There are not many trees and bamboos in the Mongolian Plateau. What did ancient nomads use to make bows and arrows?

Anyone who has seen it with his own eyes just takes it for granted that there are not many trees in the Mongolian Plateau. As for bamboo, there is no rule that bamboo must be used as a bow and arrow. Even in the Central Plains where bamboo is abundant, bamboo is not always used to make bows and arrows.

The earliest bows were not made of bamboo.

Bow and arrow is a very old long-range ejection weapon. At present, the earliest known bow appeared in ancient Ramesses I, about 2000 years earlier than our country. The earliest bows were mainly made of wood strips, antelope horn pieces, palm skins, beef tendons, etc., and bamboo was not used. After all, bamboo is not produced in Africa.

The earliest bow in China appeared in the era of three emperors and five emperors in ancient times, but the earliest bow in the Central Plains was indeed made of bamboo, which was made by Zhang Hui, the grandson of the Yellow Emperor, and played a great role in the battle between the Yellow Emperor and the Chiyou tribe.

In addition to the south of China, there are other areas in Southeast Asia where bamboo is used as bows, such as ancient Egypt and Assyria in ancient West Asia, all of which are made of other materials. However, due to the limited strength of bamboo as a bow, different materials are used in different places according to local conditions.

The bow of Mobei grassland comes from horns and wood.

Compared with farming people, nomadic people use bows and arrows more frequently in their daily production and life, and Mongolia is called "the people on horseback". In addition, there are Xiongnu, Rouran, Xianbei, Turkic and so on. The people who have propagated on the Mongolian plateau for thousands of years are all good at riding horses and archery, and bows and arrows are very important to them.

Military History of the Yuan Dynasty: Since the Yuan Dynasty, people have been good at riding and shooting, and they have won the world for the benefit of their bows and horses.

Mongolians regard bow and arrow as life, and Mongolian horn bow is also regarded as the king of cold weapons, which is an indispensable part of grassland culture. However, the bow on the Mongolian plateau is not made of bamboo, but of wood and horns.

In fact, the Mongolian bow, like other areas such as the Central Plains, is also a composite bow, not made of bamboo or any other single material.

The traditional Mongolian horn bow does not use bamboo, but mainly uses water horn, rock horn, ox back tendon and birch, which is very elastic. After repeated polishing, these main materials are made of birch from Xing 'an birch as arch tires, with horns stuck on one side and beef back tendons or beef tendons stuck on the other.

From the processing of raw materials to the completion of finished bows, there are more than 100 complex processes. In ancient times, it took about a year to complete any traditional Mongolian claw bow, which was not so easy.

Horn bow needs to be bonded with natural materials such as animal glue when it is manufactured, and it is mainly made of pigskin and swim bladder. Although the adhesion is strong, it takes a long time to dry stably, so it takes a long time to make Mongolian horn bow.

Bamboo is not an ideal material for making bows.

Although the earliest bow in the Central Plains was made of bamboo, with the development of time, bamboo was not the main bow in the later period, even in places rich in bamboo, because bamboo bows had many shortcomings.

A large number of bamboos grow in the south of the Yellow River Basin. The materials are easy to obtain and the cost is very low. Bamboo can even be bent directly into a single bow because of its flexibility. However, the power of a single bow is limited, and the effect of making a composite bow with bamboo is very poor. Even mulberry, zhe, sandalwood and even rhododendron shrubs are better than bamboo.

Ulmus pumila, Pinus tabulaeformis, Betula platyphylla, Fraxinus mandshurica, Salix psammophila and Fraxinus ash are the majority in the north. Birch and other wood are usually used in the Mongolian plateau. Even in the southern region where bamboo is abundant, the number of bamboo bows unearthed at present is very small, which does not account for the majority.

There are many trees used to make bows on the Mongolian plateau.

"The sky is wild, the wind blows the grass and the cattle and sheep are low." Although the first thought of the Mongolian plateau is grassland and desert Gobi, there are actually many forests on the Mongolian plateau, especially in the eastern and northern regions.

The forest coverage rate of the whole Mongolian plateau is currently around 25%, most of which are concentrated in Hulunbeier grassland and Daxinganling area, as well as Hang 'ai Mountain in Mongolia. The density of trees on the grassland is not as high as that in the Central Plains, especially in the south, but it is not too small, and the output of wood is enough for the production and life of ancient nomadic people.

Therefore, the fact that the Mongolian plateau does not produce bamboo does not affect the local nomads to make bows and arrows for thousands of years, because even in bamboo-producing areas, bamboo is not used to make bows and arrows. As for the problem of trees, there are a lot of forests on the Mongolian plateau, especially birch, zhe, Chinese pine and other trees with excellent bow and arrow performance.