Chinese sword

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SeismicCWave

Joined
Sep 27, 2014
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I know there were/are all sorts of Chinese swords. I am not quite interested in the more modern ones since there are not much history about them. I seem to read a lot about swords from all over the world in this forum. Especially the Japanese swords and the European swords. China also had a period of history that used swords as the primary weapon prior to gun powder being invented. Starting with the bronze age where swords were made with non ferrous metals.

I don't seem to read much about the older Chinese swords in this forum. There are not as much reverent to Chinese sword makers compare to Japanese sword makers. There are not as much discussion on old Chinese swords metallurgy compare to the Vikings or Japanese metallurgy.

What ever information I have gleaned about older Chinese swords are mostly fantasies from movies or novels. I come across very little factual information about the Chinese giam being made and used. Did the Chinese sword makers use the same type of forging methods as other civilizations? Did they use differential heat treating like the Japanese? Did they use different steel to forge a sword?

I am sure some of the rank and file weapons for the military are more crude but effective. The dai dao comes to mine.

A lot of the modern information regarding Chinese swords seem to be more marketing hype and fanciful rather than historic and factual.

Are there any knowledgeable people on this forum that can shed some light on this subject or can point me in the proper direction to do more searches?

Thanks in advance.
 
SeismicCWave said:
Did the Chinese sword makers use the same type of forging methods as other civilizations?
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Yes. Folding of steel (especially bloomery steel) to get rid of slag and to homogenise the carbon content. Pattern-welding. Sanmei and inserted-edge construction were common. Sanmei could have decorative pattern-welded cladding.

SeismicCWave said:
Did they use differential heat treating like the Japanese?
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Yes. (As did many other people.)

AFAIK, the differential heat treatment methods used in China included: Japanese-style clay coating to give differential quenching, edge-quenching to give differential quenching, slack-quenching to give differential auto-tempering, laminated/inserted-edge construction to give differential hardening with a uniform quench and temper. I don't know if differential tempering was used (after quenching, heating the body of the blade for tempering while keeping the edge cool), but it's possible given the use of such differential tempering in Nepal and SE Asia.

SeismicCWave said:
Did they use different steel to forge a sword?
Click to expand...

Sometimes. From about mid-Han, a major Chinese steel-making process was decarburisation of cast iron; this was restricted to China until the Industrial Revolution so definitely counts as "different steel". They also used bloomery steel and crucible steel, which were used elsewhere.
 
>>AFAIK, the differential heat treatment methods used in China included: Japanese-style clay coating to give differential quenching, edge-quenching to give differential quenching, slack-quenching to give differential auto-tempering, laminated/inserted-edge construction to give differential hardening with a uniform quench and temper. I don't know if differential tempering was used (after quenching, heating the body of the blade for tempering while keeping the edge cool), but it's possible given the use of such differential tempering in Nepal and SE Asia.<<

Yes I meant tempering different part of the steel with different types of clay. I didn't mean differential tempering after quenching. I would imagine some sword smith may try to heat part of the steel to soften it up.

Thanks for the information. I will continue to look up the links and read more.

>>Sometimes. From about mid-Han, a major Chinese steel-making process was decarburisation of cast iron; this was restricted to China until the Industrial Revolution so definitely counts as "different steel". They also used bloomery steel and crucible steel, which were used elsewhere.<<

My Chinese history is not that great so I wouldn't know the Industrial Revolution time period compare to Europe. Did they all occurred around the 1500's?
 
gadunz said:
The Han dynasty (Chinese: &#28450;&#26397;; pinyin: Hàn cháo) was the second imperial dynasty of China (206 BC–220 AD),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
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Thanks, so far I have done some readings from your links. The one that is most useful comes from Wikipedia. I will continue to browse wikipedia for more information. Sword Buyers Guide website is not bad but are mostly focusing on modern items.
 
Chinese swords and sword styles are my favorites, and I think they are terribly underappreciated. That will change drastically in the future, bet yer arse! :)
 
Mecha said:
Chinese swords and sword styles are my favorites, and I think they are terribly underappreciated. That will change drastically in the future, bet yer arse! :)
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1. I hope you are right.
2. I am doing what little I can to help that!

