Revealing the Cold Weapons of Northern Nomadic Cavalry in Hand-to-Hand Combat

Nomads in the northern grasslands are used to riding horses and archery. Since ancient times, their armed forces have been mainly composed of light archers. But in fact, in addition to bows and arrows, nomadic cavalry are also equipped with a large number of hand-to-hand combat cold weapons. Of course, weapons also have obvious characteristics suitable for riding and fighting. For example, they usually use tomahawk and hammer. These combat weapons are equipped with short handles and can be held by one hand, which is very convenient for galloping and swinging on horseback, especially with the forward momentum of war horses.

After entering the Bronze Age, Geji was used more and more in the Central Plains, while axe gradually decreased. However, in the northern grassland areas (including the mountainous areas along the Great Wall in the south), tomahawk is still popular. A kind of bronze axe is popular in this area. It is not big, generally about 10 cm long. There is a tubular axe parallel to the axe blade on the back of the axe, so it is used to be called "pipe axe". They are all practical weapons for nomadic cavalry.

A tomb in the late Shang Dynasty was excavated in Shangdong Village, Jixian County, Shanxi Province. A bronze dagger, a pipe axe and two copper spoons were buried with it. The dagger is located on the right side of the human bone, the pipe axe is located on the left side of the head, and the copper spoon is firmly hung at the waist. The owner of the tomb was a nomadic cavalry. Dagger is his ornament, which can be used for self-defense, killing animals and cutting meat. The pipe axe is a fighting weapon, and the copper spoon is of course a tableware. With these three objects and a pair of bows and arrows, he can probably travel all over the grassland to fight.

In the tombs of Hu Lin, Loulan or Xiongnu during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in Erdos, Mongolia, crane-billed axes made of copper or iron are often unearthed. One end of the axe is as thin as a crane's mouth, which can be pecked, and the other end is a narrow axe shape, which can be chopped. There is a hole on it to put the handle. It is also a powerful armor-piercing weapon.

The war hammer commonly used by nomadic cavalry is not the kind of big-headed melon hammer that we often see on the stage of Chinese opera, but a short-handled small-headed hammer. Many people call it a respectable club. In Erdos, Inner Mongolia, this kind of copper hammer head or copper club head equivalent to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty is often found. Its diameter is 6~8 cm, or it is star-shaped or tribulus-shaped, with a hole with a handle inside. This kind of hammer is easy to swing and very effective against heavily armored cavalry.

As for the melon hammer on the stage of Chinese opera, it was once used by powerful warriors in the Central Plains. For example, according to Records of the Historian Biography of Wei Gongzi, Xin seized the military power to save Zhao, so that "Zhu Haixiu had forty pounds of iron vertebrae (the ancients often called the tool vertebrae)" and killed Wei Jiangjin; "Historical Records of Hou Shi Family" records that Sean's "Darius, the iron thorn weighs 120 Jin", attacked Qin Shihuang in Bolangsha, toured the whole country, and missed the vice car. These "iron vertebrae" are probably all a kind of melon hammer.

Sacrificial ceremonies in the Ming and Qing Dynasties generally used a big melon hammer, the so-called "golden melon". 1970 The pottery figurines unearthed from Wang Shizi's tomb in the Ming Dynasty, which were found in Fenghuang Mountain, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, some held melon hammers, and the poles were very long, more than half the height of people. This kind of melon hammer is not flexible enough in combat and suitable for single-handedly, so it has never been used.

Get down to business. The tradition of nomadic people generally using tomahawk and hammer has been maintained until the Song and Yuan Dynasties. For example, according to Liao Bing Shi, every regular army in Qidan was equipped with "four bows, four hundred arrows, one gun of different length, one bone flower, one axe, one flag and one cone". "History of Dorsang Mongolia" notes: "The Mongolian army fights and rides. Each person has a leather armor, a pocket, a bow, an axe, a knife and a spear, and several horses that only need grassland grass for food "; "In addition to bows, arrows and axes, everyone must carry a hammer to sharpen the crossbow ... It is best to equip with weapons and hold a micro-machete, wearing a skin, leather armor and iron pieces on the armor." According to the relevant records of the Mongolian army attacking India, they also used the hammer.

