gold hilted sword with turquiose inlay. This hilt is cast using the last wax method for finer detail...and is similar to the piece above belonging to a friend of mine.


PS; I tried to get some info on the blunt ended Qin crossbow bolts...but although pictured in a text of mine, again they are not explained. By the looks of the quiver it appears they may have come from the minature battle chariot. I do recall seeing such bolts on display at Shaanxi and they were full sized also. I half heard a conversation in one ear where it was said they were for target practice or training but I do not always agree with what I am told by museum staff or text books as I examine an object independently (I can give a number fo examples where I believe the explanations I was given are probably wrong or simply are wrong.)
I think they may be 'non-lethal weapons', and have a function on the battle fieldsince they are included in the buried armies equipment...but I dont think they are for communication as the maximum arc would be only a signal across a few hundred metres and the Chinese used chariots mobile command posts and signals across the battlefield with greater distances than this. The target practice is not quite satisfactory either.
I believe they could be considered a non-lethal version of the standard trangular sharp tipped bolt. It is pretty clear it isnt for killing, and is infact the opposite function.. I would suggest they are for stunning the target like a rubber bullet. Perhaps to incapacitate people or animals from the back of a chariot. I could think of scenarios where this might be useful.
One things for sure...they would injure the traget, although unlikely to kill them.

Here is the Zhun from the Pi above...a nice example of Warring States period inlay

Here is a closer look at the tube hilted Ge with dragon/animal design .........and the intricacies of the dagger hilt. Such a shortsword/dagger is a status symbol rather than a battlefield blade.




'Trident gaurd' shortsword from the Warring States period. These really can be quite short as I have seen them around 30cm in length.

There is a group of stunning weapons..as well as other pieces of Chinese bronze of good quality...that has been posted on Jiemings site;http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy/
Under the ancient weapons photo folder there are already 30 or so pictures posted by an American chap, G. Todd, who seems to have been a very successful collector!
(I asked both Gary & Jieming about putting a link here as the range of weapons is so excellent..and as they didnt specifically forbid me on this point I have decided they really are marvellous and relevant to this thread).
There are image of a range of the early Chinese swords; including a possilby late Spring and Autumn period sword (without an attached hilt) plus the hollow hilted, circle hilted and trident gaurd short swords.
He has a few dozen varied dagger axes pictured too...the ornate prestious Ge through to scores of the 'business' Ge for killing.
It is well worth a look, and in the relevant posts for July Gary has added a detailed account of each of the photographed items..either individually or as a group.

Hehehe, Kenneth, I didn't reply you on this as I thought it best if Gary replied you since all the pictures are from his personal collection.

Just to add to your list, Gary has got some really rare stuff such as Chariot Axles, a Shang Yue, a stone Ge & Mao and pre-han bronze armour plates. His Ges are just amazing with carvings and inscriptions! Makes my own Ge seem so pitiful in comparison!

You may find this Japanese website useful.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend-Ohgai/3816/

I have a book in English about ancient Chinese weapons; I can post some scans of pictures if people are interested.

Does this book cover the Sung Dynasty?

Cheers

Yeah, it does have stuff from the Song Dynasty. It breaks the weapons down into catagories (long, short, soft, etc) and it has short intros on each one.

That would be great if you could post some material.

Cheers

Chris

All these pics and descriptions are from/according to the book "Ancient Chinese Weapons -- A martial artist's guide" by Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming. (Let me know if I need more references to credit these pics)




Various designs of speaks and hook spears.


Figure 2-18: "Crescent Moon Shovel" (Yue Ya Chan)
Figure 2-19: "Convenient Shovel" (Fang Bian Chan)


Figure 3-28: "Willow Leaf Saber" (Liu Ye Dao)
Figure 3-29: "Goose Feather Saber" (Yan Ling Dao) Created in the Song Dynasty
Figure 3-30: "Six Ring Saber" (Liu Huan Dao)


Figure 3-31: "Waist Saber" (Yao Dao) Ming Dynasty saber
Figure 3-32: katana; see description in pic above


Figure 3-33: Zhan Ma Dao; see description two pics above
Figure 3-34: "Miao's Saber" (Miao Dao) popular during Ming Dynasty
Figure 3-35: "Hand Saber" (Shou Dao) Created in the Song Dynasty

Great pics. Thanks!
Figure 3-33...is that really the Zhan ma dao? Other pictures that I have seen of that are not the same, in specific Thomas Chens website. The picture doesn't seem to fit the discription from Sung military manuals.

Anymore pics you can post?

