"Hook and sickle gun" in China ancient pike weapon

"Hook and sickle gun" in China ancient pike weapon

In ancient times, the hook and sickle gun was also called "Mazha Knife", which was a long-handled weapon specially used by infantry in ancient battlefields. It first appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and evolved from halberd. You may think there is a big difference between the two, but the original halberd is actually a cold weapon with a horizontal blade on the side of the spear head. Later, in the process of evolution, various halberds appeared, such as male halberds, divination halberds, relying on halberds and crochet guns.

The shape of the hook and sickle gun is quite special. On the basis of pike, a sickle-shaped cross blade is equipped under the gun head. The earliest hook and sickle gun was a weapon formed by tying a cross-edged sickle to a pike with hemp rope, and later it gradually became an integrated cold weapon and had its own name.

The length of the hook and sickle gun is not much different from that of the ordinary pike, generally about 2 meters, and the length of the spear head is between 25 and 30 centimeters. Part of the hook and sickle is bent inward, and the inside is edged, which can hurt the horse's leg and kill the enemy. It's a cavalry directional weapon. The most classic battle was the Yancheng War between Yue Fei and Jin Wushu in the Song and Jin Wars. Yue Fei drew the kidnapper Ma Tie of Jin Wushu with a hook and sickle gun.

In fact, in ancient China, quite a number of long weapons were horizontal blades or hook sickles. In addition to the hook gun mentioned above in the Spring and Autumn Period, there are no fewer than eight kinds of such weapons recorded in Introduction to Martial Arts. Especially in the Song Dynasty, when cavalry dominated the battlefield, the application of hook and sickle reached its peak and developed into various systems, including single hook and double hook. More famous are single-hook and double-hook guns.

There are relevant records about the heyday of the hook and sickle gun in the Song Dynasty. It is said that Yuan Hao, the king of Xixia, popularized a form of combat called "serial horse" in the army of Xixia kingdom after he ascended the throne, that is, soldiers and horses were all wrapped in real armor, which was actually a kind of heavily armored cavalry. However, there were no good horses in the Song Dynasty, which could not be beaten or caught. Finally, I had no choice but to think of the hook gun in the Spring and Autumn Period.

There were many similar weapons in ancient China, which was the wisdom of our ancestors. We can clearly understand the flexibility of the ancients in this weapon, which is a very precious quality, and it is these qualities that have created our present Chinese culture.