Interestingly, in the Song Dynasty, the small-headed hammer was generally called Gu Duo. Song Wen Jing commented on Song, saying, "Those in Guanzhong have more guanidine in their bellies, and they are lonely at the top and capital at the bottom. The common reason is that the person with the big stick head is called guanidine, which was later mistaken for bone flower. " The previous episode of Wu Jing Zong Yao also said in Volume XIII: "To pursue its meaning, it was originally guanidine (guā zhūn), which was so big that it was said that it was as big as guanidine, and later generations made mistakes, taking guanidine as a bone and guanidine as a flower." "Gu Duo" is obviously a folk saying. Song people also called a kind of fried pastry Gu Duo, while Ming people generally called the flower bud Gu Duo (up to now), whose original intention was to write a round and convex shape. In the mural of Liaoqing cemetery in Balinyouqi, Inner Mongolia, there is an image of Qidan Yiwei holding a bone flower. The head of the bone flower is round or garlic-shaped, with short handles.

Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the use of hammers and axes (formerly halberds) by the Central Plains army has been greatly influenced by the nomadic people in the north. According to Li Quan's Taibai Silent, Ma Jun mainly used spears and sabres, as well as hammers and axes in the Tang Dynasty. Pecking is probably a weapon similar to a crane's beak axe. There are two kinds of bone flowers in Wu kiln in the Northern Song Dynasty, the head is made of iron or hardwood, one is shaped like a tribulus and the other is shaped like garlic, which is called garlic bone flower. However, these weapons are not popular in the Han army and can be classified as miscellaneous soldiers. People in the Song Dynasty used Gu Duo more for observing ceremonies, guarding command or specializing in miscellaneous bones, which was called "the one with many sons in the valley" and "the one with Gu Duo". "Notes of Song Wenjing Gong" said: "A person with integrity in the state is close to the guards." Meng Yuan's "Tokyo Dream of China" contains six records: On the 14th day of the first month, the son of heaven was fortunate to see Wuyue: "All the officials wore felt hats, hairpin flowers, red brocade troupe playing lion shirts, king of heaven gilded belts and heavy bones." "Wu Yao" said that the head of bone or wood is probably dedicated to musical instruments and health. This can also be said to be a kind of degradation. There are also two kinds of mixed soldiers who originated from the nomadic people in the north: one is the chain and the other is the meteor hammer.

Volume 13 of the last episode of "General Introduction to the Martial Classics" said: "The iron chain is clamped with sticks, which originated from Xirong (a general term for nomadic people in the west in ancient times) and can be used immediately. The infantry of the enemy Han, such as the farmer's flail of wheat, is decorated with iron pieces, which is conducive to hitting it from above, so the Han soldiers use it skillfully. "

Farm implements flail has been widely used in the Central Plains. It consists of two sticks: the lower one is long and can be called a handle; The upper segment is short, swings up and down, and hits the grain, which can be called the sharp segment. People in the Central Plains have long used flail to defend the city, which is called "Lianting". It means the same thing. "Mozi, Prepare the City Gate" requires "two steps to connect" in the city. Tang Du You said in "General Code": "Even the stilts are like a cangue without grain." The role is to "fight the enemy outside the women's wall." The city guard stood behind the city wall, on stilts. Without sticking out of the wall, they can hit the enemy who climbs up quickly outside the wall with the curved tip of the sword. However, before the Tang Dynasty, people in the Central Plains never seemed to use Lianting for cavalry and field operations.

The difference is that the flail sticks used by cavalry in the Middle East and the Near East are also bent from farm tools. They make sticks shorter, wrap the tips with iron to make spikes, or make them with iron, or even replace them with a small barbed hammer (there are several), which makes it difficult to stop horses. The "Xirong" mentioned in Wu Yao is probably a nomadic people in the northwest near Central Asia, and their weapons are often similar to those in Central Asia.

Meteor hammer, also known as flying hammer, was formerly a single-strand flying stone rope (Bolas) used by prehistoric people: a stone ball was tied to the end of the rope, swung around the top of the head quickly, and then let go of the rope, and the stone ball flew out under the action of centrifugal force to attack distant targets. This weapon has been rarely used in the Central Plains since it entered the era of historical records, but it is still often used by herders on the grassland to hunt and kill animals, and it can achieve miraculous effects when used on the open grassland, so it is often used in combat. In Ordos, Mongolia, bronze hammers and heavy hammers are often found as flying hammers for hanging ropes. Meteor hammers were often used as hidden weapons in Ming and Qing Dynasties, probably influenced by nomadic people in the north.