Why historically Chinese soldiers rarely had big shields

It's better to watch less historical dramas, don't be misled, who said that Chinese soldiers rarely held large shields.

The Eastern Han Dynasty was the beginning of the golden age of the shield, and the complex style of the double-arc shield gradually gave way to the rectangular shield with a curved surface, and the area of shield protection increased. Knives replaced swords as the most important weapon used by shield soldiers, and the extra-long blade of the ringed head sword facilitated straight stabbing. Considering the long swords of the Qin and Han dynasties, we can conclude that China preferred small shields and long swords, in contrast to the large shields and short swords of the Romans, which included a number of influences, such as the fact that Roman attackers preferred to use their shields for ramming and their swords for stabbing, and of course, this may have had something to do with the fact that the Roman soldiers still needed to equip themselves with javelins and spears.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, a large number of heavy cavalry appeared in the Middle Kingdom, along with a surprisingly large number of armored warriors using large shields in the north. At this time, the shield is still used in conjunction with the long sword, both North and South are the same, the traditional Han soldiers, shield without armor, wearing loose martial robes, foreign soldiers, is more shield armor with, especially before the Sui Dynasty, not only the size of the shield has increased greatly, the armor is also more and more sophisticated, the importance of defense, can be said to be the world's unique.

Sui-Tang era, China's shield is mostly pentagonal, this style of shield has been used until the end of the Qing Dynasty, according to Dunhuang mural, we find that the contradiction of soldiers began to appear, but more is still the sword and shield infantry, sword and shield, foot lance is the two main configurations of infantry.

Since the Five Dynasties, shields began to appear a big change, the gradual disappearance of the single shield, the emergence of large standing shield, a direct reflection of the "martial arts scriptures" only to see the large infantry standing shields do not see infantry shields, but the cavalry side of the card only. Large standing shield and armor heavy has a close relationship with the combination of history, we find that the Han army, and the ancient Persian army similar, through a large number of bow and arrow kill the enemy, a line of large shields and long weapons to block the enemy cavalry charge, is a typical tortoise tactics, but it is a pity that Persia has a cavalry to match the Song dynasty did not, is to the Song more than the loss of the Persians across Central Asia. The three northern dynasties rarely see infantry records, but according to the Mongolian attack painting words, we see that the Yuan army also more use of large standing shields, perhaps due to the influence of the Han Chinese.

Ming Dynasty is the shield revival era, at this time, the shield includes a round regimental plate, pentagonal long plate, mandarin ducks array at the same time using two shields with, rattan began to be widely used in the south. Shield use is naturally used with short swords, Liaodong, Goryeo and other places like to use round shields with wild goose-plume swords. Considering the large number of cavalry in northern China, these wooden round shields could probably be carried on the back and maneuvered with the cavalry. Standing cards were also used on warships to protect soldiers.