SO many topics are devoted on swords, armor, and gunpowder weapons, but never on the spear: the king of the 18 weapons.

Lets just focus on the ying qiang, and ignore the halberds and other polearms. About the spearheads from Qin to Qing, has it differed? I noticed that the most common and popular up to modern times is the diamondhead type, but were there other types of spearheads? And for what usage and application?

And then the shaft. What was the most used and reliable material? Rattan, waxwood, oak, bamboo, was metal ever used?

And when did the "blood guard"/tassle first appear?

And name any famous historical spear fighters.

I don't believe that "King of the 18 weapons" crap.
In fact, in the 18 weapons at all.

I think that usually the shaft was a hardwood with an iron core.
Waxwood is wushu stuff, its soft as hell and bendy. Definetly not what I'dchoose to make a combat instrument's shaft.

Historical/Legendary Spear fighters

Zhao Yun (In San Guo Yan Yi)
the Yang Clan
The Huyan Clan
the Sha Clan
Lin Chong
Hua Mulan I think
Mu Guiying I think

YZB,

The point on the core of a [hardwood] shaft section of spear is an iron core is quite true.

///
Read material that might justify why the spear is nicknamed the King of Long Range Weapons.

Disregarding the earlier aspect of the spear as a pike. Foocus on the usage of an one 2 one combat.

My personal research and practice tells me that the spear is a finese weapon that requires great coordination & thrust motions from practicing the staff.

One can shoot the spear quickly from many angles which is impossible for most long-range instruments.

Example:
1. Behind the back- waist level;
2. Behind the back- Shoulder level.;
3. Rolling on the group, Shoot the spear between the legs;
4. Twirling around the neck to a one handed uppercut;
5. Feign the ankle attack to throat attack; etc.

The type of wood and quality of training determines whether the spear player can use the spear in a whipping motion.

Real spear motions exercises does not have flowery motion.

Its circular movements is similar to the disengaging motion of a french fencing foil.

Some of the one-handed thrust techniques can be ported over to the practice of the straight (double-edged) sword (jian).

[This depends on the system and the instructional focus of teacher],

Difference between the staff and spear is the weight of the weapon and the emphasis on speed. [This point depends a lot on the emphasis of martial art system.]

The bladed aspect of the spear is designed to "damage 2 terminate" the opposition immediately. While the staff is not.

The spear is a lethal instrument esp. in the hands of an expert.

///
This doesn't verify me as an expert.
Studied a few Northern and Wu Tang spear exercises and used it in a few closed rm. sessions.

Despite my 20 yrs of experience [external and internal martial art plays and tournament play], this Cardinal's is presuming you're a martial art expert of great renown.

Also presume that your knowledge base and experience of Chinese weaponry is above me.

Willing to hear your pov.

The only factor that counts now is one's ability to uses its technique to benefit one's well-being.

///
This Cardinal agree w/ your listing of Historical/Legendary Spear players.

Believe you forgot Yue Fei.
His supposed spear play has been rumored as the foundation of XingYi Quan.

Don't know if [Nine Tattooed Dragon (!?)] as a spear player should be included in the list.

Read somewhere he used a snake-shaped spear.

///
Q: Does Zhang Fei & Jiang Wei of 3 Kingdoms fame count as a spear player?

Dear Collegues,

Let me judge upon the information from the
1) Korean "Muye dobo tongji" (1790),
2) Mongolian "Qalqa Jirum" (1709-1783),
3) Kalmyk "Jangar" (ca. XV centure)
4) evidence of Russian officer Galkin who visited Xinjianj in 1880-s.

1) According to the "MDT", the shaft should be made either of dense and heavy wood, or should be composed of splinted bamboo laths, tied together and laquered. The shaft for infantry spear should be painted with red, white and black strips. Cavalry spear should be red. Length varied from 2,7 till 6 m. The weight of one type of Korean cavalry spear was 30 jin (i.e. 18 kgs).
2) Mongols should have a spear with the shaft made mainly of pine-tree wood with the length of 5,5 m. Nothing is told about the colour but they had to stick to the Qing regulations.
3) Reach Mongol and Kalmyk lords could have spears with shafts composed of horn, wood, sinews and painted with black & yellow.
4) Galkin said he saw the process of making the traditional Chinese spears for troops in Xinjiang. There was a bundle of splinted bamboo laths tightly joint together with laquer. Then there was a strip of extremely strong Chinese fabric called "daba" which wrapped the initial bundle. Then there was another layer of laths and another strip of daba and etc. untill you get the shaft of 6 m (for cavalry) or 8 m (for infantry) long. He said it was really wery strong and flexible shaft but very inconvenient for use as it bent when the soldier grasped it with traditional grasp at the lower end. If a soldier held the spear horizontally at the level of his waist, the upper end of the spear was lower than the lower one for a feet at least.