Need to grab Thomas Chen in here to comment!

Pic 3-33 is the Qing version of the zhanmadao. The Song version was different, and for that one refer to Thomas Chen's site.

Any particular weapons you had in mind? I can see if it's got pics/descriptions in the book, which is by no means comprehensive. The sections it does have are long, short, soft, and projectile/throwing weapons, along with a short section on shields and armor.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the pics and info since I'm no expert, but overall they seemed pretty good to me according to what little I know and have found out.

Thanks Yun.

I don't mean to sound bellitling, but I have that book too.
And it's somewhat of a joke in terms of accuracyt, it's full of martial arts lore (Nan Quan Bei Tui rubbish, and some of its historical facts are quite...questionable as well (Guan Yu used the Guan Dao, Yue Fei and the Guaizima).

I would read ALOT of that with a grain of salt.

Yang Zongbao, thanks for the warning, though that's disappointing. I got this especially to find out more about ancient weapons, their usage and histories. Unfortunately I'm neither rich, nor too proficient in reading Chinese, which is why I decided on this one.

Can you recommend a good, accurate book on ancient Chinese weapons that talks about usage and histories? (in English would be best if possible).

And I think a lot of the pics are correct, even if some of the info/stories aren't.

Try Thomas Chen's website on Chinese swords.

Yang Hong's "Weapons in Ancient China". We've been recommending it very strongly on CHF recently.

Try this. http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jie...esesiegewarfare

Thanks very much for the info and suggestions! (I've been to Thomas Chen's cool site before, and thanks for the link, Liang Jieming.)

The reason I have this book in the first place is because I enjoy and would like to someday write wuxia-ish stories and want to know realistic info on personal combat weapons. I actually really like the format of the book I have now, though I guess I shouldn't be trusting its info.

But holy heck...Weapons in Ancient China is so expensive! To me, anyway. But I suppose its worth its price?

Sorry mate, I just bought the last stocked copy of "weapons in ancient China" from amazon a few minutes ago.

Oh well, you can always refer to the discussions about Yang Hong's book on CHF.

Actually, wuxia novels are never accurate regarding the use of weapons, since they're a form of fantasy written by scholar types. So you needn't worry too much

I saw other copies of the book on other sites. Just a bit too hefty pricewise for me at the moment, but I'll keep my eye out for it.
Exactly why I'd like to see if I can make one with more accurate details for a change. Might be possible, or it might not be for the genre, but I don't think so. I'm not really into high-flying fantasy; I prefer the more down-to-earth adventures, which I don't think will be ruined with realistic weaponry details. IMHO, more realistic means actually possible, and that's just cool.

http://www.nativewayonline.com/base8.htm

$90 for the Yang Hong book with a link to Amazon. They order them if out of stock. I waited a month or two. Postage is extra. Best to order more than one book to save postage.

John Piscopo posted a bibliography on several forums which included many of the suggested texts on ancient Chinese weapons. Here is a link to one;
http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=996&highlight=
One of the best books is Chinese, but is a collection of pictures. I am having a struggle to find it but will order it shortly.
Paragon books was one supplier but the title listed on the web isnt English so it is tricky.
John suggested this;
here's the book....but he has dozens on the link to consider; (John was a pretty enthusiastic researcher & collector!)
Dong, Cheng & Zhong Shao-yi. Ancient Chinese Weapons: A Collection of Pictures. The Chinese People's Liberation Army Publishing House. 1990. Chinese Language. ISBN: 5065-0646-7 Encyclopedic in 303 pages. Very useful for any collector, a good section on minority group weapons also. A Collection of Pictures.

....One of the other books highly recommended has a heftier price tag, but colour photos cost more.

From Richard Nable;


Yeah, it's expensive stuff. The Cheng Dong book is next on my list.
The pictures below come from it...and were shown on Tony Allen's site when he had Chinese weapons for sale.

Hey Kenneth, I was at the library yesterday with Thomas Chen. We were looking through the battle formations illustrated in the Wujing zongyao and strangely enough, they showed archers arrayed in front of crossbowmen (unless we've intepreted the illustration upsidedown that it!).

