Here is a small list of the daos that were used during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Both military and civilian. Notice that there are alot more than what I have got here. But more than often other swords are more like variations of these main types. In other cases, although many dao blades such as the Fengjuidao and the Xiangbidao can be used as swords, thy are more common on polearms. Notice that the modern interpretation of the Yanlingdao and the Nuimeidao are commonly misunderstood.


Yes, I know the taiji dao is a modern creation. But I thought it looked cool.

Hmm..some of these don't seem quite right.

I'm not sure on alot of these, but some of them...

The Liu Ye Dao seems to be a Niu Wei Dao, actually, and the Niu Wei Dao the Liu Ye Dao. Yan Ling dao also looks a bit like a Niu Wei Dao variant.

Not sure if Qi Jia Dao counts as a Dao variant in itself...I thought that Qi Jiguang's troops would've used Liuye Dao like any other troops?

The Pu Dao I thought was Shou Dao, while the first and second Yao Dao look like the Yan Mao Dao. I could be mistaken, but I DEFINETLY know that the Liu Ye Dao and Niu Wei Dao are mixed, and I think very likely, so is the Yan Ling Dao.

Actaully, when I made this list, I paid special attention to those three because those are the ones people gets mixed up alot. I went through a number of books and I did notice that most of what the west's understanding of those three are indeed wrong. For most part any book pass 1940s (except those PLA ones) starts becoming unreliable when it comes to these three. Most of my sources are either from the early republican era or the Qing dynasty. I used HK, mainland and taiwanese sources and generally those are the most (not all) common understand of the swords.

The Qijiajun did use other forms of swords. But never the liuyuedao (in accordance to the chart). However, the shape of this sword is way too different from the others for it to not be counted.

Another thing is the Yaodao. Actually One of those is the Pedao. But I can't find any reliable sources that shows me which one is which.

Hmm...I'm still pretty sure that the Liuyedao in that pic is a Niuwei Dao.

I still don;t think that "Kung Fu Broadsword" shape is a Liuyedao though...

For folks who are novices in terms of Chinese weapons (like myself), it would really be nice to know in what timeframe these various swords were used.

As the title of the thread implied, Ming and Qing dynasty. Sadly, it is near impossible to get anymore specific than that without a margin of error large enough to make the estimation worthless. Half of them are civilian swords and 9 our of 10 civilian 'warriors' in those days were illiterate. To say less about keeping historical records.

Beautiful chart, Wujiang!

Some slight spelling errors:

Liuyedao, not Liuyuedao

Podao, not Pudao

Chuanweidao, not Chuanmeidao

Niuweidao, not Niumeidao

Baguashendao, not Baquashendao

Would be great too if you could provide English translations of the names, for the benefit of non-Chinese-readers.

tsk tsk tsk, I believe we have a spelling police on this forum .

Anyway, I have thought about giving english translation. But some of them doesn't have an english translation. So in order to keep things uniform, better to not give any of them.

I think non-chinese people can learn the chinese names of them. I mean, people don't mind learning the katana or the tachi right ?

I just realised this...The Wodao looks closely to a Katana. This has gotten me very interested in Chinese weaponry. I know quite a bit about Japanese, but I have never seen anything like this. I was wondering is there a thread on the different types of Jian? Or are all of them roughly the same. BTW The only Daos that I knew about was Baquashendao and the Nandao. Also is Wing Lam Enterprises a good place to buy weapons such as these. I am in the process of finding a place where I can learn Kung Fu, but that is proving difficult considering the location I live in which is Canada. We have Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Jiu Jitsu, Karate, and Ninjitsu schools, but I can't seem to find a Kung Fu school. Would my best bet be to purchase videos and learn by myself, or does anyone live in Canada (in Toronto, Ontario) and could tell me of a Kung Fu school in the area. (If you live in the area, you know what I am talking about.)

Actaully the Wodao is the Chinese version of Japanese swords. Adopted from the Wokou

I wouldn't trust Wing Lam.
Pretty bad place to get weaponry, if you ask me...and they tend to post alot of martial lore, or stuff that's just plain BS.

They called Pu Dao a Zhan Ma Dao. x.x

Where would you say to get good Kung Fu equipment then? And even perhaps where to purchase videos online?

Which pudao are you talking about?
The one with the long or short handle ?

I went to their website and I can't find what you were talking about.

They called it a "Horse Knife".

On the video, they wrote "Zhan Ma Dao".