I am adding 3 pics from "MDT" with the foot soldier, long spear and the mounted soldier.

Best regards,

Alexey.

The reference of spear being the top weapon came quiet early, I recall the reference saying the amount of time it takes for somone to become proficient with a weapon (for martial art uses, not military) and it went from Staff<Saber<Sword<Spear.

Spear today is often referred to as the King of arms in Wushu, and it's no secert that it is not only China's but the worlds most common weapon until the gunpowder age.

Spear in wushu is also quiet different from those used in military, for obvious practical reasons. there are also many different varieties, espically in military uses

R/W You are correct by tradition.

The teacher might teach the spear before the sword depending on the training criteria & the skill level of the student.

Unfortunately a soldier without side-arm is almost defenceless when the distance between 2 fighting warriors is broken and became too close. So to avoide an overwhelming massacre the most part of army spearmen were equipped with a side-arm.

Even Koreans who were not excellent in the close combat equipped their soldiers fo samsoo troops (archers and arquebusiers) with a sword resembling the Japanese katana. The same thing was done for Korean salsoo (warriors with spears & swordsto protect arquebusiers and archers) too.

As far as I know the "King of Arms" allowed to fire enemy soldiers for a safe distance and then protected archers & arquebusiers from penetration of scattered remainders of enemy deploy into the battle formation. Frankly speaking I have no idea how could we use Wushu principles in this case, but I have the evidence of Russian officer Grombchevsky who visited Xinjiang in 1880-s: the Chinese soldiers in 2 ranks were taught to fight with long spears. Grombchevsky said that the first rank attacked the second jumping (the same method I have seen in "Muye dobo tongji" too) and the second rank defended squatting. Grombchevsky said it was a ridiculous show as there were clowns in a circus.

Another Russian officer Galkin said that he saw some exercises of Chinese soldiers with long spears in 1880-s. He said they were not so accurate as the exercises with dadao as the spear was too long to hit into a fixed point due to the over weight and extreme flexibility of the staff.

Then Russian consul in China in 1890-s said that Chinese and Manchu troops aroud Beijing were re-armed with matchlocks and European rifles and there was only a company of 250 soldiers who were taught to wield dado and spears.

The same trend is obvious for Korea as we see in "MDT" (1790) that the accent was done to teach soldiers to handle with spears and swords as in the end of XVIII century they were taught to wield the matchlock mainly.

Even Tibetan army which used the same tactics as Qing Army in 1810-1890-s for every regiment of 500 soldiers consisted of 200 cavalry and 300 infantry there were only 100 spearmen, 150 archers and 250 rifles. We have the clear evidences of this fact by the famous Russian Orientalist Nikita Ya. Bichurin (he was a Russian monk and visited China in the Jiaqing era as Father Iakinf) and Russian traveller Gombojab C. Cybikov (Buryat by origin).

As the military significance of the spear became lower the Wushu significance grew higher. And when the Boxer Rebellion outraged the Boxers wielded with spears and daos tried to face European armies. The Wushu roots of the Boxers movement is obvious.

The same thing is for "Red Spears" Uprising in Northern China in 1920-s.

So Wushu became dominate with its opinion over the tradition military principles of spear usage in traditional Far Eastern region when the gunpowder armies developed greatly.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Good piece of history. ... Great pictures too. ... Can you please tell me about the "Red Spears" Uprising in Northern China in 1920's?

I thought of another question. ... I prefer practicing with a Katanna. ... Since the spear is obsolete in a modern sense. ... How do you guys practicing with the spear? Do ya carry a 12-18 ft spear to your school and practice with it? ...

I will try to render an article regarding this uprising (midst 1925-1926) from Russian.

QUOTE
After Xinhai Revolution 1911-1912 new goverment of China tried to get rid of extremist secret societies or to convert them into loyalist organizations to provide local police service. But they resisted and continued to face the govermental forces.

Political chaos & banditry in China forced the local population to revive the traditional methods of self-defence. The most famous and numerous type of organization were those rural ones which has the word "qiang" (the long spear) in their name. Th "qian" means the main weapon of the members. They were Green, White, Yellow, Black and Red depending upon the colour of the wool plume on the upper end of the spear.