Jian, and especially dao, are fun to make. From the perspective of a smith/cutler, the Chinese used EVERY trick that any other culture used. All in one place. One of the reasons I picked them (ok, two) is their long history (maybe the longest with steel except for India), and this array of outstanding techniques that one can choose from.
 
>>From the perspective of a smith/cutler, the Chinese used EVERY trick that any other culture used. All in one place. One of the reasons I picked them (ok, two) is their long history (maybe the longest with steel except for India), and this array of outstanding techniques that one can choose from.<<

That's what I was wondering. Ancient China had a fairly long history with warfare and technology yet I don't read a lot about the appreciation of Chinese swords in the modern days. Mostly it is about Japanese swords and sword makers.
 
Chinese martial arts got gutted under Mao. The Chinese have a long history of martial artists having a profound effect on political life, whether it was riding out to save the country as the Shaolin monks are purported to have done, or to fight against unpopular rules like the Red Boat rebels trying to overthrow the Manchu. Look up the Big Knife squads of WWII, where men with swords were actually fighting the Japanese with some success in guerilla warfare. When Mao came to power, one of his fiats was to "standardize and update" Chinese martial arts. Actual martial content got cut in favor of big, flashy, and largely ineffective fighting techniques. And you either taught the "updated" version, emigrated, or went for reeducation. It effectively pacified the Wu Wei, the martial world, and took away the last bit of their power.

Wu Shu swords are made to look shiny, move fast, and not actually hit anything. They are usually aluminum alloys and as disposable as any other piece of sporting equipment. Thankfully there are some smiths who held out long enough that the political climate smiles on them making the real deal again. But it's going to take a while to build back a sword culture in China, particularly when blades are strongly associated with the Uighar separatists. This limits business opportunities and the ability to just make quality swords for a living.

This is a thumbnail sketch of a complicated situation that would take a book to address. The schism between Modern and Traditional Chinese martial artists is, in my experience, bitter and acrimonious. There won't be a lot of appreciation of Chinese swords until there is enough quality manufacture to expose people to worthwhile kit, and the problem is exacerbated by two different groups who have diametrically opposed ideas of what constitutes a "good" sword. It's a messy situation.
 
What Biting Sarcasm said...

Mostly, each time there was a Dynasty change, they destroyed as much of the previous history as they could (with some exceptions, the Ming wanted to draw a line back to the Han-dominated periods of the distant past, but there wasn't a lot of the old stuff left).

So, there would be, "regime change," and an attempt to erase the previous culture in part of the process of propaganda. Trying to convince the people that the current rulers were put there by Divine Right and that they had always been the ones who were supposed to be in charge.

Imagine German and European history if Hitler had won! It's like that.

I am making swords that are inspired by originals or photos of originals from the Ming and Qing period.

I LOVE to make daos. Jian, well... I make them and they come out just as good. It is just that the dao was the workhorse, and the war sword. Jian were mostly personal sidearms for wealthy and powerful.

As such, there is more of a range of dao, from male jewelry down to the sword equivalent of an AK-47. Biting Sarcasm hit it perfectly when he described WuShu swords versus historical swords.

Everything, I mean everything, I have said is a sweeping generalization. Too long of a history to cover it all.
That is part of what makes this stuff so seductive.

There are some GREAT smiths working in China now. Great cutlers, too. However, they do most of their business with the wealthy and elite of Asia. They make swords that sell for the equivalent of up to 20K in the US, and there is a ranking system for smiths, so I have heard. There Master smiths are in demand from various companies.

However, when you get down into prices from $2,500 - $900 for a sword with fittings, handle, and sheath (which is the price range I work in), there is a ton of variability. You can't be sure what you are getting, and a lot of people (just like in NYC) will take advantage of you and think you deserve it if you are gullible.

That is why I do this. There are a lot of serious practitioners of martial arts who want a sword made to the specs of a battle-ready dao or jian from the Qing, Ming, or Han. Also, there are a ton of shapes that I have yet to make.

Shangxue (hamon) started in China, too.

you get the idea. There is a place for these swords in the modern smith's work. Personally, my next goal is to conquer the spherical fittings of the Mid-Qing. Piercings and adornment, too. Once I make myself the punch and die sets, I will be good. Do the piercings and engraving/carving, punch out a hemisphere-ish shape from the flat sheet, do it all over again.

hope y'all don't mind the ramble.