Pretty much- looking for anything historical, don't trust Wing Lam. If you practice Wushu, Wing Lam's alright.

And Wujiang- could you please explain your sources?
I got a few comments on SFI that these might just be the common martial arts names of the weapons.

http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...&threadid=60320

Not trying to pick fault Wujiang, I was just quite unsure on the validity on some of these- I hope you don't take it as a personal offense or affront.

I've seen the achandao with a grip as long as the blade (so it looks sorta like a thin bladed pudao)
A photo of one at least.

I am not surprised that Scott Rodell and Phillip Tom would consider this list to be incorrect. I don't take it as a personal offence, just a natural responce by someone who 'needs' to be correct for livelihood sake. They virtually built the modern understanding of chinese weapons in the west and therefore often believe that what they say is beyond contestation. Yet their understanding is not perfect either. Of the two, Phillip Tom does provide a slightly better view. Scott on the other hand is his usual self dismissing any information that goes against he believes. Although what strikes me most inconsistant with their words is how they acknowledged " names can vary, given the various dialects and the natural evolution of language over time. " yet being able to say that the list is unreliable with such a condescending tone.

I find it weird when he claims "I find that the methodology used in compiling the list to be inconsistent and not very enlightening" without an examination of the method itself. True, I did mix civilian and military swords together which doesn't help historians most of the time. But swords such as the Baguashendao that was used by Fu Zhensong is something that is a fact. Yet they continue to call it into question leaving me wondering whether they actually know where the line is drawn and blurred between military and civilian weapons. I think that as far as they are concerned unless things are presented in their format which reflects their knowledge, it is wrong.

Of the so-called 3000 pieces they examined, I question how they would detemine each one being of certain name. Because no matter what method they use, they will inevitably run into the same problem I had when I examined my evidience (around about 500 dao or so, not as much as them, but still enough for me to be confident of my findings), is the information which is passed on correct ? Even if we do find documents regarding these items, how do we determine the quality of the documenter ? Museums are actually no better at this kind of thing. For example, most swords back then would have just been classified as yaodao, without further differentiation. Both private collectors and Museum owners would forcibly place a name on an so it makes the it look better. Those who take these are sources will acquire the same kind of information.

I think the critical fault in their approach is that they attempt to understand something that is Chinese with western approach to history, which comes with all the western perception and mental filter of information. Most obviously, they take a bottom up rather than a top down and practically anything they come across. But this western approach is often often reflected elsewhere and leads to what they say to be incomplete at best or misleading at worse. Neither of them is remotely compotent with tracking martial arts throughout the centuries which is something I take into account when constructing this list. As horrific as they find it, the martial arts developement does affect weapons and provide good information sometimes. Many historians believe that because of the vague and secretive nature of the martial arts community means that information will ultimately be twisted. No one denies that dangers exists. But the same argument can be said for history of any kind. The trick is to know the geo-chronological developement of martial arts and one will eventually be able to find cut off points where sword designs splits. The fact that they don't take martial arts tracking into account means that anything that they say would be, as I said before, incomplete at best, misleading at worse.

Well then I guess I can buy things from Wing Lam. I knew they weren't historical weapons, but thank you for telling me about this. Also is there a good site you could recomend as to purchasing historical weapons?

Hey Wu Jiang, would you mind doing one about Chinese polearms?

Wujiang, I've splitted off Doug_M's contested intrusion from this thread, so that we can continue the discussion on Ming and Qing's Dao. This thread is supposingly to be a question and answer kind of discussion to provide more accurate academic facts, rather than a debate on 'who' is more accurate. Ultimately CHF is supposed to be an educational forum.

It's during Ming (1368-1644 AD) and Qing period (1644-1911 AD) as mentioned by Wujiang.

Probably in a few decades.
Sorry but polearms is actually, believe it or not, around a ga-gillion times more vast then swords. Heck, even qiangs probably have more variaty than daos. I am still working one on armour and I suspect that will take another year at least.

Hi Wujiang

The Huyadao, according to the "Huang Chao Li Qi Tu Shi", or "Illustrated Regulations for the Ceremonial Paraphernalia of the Qing Dynasty", is a polearm with a blade 2 Chinese feet and 7 Chinese inches long, plus a handle roughly about the same length....


The two-handed nandao is a modern recreation of mainland Chinese wushu exponents in China and bears a passing resemblance to the dadao used by Nationalist and Communist troops in WW2.... or what you depict as dakandao...