During the Xinhai revolution the "Spears" fought against an authority which allowed the violence in respect to the local population. So they fought hard against any forces regardless their political orientation. The main slogan of the "Spears" was "Don't touch us and we will not touch you".

In the Statute of Red Spears (Hong qiang hui) it was said that in order to perform the self-government the society should expell marauding armies and should not allow them to gather taxes and duties.

The Hong Qiang Hui Uprising in the end of 1925 - beginning of 1926 against the 2 National Army of Wu Pei Fu was like the Uprising of them against Wu Pei Fu in the midst of 1926.

Chinese Communists planned to convert the "Spears" into pro-Communist armed organization but faxced with a lot of problems. They did not suceed to control the 'Spears". In May, 1927 the "Spears" revolted against Communists in the county of Macheng, Hubei province. The "Spears" members understood that the society controlled by the central government was not able to protect the peasants not from the marauding armies nor from the tyranny of the local officials and struggle against the attemptions to control them.

Initially the Spears consisted of usual peasants who fought occasionally. Later the professional fighting brigades appeared, which lived in field camps for a long. The structure of the Spears combined the principle of territorial militia with the pure military system, with the detachements with determined personnel. The lowest detachement consisted of 5 men and was called "wu", 5 "wu" created a polatoon of 25 men and 5 platoons created a "she' (125 men). The largest division was "tong" which consisted of 48828 men.

In 1926 the Spears was almighty political force which influenced the policy of China greatly. They were not accented upon the self-defence of local population but focused upon olitical and economical issues too".
UNQUOTE

Thomas Chen says that Chinese soldiers used to arrange ambushes in fields with dadao and qiang to attack suddenly Japanese troops and to get the small firearms during such clashes.

Makes you wonder if there's any accounts of nationalists with dadao fighting Japanese with katana

Here is a link for Tomas' site with apropriate photos:

http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/photo6.html

Frankly speaking Japanese had not the classic katana that time (1900-1945) but modified type of samurai sword named "kyugunto". I think it was much better in close combat than spear when the distance between 2 fighters was "broken". The dadao (as a pole-arm) got rid of that problem - one could act them as a staff weapon as well as a short sword by change of hold of his dadao.

Regarding the "kyugunto" vs. spear - I have heard that in August 1945 Soviet soldiers were ordered to shot Japanese officers first in order not only "to behead" Japanese squads but also in order to destroy the professionals with swords wich caused heavy losses to Soviet soldiers while fighting the close combat. The main infantry rifle of Soviet Army in 1945 was Mosin rifle mod. 1891/1930 with a bayonet. The total length of the rifle with the bayonet was 2,5 meters. So we can compare it to a spear.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Alexey,

Thanks for the material on Red Spears. ... I learned a lot and I still have a bunch of questions: What is the Chinese characters for this Red Spears group? . ... Is there anyone out there that knows how to use a spear? ... Is the spear obsolete in modern military training?

Very interesting. This is the first account I've heard where a gunpowder armed army feared swordwielding soldiers!

Now we have the war in Chechenistan. I must say that Chechens use long Caucasian daggers called "kama" and even old sabers of XIX century not only to torture wounded Russian soldiers who were taken as prisoners of war, but for close combat too. It is very effective in clashes in towns and villages when you have to fight in a room or something like this.

And our soldiers use such daggers which were taken from killed terrorists to fight. And even the army spade with the sharp edge is used as a kind of bladed weapon. It is common practice during the combat to cut off enemy's fingers or behead him using a spade. The spade-shaped weapon as far as I know is in Shaolin Wusu too.

Close combat differs from the usual war nowadays. You should have a lot of courage to face the enemy only with something like saber or dagger and being not divided by hundreds of meters as when you are shooting.

Do you remember the movie "Kill me again" with Wal Kilmer starring? The murderer there interrogated a victim and said that if he would not tell him where the object were he would kill him with big knife. And the victim begged him to shot him simly not to kill with a knife.

Best regards,

Alexey.

1) "Hong" [hun] as Scarlet, "Qiang" [tsian] as "Spear", "Hui" [khui] as "Society". I have no Chinese characters installed in this PC so I can not help you with them written in a post. But everybody who has a Chinese Dictionary could find these hyerogliphs easily.

2) I do not understand the question properly. Do you wonder if there were any other organizations which uses spears in real battles?

3) I also heard that there were spearmen in territorial army organizations durin the Civil War 1918-1920 in Russia, in Mongolia in 1920-s and in Russia even in the beginning of the WWII. Cavalry of Red Army alsowielded cavalry spear up to the beginning of WWII.

