The Rise and Fall of the Huanshou Dao in China
According to the existing cultural relics, the shape of the Han Huanshou Dao is very similar to the short dagger or whittling knife of the grassland people. This kind of dagger or sharpening knife flowed into the mainland through trade exchanges and large-scale wars in the late Qin Dynasty. It developed into a new weapon that could replace the sword at the end of the Qin Dynasty, and finally flourished in the Han Dynasty.
However, although the shape of Hanhuan's first sword is very similar to that of the northern grassland people's sharpening knife, it is not very rigorous to say that Hanhuan's first sword originated from the grassland people. In Qin's battle against the Huns, the highly mobile grassland peoples who relied on war horses were completely different from the Central Plains armies that the Qin army had faced in the past. The Qin army gradually noticed that the multi-weapon hybrid battle formations used in the past to fight large-scale infantry groups were not suitable for fighting the mobile and flexible prairie cavalry.
In 1976, archaeologists discovered an iron knife in the Qin Dynasty tomb of the Yuan family in Qin'an, Gansu. The knife has a single blade with a straight back and an arc-shaped tip. It was severely rusted when it was unearthed. It is 67 cm long, 59 cm long, and 1.5 cm thick on the back. Except for the lack of a ring head, the shape of this knife is basically similar to that of the Han Dynasty ring head knife, and the length is suitable for holding with one hand for chopping. After the fierce competition at the end of the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty finally inherited the legacy of the Qin Dynasty. As steel smelting and forging technology gradually matured, the standard Huanshou sword finally appeared and was promoted in the army.
The military Huanshou Dao is different from its previous knife weapons in that its shape is more similar to a sword. The long sword of the Han Dynasty, inherited from the Qin sword, has a narrow blade, a large thickness, and an octagonal cross-section. It is a quite thick weapon. The sword's seemingly slender blade has an astonishing slashing ability. If you make a simple analogy, then if you cut this kind of Han Dynasty long sword in half from the sword spine, you will get two Han Dynasty ring-headed swords. To be more precise, the shape of the Huanshou Dao has three characteristics.
Firstly, in the early stages, the Huanshou Dao blade had a semi-octagonal structure with traces of a bronze sword. In the later period, it gradually developed a semi-six-sided or semi-tetrahedral structure.
Second, the thickness of the Huanshou knife blade is generally relatively large.
Third, the tip of the ring-shou knife is straight.
Yang Hong described the Huanshou Knife in the book "Ancient Chinese Weapons" as: "Simple in shape, straight body, with a sharp edge on one side, and a thick back and tip on the other side. The blade is straight and there is no obvious boundary between the blade and the handle. An iron ring is cast continuously at the end of the handle, so it is known as the ring-headed sword."
This book also contains the "Portrait Stone of a Warrior Holding a Ring-headed Sword in the Eastern Han Dynasty". In the picture, you can clearly see that the tip of the ring-shou knife is tilted and straight at a large angle.
The article "Research Report on the First Domestic Grinding of the Ring-Shou Knife in the Han Dynasty" once mentioned an Eastern Han Dynasty Huan-shou Knife: "During the process of rust removal and shaping, we determined the blade body according to the original state of the Huan-shou Knife. The width of the cutting edge is 7 mm, and the angle of the cutting edge is 23 degrees... After rough grinding of the blade, we found that there is a raised rib line at the intersection of the cutting edge surface of the blade and the cutting edge surface of the blade tip, and it is connected with two The angle formed by the cutting edge ribs converges at one point, and the angle formed by the cutting edge ribs is also 135 degrees. "
The article "Research Report on the First Domestic Grinding of the Huanshou Sword in the Han Dynasty" focuses on this handle. The mid-Eastern Han Dynasty unearthed in Guangxi has a total length of 121 cm, a blade length of 101 cm, a stem length of 20 cm, an upper part thick of 6 mm, a lower part 9 mm thick, an upper part wide of 20.2 mm, a lower part of 28 mm wide, an inner arc curvature of 4 mm, and a weight of 1 kg. Huanshou Changdao said, "During the grinding process, the sword will naturally produce some iron rust stains when it comes into contact with water. In order to prevent rust stains, an appropriate amount of anti-rust agent is added to the water used to grind the sword. And we are grinding this A strange phenomenon occurred when cutting the ring head. When the grinding water was not added with any anti-rust agent, no visible oxidation occurred during the entire grinding process. The steel was blue and black with no rust stains. When encountering this This phenomenon is truly the first of its kind.”
In the scientific inspection and analysis after the first knife was used to repair this ring on one side, it was found: "The material of the knife body is relatively pure, and no salts and sulfides were found. The XRD equipment automatically detected the material of the object. It is 'stainless steel'. The object contains: Fe (iron), Cr (chromium), V (vanadium), Ru (ruthenium), Pt (platinum), Pd (palladium), Ti (titanium), the above elements are all in the form of alloys , of which Cr (chromium) contains a large amount.