For a general view of the typical two-handed goosequill blade (owned by Scott)


and more details of 5 types of goosequill blades with differing blade and handle lengths:
http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/photo5.html

The Qijiadao, a blade with a ridged cross-section, in my personal research and experience, digging through Qing military archives at the Beijing National Library, do not appear in the official documents. General Qi Jiguang identifies those 1.95 meter swords with ridged cross-sections as changdao or wodao... Qijiadao, I think is a modern term coined in recent times to label these weapons...

To be honest, I would like to know the origin and source of the picture of the Ming zhanmadao. Ming zhanmadaos are mentioned in numerous Ming era documents but I have no idea what they look like since I was unable to locate any graphic woodblock print depicting it....

Your Pudao is correct.... It is originally wielded with one hand but somehow in recent times, Pudao became known as zhanmadao or shuangshoudai.... with a long shaft handle... The original Qing zhanmadao and shuangshoudai were equipped with goosequill type blades, and not the broad dadao types...

Your Kuanrenbiandao is correct as well....

Could I trouble you to provide more accurate and larger scale pictures of the rest of the blade types so that I can study them with a closer lens.... Thanks...

Your Chuanweidao is correct....

Awsome chart! But where is the Song Zhanmadao?

The chart was actually made by Wujiang, and it only covers Ming-Qing weapons. Thomas Chen was posting his comments on the chart.

Yun

Did you receive my multiple messages about buying the Sun Tzu book??

Ah... ok I must have missed some earlier thread then. Still nice chart. Now we need to get one for Qin to Yuan to complete the series.

Jieming, I've moved your post to the original thread with Wujiang's chart.

Thomas, I've received your messages, and have just replied by PM. Sorry for the delay...

You are talking about a sword that kinda resemble this thing right ?

You are right. I am also aware of that design.
I managed to find that version in a museum in Yunnan labeled Qing around 7 years ago. I think that the problem is that the blade itself sometimes (not often) is what the dao is talk about, not the whole thing.

Technically, that is a one handed weapon. Among other sources I found a number of these in Hong Kong by several private collectors. I found a few more too in Guangzhou but I suspected those to be fakes. For the ones in HK, they labeled them "late Qing". It was probably early republican. I took into into account the similarity with the Dakandao. What I also took into account was that Hung Gar's use of the Nandao can be traced to at least the time of Maiyuchan. They call it the 胞肘刀. Is this really the same as the Nandao ? I can't determine. If when analysing the techniques, it does make more sense to use to nandao than the what we know as the kung fu sword. More importantly the taolu simply would not make sense at all to use the Dakandao. So Maiyuchan-era's Hung Gar practitioners simply had to have been using something else. The quesiton is, what ? With my findings in HK, I think that the Dakandao (or others like it) had many variations since the late Ming dynasty and as time went by the nandao eventually appeared at the late Qing which was used by the Hung Gar artists.

These were not the wodao or changdao design. This kind of sword are thin and gets thinner as they reaches the end. You are right though, that is a modern name of the sword. They, like others, are just commonly addressed as Yaodao or Peidao. Their designs does make set them a category apart as when I handled them the feeling is completely different from the ordinary type of sword. It felt closer (not completely alike) to a jian. From this, I determined that on a tactical and martial arts level, they are used differently from the other yaodaos I identified. Hence I set them apart.

As far as I can trace, the two handed 'pudao' named started to appear around the 1940s. I found a book that talked about martial arts published during that time in Taiwan. It talk about a particular taolu that uses the "pudao." it was actually using what we call a zhanmadao.

If you were wondering, the Yuntoudao was my creation. I found a number of discription of this sword but never managed to find a sample. What I did find was (1) how clouds were draw back in those days (2) The polearm Xiangbidao. The Xiangbidao's blade design was almost identical that the discriptions I found. So my guess is that the Yuntoudao was the shortarm version of the Xiangbidao. What I hope to find is whether there was a counter balance on a daoshou like the guitoudao or whether it is just a like the pudao with nothing.

Btw, if you are going to tell me how wrong I am about the Taiji dao ? I am going to say I am guity as charged. As I said on the first post of thread of this chart, I put it there on no other reason than it looked cool.

What we need to do now is get a complete and definitive list of accurately depicted daos.

[sarcasm]Good luck.[/sarcasm]
"Complete and definitive history" is an oxymoron

What did the Pudao/podao (朴刀) look like in Sung and Ming dynasties?

MengTzu, I've just asked that same question on our Podao thread:

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...opic=1151&st=30