And I heard that there were companies of Red Mowers in Poland in 1939, who struggled against Nazi. They were armed with a scythes which were re-shaped as dadao.

And I have seen a photo of Tibetan Army in 1940-s when a lot of iron-clad cavalrymen wielding long spears.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Alexey (Altaica Militarica),

Thxs f/ the story.

This Cardinal wonders what was the success rate of ["that the Chinese soldiers ambushings the Japanese troops in fields with dadao and qiang."] ?

Alexey...

Beheading POWs with SPADES?

First of all, isn't that summary execution, a big no-no?

Second of all, isn't that REALLY inefficient, like killing Nick Berg?

Judging by the photos of Thomas Chen it was the usual practice to fight with dadao that time. Look through the photo with a squad of Chinese with dadao driven out to start an attack! If all these attacks were ubsucsessfull nobody were ready to perform them, i think so.

Bu it is only a guess. I think Thomas will help us if he will see this topic.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Dear Colleague,

Let us discuss not crimes of war but the Art of War.

I am of mixed origin so the war in Chechenistan is a tragedy for me and my relatives. So please do not poke the problem. I am only to assure you that there are such crimes and tortures that nobody can imagine! I am against it but who am I to stop them from all beligerrent sides? (as in Iraque too!)

And regarding the art of spade-wielding - our soldiers are specially taught to use spade as a kind of edged weapon to fight a close combat as there are no daggers and sabers as standard weapon in our army.

Please note, it is special fighting technique not a kind of torture.

Best regards,

Alexey.

Q: Which photos are these?

What were the kind of spears that were put to use in war in China? (Possibly the Han dynasty or even Three Kingdoms period.) I was just wondering, did they use Kung Fu spears that are flexible, or were they a typical western spear in which the shaft was stiff?

The soft, white waxwood Kung Fu spear you see today was made for just that- Wu shu.

A flexible spear like that wou;d've been bad for the battlefield...a spear is a spear.

I would have figured that, I was just wondereing. Were they made any differently from Western spears? I am asking this, because I want to start a project on making a Chinese spear. If they are the same as western spears I don't think I'll make one, because I want a broad collection of weapons. Perhaps I should try to make a Pudao. I have made Greek spears, and I am currently working on a Yari, but I can't find a metal that is good enough for it. The shaft was easy enough to make from Ash, and am going to put laquer on it and such.

Think of a Yari with a tapered blade and possibly hooks for unseating horsemen.

BTW Yang Zongbao, I've had the pleasure of examining some thick-shafted waxwood poles. They are pretty robust and not at all flexible.

Perhaps I was wrong about the wood then.

So what do you suppose causes the flex?

As is the case with cheap-wushu swords, the shafts of wushu spears are simply too thin.

Shafts too thin? I thought the point of wushu was that your spear was flexible. Or are the ones made today too flexible?

In the West, spears & other polearms have traditionally been made of ash, which is lighter than Western oak, and yet stronger. Ash has a certain amount of flexibility, while the oak is comparatively hard and brittle.

"Normal"-sized polearms (eg., spears, naginata, halberds, etc) are normally very robust and stiff, but European pikes exhibit an odd amount of flex in the shaft, because they are so long (15'-18' or more), and the tapered shaft and the weight of the steel pike head cause the shaft to vibrate. This makes the pike a more difficult weapon to thrust with, because accuracy is a problem (and accuracy is essential against armored opponents, where specific weak areas must be targeted).

The Japanese equivalent of the European pike, the nagae-yari, is said to be made with a shaft that has an oak core, surrounded by laminations of bamboo. The whole assembly is laquered to waterproof it. I'm not sure on how they compare with European pikes, in terms of shaft vibration.

While European polearms are most frequently of the socketed type, the Japanese appear to have preferred tanged models. I don't know for certain what the Chinese preference was, though I think socketed ones were the norm.

What about the Greeks pole arms?

I don't quite understand...

Wushu spears are flexible because they are too thin. This is a good example, WLE spear.


Their is simply no comparison between this and ancient spear shafts.

Greek hoplites wielded a thrusting spear about 9 feet in length. This weapon featured an iron spearhead and a bronze buttspike (the latter could function as a spear too, in case the iron one became damaged or the shaft broke). It could be wielded underarm or overarm (one-handed; the left side was occupied with a shield--the hoplon).

Macedonian phalangites used a two-handed pike called a sarissa, which was 15 feet long. Wood types unknown.



Could you post a pic of an Ancient spear shaft?