The utensil does not contain Al (aluminum), Au (gold), Co (cobalt), Ge (germanium), and Ni (nickel). This test also allowed us to unravel the reason for the phenomenon of "no oxidation during the grinding process" mentioned above. The large addition of Cr (chromium) gave the steel its anti-oxidation ability. "It can be seen that until the Eastern Han Dynasty, the manufacturing of Huanshou Dao. There are still Qin Dynasty anti-corrosion and anti-rust technology in China.
In general, there are basically only two movements of the sword in the battle formation:
First, chopping. This is an effective attack method to destroy the enemy's pole weapon formation when breaking into the enemy's position during an attack.
Second, stabbing. This is a means to maintain the tightness of the queue when defending with a shield, while effectively attacking the opponent without destroying the formation.
The other sword techniques are just variations of these two movements. Derived from this, there are the defensive action "knock" evolved from the chopping action, the offensive action "flirt", and the "twist" evolved from the stabbing action. In the battle formation, the specific use of sword skills depends on the timing.
When breaking a formation or ascending a city, sweeping and teasing with wide opening and closing is the most effective. The purpose is to use the weight of the blade to swing away the opponent's weapons and open the way for the companions behind. When the array is slowly moving forward or defending, up and down slashes and small thrusts are the main methods. The purpose is to maintain the order of the array and achieve the goal of effectively killing the enemy through the combined attack of multiple weapons.
In close infantry skirmishes, the Huanshou Sword can be used with both hands, or with one hand with a shield or hook. Huanshou Dao has obvious advantages over Ge and swords in fighting. It combines the advantages of sword thrusts with small thrusts and strong suddenness, and Ge swords with strong power and lethality. At the same time, it does not have the short length and high cost of swords. , Ge is easy to damage and inconvenient to maintain. And after the emergence of "hundred steel-making" technology, this advantage has been further strengthened.
In addition, the Han Huanshou sword is actually a dual-purpose sword for both walking and riding. Because the thick Huanshou sword has a forward center of gravity, the rider only needs one effective swing to knock the opponent off his horse.
With the introduction of a large number of knife weapons from Central Asia and West Asia that gave up or weakened the stabbing function and pursued slashing capabilities, the shape of the ring-shou knife changed. At that time, it appeared that the upper edge of the blade tip was cancelled, and the length of the lower edge was lengthened, forming a de-headed blade with a raised blade tip. At the same time, the new ring-shou knife increases the width of the blade and makes the cutting edge angle form a small acute angle, which is more conducive to chopping. Three iron knives were unearthed from the late Eastern Jin Dynasty Tomb No. 1 in Taohuawu, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province. Two of them had long stems inserted into wooden handles for use; the other one had a cloud-shaped knife grid, a slightly girdle waist, and a rounded end. , can be inserted into the wooden handle for use.
This unusual-shaped Eastern Jin Dynasty iron sword with a round blade is only 46.5 centimeters long. It is the predecessor of the later long-handled sword with a complicated system. The shape of the blade tip can be said to be quite different from the Huanshou sword of the Han Dynasty.
As the emerging steel-filling technology is applied to the making of swords, the strength of the blade has been greatly improved, and blades with small acute angles have gradually become popular. Since then, this type of knife has not only become another important type of knife besides the horizontal type in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, but has also become the source of thick-edged broadswords and long-handled broadswords.
The "Book of Jin·The Biography of Helian Bobo" records that in the first year of Longsheng (413), Helian Bobo appointed the extremely cruel Chigan Ali as his general as a master craftsman, responsible for supervising the construction of Tongwan City. When Chigan Ali was testing whether the city wall was strong, he ordered his soldiers to pierce the wall with awls. If they pierced the wall, they would kill the craftsmen. If they could not pierce, they would kill the soldiers. Chigan Ali's cruelty is exactly the same in the manufacture of weapons, "He also made five weapons, especially elite ones. As soon as they are completed and presented, the craftsmen must die: if the armor fails to hit, the bowman will be killed; if it hits, the armor will be killed." The craftsman also made a hundred steel-making swords, which were called Dragon Birds, and the inscription on the back said: "An ancient sharp weapon, Wu Chu Zhanlu is very precious in the world." Tao Hongjing of the Southern Dynasties added some information about the number, shape, specifications, spread and other aspects of the Longque knife in the "Ancient and Modern Swords and Swords": "Helianbobo of Xiazhou made a five-mouth knife in the second year of Longsheng (414), with a back blade. There is a dragon bird ring with gold carvings in the shape of a dragon, three feet and nine inches long... Song Dynasty King Liu Yu broke through Chang'an and obtained this sword, and later entered the Liang Dynasty. "After that, during the reign of Renzong in the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty general Zong Shi was born. When Heng built Qingjian City, someone dug up an ancient iron sword and presented it to the government. This sword was "extremely skillfully made, with a large ring at the bottom, made of a wrapped dragon, and its head is in the shape of a bird (that is, the ring head is made in the shape of a wrapped dragon, And the dragon's head resembles the head of a bird)". Liu Chang, who was in charge of the Yongxing Army at that time, appraised it and said: "This dragon bird sword made by Helian Bobo is the so-called Daxia dragon bird. The bird's head is covered with bird clouds." Qingjian City happened to be located within the territory of the Daxia Kingdom at that time, but Unfortunately, there are only written records of this knife, and no graphics or physical objects have been circulated.