What this means is that the crossbowmen fired over the heads of the archers and not in a flat trajectory like you were discussing earlier!

heres a link to the above book by Cheng Dong
http://www.paragonbook.com/html/browsesubj...n.cfm?item=5980

RE; crossbow usage & its full effect.
What it may mean is the ranks rotated...as we well know anyway.
Records from the time according to Osprey suggest putting the short men with halberds at the front and tall men with bows at the back. Seems like they do shoot over heads sometime. Osprey isnt much useand this picture in my mind is rather odd...but that was the drift of the quote.
Yang Hong makes clear the crossbows advantage is its piercing power that defeats the Huns leather armour & shields (as commented by a Han general).
By pointing them up into the sky the crossbows piercing power is nothing special. It could be any other arrow dropping down by gravity from a short bow or such.
A flat (or flatter than a bow) trajectory is the case for a crossbow to be effective. That seems pretty clear to me.
If the crossbowmen are behind a single strike on a drum can let the archers move into open order, or the crossbowmen step to the front.
The loading from the rear and advancing to fire is well known by later dynasties.

I'll stick with flat trajectories. With only 30 arrows in a quiver from archaeolgical discoveries it isnt worth firing them way up high before the enemy close to a 1 hit 1 kill range. Inside of a high arc the hitting power is mindboggling now than 120kg draweights seem possible.
It would fly hundreds of metres in a high arc for sure....it could be used that way. That is true.
The enemy would just have to loiter out of effective range however with good sized shields and soak up the arrows with a whole lot less effect.
Better to break them up close in effective volleys if it is still lethal out to 260m or so.
I dunno.
Illustrations are fine for insight...but I would need to know when they date from and see them. Even the terracota warriors formation tends to be taken too literally I think.
The idea of crossbowmen loading to the rear of the front rank has often been mentioned.
Could well shoot from the shoulders of archers with little risk...like ranks with muskets after all. Drills might be comapribel with slow reloading.
The sights on Han crossbows are for flat trajectory fire BTW, a good line drawing in the Yng Hing book shows the sights being used in a near flat trajectory.
Remember Selby however suggests the arc was used, also so it had 3 fields of fire between bows and crossbows, but his comments to me emphaisied flat fire too.
The real killing is done inside with direct fire.

PS re; siege weapons;
Yang Hong mentions records at beacon watch tower sites where if refers to reapir of 250kg & 300kg crossbows. This is beyond 10 dan and may be the arcuballista for the fixed towers again.
It comes from a Han era record found and translated.

I agree. The effective use of the crossbow is pretty much point blank. The use of the crossbows fired in an arc would probably be a secondary use rather than their primary use though it is not inconceivable for them to utilise them in any way they can.

The Cheng Dong and Zhong Shaoyi book is excellent (but is available only in Chinese). I borrowed it from my university library last week for use in my Masters dissertation, and it has already answered some of my questions on weapons, including the name of this Qin-Han pole-arm weapon that looks like a partisan:

It's called a sha 铩 (only the iron head is shown in this picture, as the shaft had long rotted away).

I've read where a mixed unit of spearmen (first rank), archers (second rank) and crossbowmen (third rank) opperated in this fassion. The spearmen with shields would kneel down holding their spears pointing out. The archers would kneel down and let the crossbowmen in the third rank fire. While the crossbowmen were reloading the archers would stand and fire. It was mentioned more people were killed by the archers and the spearmen than by the crossbowmen. I don't remember which dynasty this was but I want to say early Sung or late Tang.

Cheers

The Fukien Province Fighting and healing Fork.

How does it heal?

I was thinking the same thing but didn't want to insult his intelligence because just maybe there is something else there that "heals"!

Actually, effective use of bow and crossbow is twofold.

Initially at "long" range - typically 100-150m - the missiles are used to harras and annoy the enemy. You cause some casualties (and wounded men and horses get escorted to the rear, effectivly removing the casualty and escort from fighting strength), reduce enemy moral, and hopefully sting them into acton before they are ready.

Then, as the enemy close to "effective" range - 50m or less - heavy arrows and bolts shot on almost flat trajectory with high accuracy can cause significant casualties. Good quality missile troops can cause enough casualties to break enemy units at this range.

There is a third phase, "melee" at this point either the missile troops swap to hand-to-hand weapons, or they have supports that take up the fight. Excess missile men can stand back and drop high angle shots over their own fighting troops into the rear ranks of the enemy.

At "effective" range and in melee, non specialist troops can add significantly to the missile barrage with hand thrown spears, axes, hammers, stones (never underestimate the battlefield use of fist sized rocks thrown at people, a very common historical tactic) etc...

The above stages are seen across all cultures, its the empasis that changes. Though it has to be said that effective long range missile combat requires enormous amounts of ammunition and a organised supply system to feed that ammo to the troops. Indeed the supply function is the single most important factor in an army having an effective missile arm.

rgds.
Tom..