No you said too thin, which I interpret as being a bad thing. I know that there is no comparison between a modern day Kung Fu spear shaft, and an ancient spear shaft used in war. I was just wondering what kind of spears they would use in China during the Han dynasty. If anyone has some, could they put some pictures up?

I don't have any pictures of actual ancient spearshafts, but Tang regulations had each cavalry lance 18 feet long and quite thick, I'll post some exact statistics when I can dig them up.

Q: Was the spear head during the ancient times specialized diamond-shaped?

Let's get a few things straight.

1. Spearshafts for warfare were not thin, and I never said they were.
2. Spearshafts for Wushu are too thin and thus are too flexible
3. It's obvious that you didn't read my posts properly

CARDINAL009,

I'm not actually sure about this, I'm no expert on Chinese weaponry. Thomas Chen would probably be the best person to ask.

Have seen a few customized spear heads that is diamond-shaped.

Did not know whether it was a replica of ancient design.

Thanks f/ your pov.

Lets wait f/ Thomas Chen for his pov.

I read your posts properly, but I never said that Wushu spears were being used on the battlefield. You said Wushu spearshafts were too thin and you didn't say they were too thin for the battlefield though I already knew this. I never said that you said spearshafts for warfare were thin. I was saying that you said spearshafts for Wushu are too thin. I thought the point of Wushu was to have a flexible spearshaft so you can attack quicker. You just misinterpreted what I said. I said you said they were too thin. Perhaps I should have used a better word than they, but I was under the impression that we were still discussing Wushu spears.

Waxwood spears can be traced to as far back as the Tang dynasty. During this age, they were used exclusively by the Emperor's bodyguards.

In addition, from the time so the five dynasties onwads, spears with metal shafts weighing over 30 jin have also been in use.

18 feet seems too long. the regulations would be very interesting.

That definitely sounds too long.

There is so much variety in the true ancient spearheads (meaning Han or earlier) it doesnt bear calling any appearance as a model spear of this time.
Some blades were very long (over a foot) , some were short and squat (chocolate bar sized), some were sharp and others seem rather blunt. Some are cast very thin & hollow...the cross sections vary a lot too.
2 that I have are oval cross sectioned and another a sort of curved diamond with a channel inside the edge.
Some shown in texts can be leaf shaped and a few others are barbed in a fashion like a swallow tailed arrow head (one I saw was called a 'lance')
There are all sorts of embelishments and variations due to the nature of weapons in the Warring States period coming from different kingdoms arsenals.
There is also the 'pi' sword/spear which has a double edged blade like a short sword, apparently which can be removed and used as a sword if need be I am told. There are some that blur the line between a dagger-axe/halberd/billhook & a spear and one shown in Yang Hongs text that has a true curved hook on the reverse of a long spear. Another is the 'ji' spear which is a long blade with a W shape below which makes a sort of trident spear. Some I examined were quite fine, long and sharp but rather thin.
The most decorative and embellished swords come from minorities in Yunnan from East Zhou...there include animal forms (like frog blade spears), incast details and broad short blades which seem to favour art over function.
Given the huge variety the only way to see the differences between all is to examine many pictures in texts.
I dont know anything much about post-Han as that isnt my area of interest but there are masses of types in existence coming from late bronze models. There doesnt seem to be as much variety shown in 'weapons in ancient China' after Han as regional and local diversity seems reduced under Imperial governments.

Well, the regulations are for a lance used in official examinations, so those used in combat were likely shorter.

It just sounds too long for a cavalry weapon.

Heck, 18 feet is the upper limit for footman's pikes, actually.

The longest lances I am aware of were carried by Polish winged hussars in the 16th and 17th centuries--they were about 15 feet long. It should also be noted that Polish lances of this type were in fact hollow, which made them light enough to manage, but also obviously reduced strength.

As I said, it's unlikely these were used in warfare. The test in question had the rider hit two boards with an 18ft long lance (source: The Army of Tang China, Karl Heinz Ranitzsch, Montvert publications)

I'll ask KHR what the units in the source are..

18 feet would be 18 Chinese feet I believe...forgot the exact conversions on that, but it's still pretty big.

How many modern feet would that convert to?

1 chinese chi during the Qing dynasty = 1.1 english feet if I recall correctly.
So 18 chinese feet would be 19.8

I am not sure about the Tang length

According to http://www.odts.de/southptr/needham/measures.htm one Tang chi is 250mm, or about 9.8 modern inches. So an 18-"foot" Tang lance would be 4.5 metres, or about 14 feet 9 inches (assuming I've got my sums right....).