Buy Iron and Steel swords of China. The pictures are in English, I promise.

kc
 
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BitingSarcasm, the devolution you describe of the martial arts by newly-established regimes is fairly common through history. Martial organizations have often been seen as a threat, and get neutralized. In most cases, the knowledge remains underground and springs back up like a seed, celebrated as part of cultural identity, as soon as the new regime feels confident that its hold is secure. This is happening in China now as well through the Confucius Institute, with the government supporting China's martial arts as sort of a bridge-builder. This is technically the same government that used great Shaolin temples for artillery practice targets 50 years or so ago.

Capoeira in Brazil is a good example. A century ago capoeristas used to get their achilles' tendons severed for practicing. Now the art is considered part of Brazilian identity, and is spreading so quickly around the world that the main complaint from the great maestres is that there aren't enough qualified teachers and so bad capoeira is being taught.

What I'm getting at, is that the Chinese lady who taught me some wushu, was in Beijing as a teenager during the throes of the cultural revolution, and talked about how the old private school she had been in her whole life was transformed into a People's school, and how what was taught became limited. She also explained how and why the moves were used in a martial capacity, in a square and sturdy way devoid of flashiness. It's still out there! :D


Just a little picture from the depths of the interebz:

t8wQ8bW.jpg
 
Mecha - is there any rhyme or reason to the order of the swords? Like oldest period to newest? Grouped by Dynasty? What I know about Chinese swords is that "dao" essentially means "single edge sword". Beyond that, I'm clueless about chinese swords.
 
Dao actually means knife.
Jian are, "swords," and dao are, "big knives." Sort of like schwert versus messer in German, if I understand correctly. God knows I may not... but I got that from a long ago conversation over email with Phillip Tom. He is the expert of the Asian Saber styles. Especially but not limited to Chinese.

I think I suggested it earlier, but he has written two outstanding articles about daos:

Notable Sabers at the Met (I already have a set of decorated fittings to go with a dao that I am making next that will be very much like the blade in Figure 5 - the mult-bar, twist core). Yep, that's next, for sure. I love that kind of work, and that kind
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpub...mma_the_metropolitan_museum_journal_v_36_2001


Sabers of the Qing

http://www.mandarinmansion.com/articles/Philip Military Sabers of the Qing.pdf

Of Geese and Willows:
http://mandarinmansion.com/content/geese-and-willows-yanmaodao-and-liuyedao


Most of these links are through Peter Deker's Mandarin Mansion site. Peter is a good guy, it appears. He does outstanding handle wrapping in traditional styles. He is also a great resource for design info, pictures, and excited conversation over the net. He is a passionate collector and dealer, and a great resource.

Take care, all.

Sam, thanks for the info about martial arts and cultural transmission.
 
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Thank you. I am glad there are some passionate information about Chinese swords. History is all about the winning side. I am sure the norm is for the winning regime to eliminate as much of the prior history as possible to bolster the current regime's position. That's just typical human history. That is really too bad for the later generations that are interested in some historical facts.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Mecha - is there any rhyme or reason to the order of the swords? Like oldest period to newest? Grouped by Dynasty? What I know about Chinese swords is that "dao" essentially means "single edge sword". Beyond that, I'm clueless about chinese swords.
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I really don't know how they're grouped, or how accurate it is. Worth pondering over, though.
 
They aren't really grouped by time frame or geographic area, from the ones I recognize. I wonder if the maker of this graphic also did one for jian? It may be worth a look.

I played Capoeira for five years or so, when I still had a young man's joints--I would still go in the roda today, if there was one nearby. It is an absolute blast to train, and some of the best people I ever trained with were there. I contrast that with the sheer number of personality disorders I met training Wing Chun, and there has to be something there.....The first "knife" I ever modified was the Capoeira straight razor, which is basically just a blade with a T-handle that fits in a sheath on your calf. You draw it with the other foot, and wield it between the toes, sticking out like a rooster spur. Tons of fun, but I wouldn't have needed anybody to cut my tendons for me, one good slip would have done it.

In Brazil, in the Philippines, in India, martial traditions were saved when they migrated into dance. You have to admire the strength of human creativity in the face of persecution.
 
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