What is the development process of ancient weapons in China?

1963, a beaten stone arrow in the late Paleolithic period was excavated in Zhiyu Village, Shuoxian County, Shanxi Province. It is made of very thin long flint pieces with a very sharp tip. The edges on both sides of the body are not very sharp. This kind of stone arrow obviously conforms to the three elements of the arrow: sharp, medium sharp and geometric shape. These three points can be explained as arrows. At the other end (bottom) opposite to the tip, a little concave left and right becomes a small handle, which is obviously used to install the arrow shaft. It can be inferred from these two points that Homo sapiens used stone bows and arrows. According to radiocarbon dating, this piece of flint arrow with a length of about 2.8 cm was produced more than 28,000 years ago. Although the legend of Houyi shooting at the sun is only a myth, it also shows the important position and role of bows and arrows in ancient human life.

The use of bows and arrows has played a real "revolutionary" role in the history of human science and technology and even the development of the whole society. Since the bow and arrow, the world of human activities has become wider, and humans have begun to walk out of caves and nests, leave trees and forests, and settle in flat and vast plains and grasslands. With bows and arrows, human beings can not only get more prey, create good material conditions for their own survival and reproduction, but also greatly strengthen their own security and defense capabilities. The ancient literature "Yi * copula" said: the string wood is an arc, and the split wood is a vector. Arc is a wooden bow; Arrow is an ancient name for arrow. Although it is difficult to see the stone age bow and arrow poles in archaeological excavations (bow and arrow poles are made of perishable materials such as bamboo, wood and rattan, so it is difficult to preserve them so far), the unearthed stone age arrows are very rich, including stones, bones, mussels, pottery and other different materials, and most of them are polished and have different shapes. In the border areas of China and Mongolia, northern provinces such as Xinjiang, Ningxia, Heilongjiang and Jilin, and some inland provinces, there are scattered microlithic cultural sites, and a large number of stone arrows are often left on the surface. In the late Neolithic period, some arrows were polished into regular, symmetrical and very smooth shapes, which were very similar to later metal arrows. A large number of arrows were unearthed, indicating the universal application of bows and arrows. With the gradual emergence of classes, the gradual formation of countries and the continuous evolution of human society, the use of bows and arrows has also undergone great changes-the arrows that were originally shot at animals began to turn to humans and became weapons for human beings to kill each other. Archaeologists found human bones shot by arrows in Neolithic sites in Shanxi and Yunnan. However, the femur of an adult man at the Neolithic site in Dadunzi, Pixian County, Jiangsu Province was deeply shot into 2.7 cm by a bone arrow. So far, the broken bone arrow is still embedded in the bone about 5600 years ago. The Yellow Emperor fought against Zhuolu Chiyou and won with bows and arrows. However, at that time, bows and arrows were made of bamboo and wood. Although they can reach far, they are not perfect. From then on, they explained the principle to each other, invented and refined each other, so the bow and arrow gradually became the weapon of war. Kao Yun: In ancient times, Huang waved a bow, which Xunzi called a bow. Shanhaijing said: Like a small life, it is the beginning of a bow. According to the annual * * * * certificate, when the wave is the creator, it is probably the bow of the ancients. At that time, bows and arrows were twice as useful as other weapons. Not only can they shoot far, but those who have studied it carefully and are familiar with it are not inferior to modern firearms. Historical records? Zhou Benji: "Chu has Yang, who is good at shooting, is also good at shooting. They shot the willow leaves with a hundred paces and hit the target with a hundred shots. Thousands of people from left to right are good at shooting. Therefore, all the eighteen martial arts started with crossbows and ended in vain, which shows that we attach importance to them. After entering the bronze age, the shape of the bow was improved through reform. In Shang dynasty, a combined bow made of more than two layers of materials appeared, which was more powerful than the original single bow and greatly expanded the range of the arrow. Bow and arrow were the main weapons in the car war in Shang and Zhou Dynasties. In the tomb of Zeng Houyi, known as the "treasure house of weapons of the Zhou Dynasty", there are more than 4,500 weapons of the Zhou Dynasty, including long bows, short bows, single bows and double bows made of wood and bamboo. At the same time, there are some bamboo arrows about 70 cm long, and their bronze arrows have flat wings and triangles. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, more advanced compound bows began to appear. (A compound bow means that its bow arm is composed of two or more materials with different elasticity, generally horns and wood. The two materials are glued by animals to form a "C" shape, and then rolled back, thus forming unique protrusions on the two shoulders. Due to the moderate toughness of composite materials, usually only a short bow arm is needed to provide enough tension. ) The strength of the bowman is very important. Generally, the tension of a top-grade bow is about 1.20 Jin, and a brave general with great strength can pull open a strong bow of 300 Jin, because the tension of the bow determines the range, penetration and hitting accuracy of the arrow. Bow and arrow, as a weapon that can shoot the enemy from a long distance, is listed as the first weapon and is widely used. At that time, nobles and sons were taught archery from an early age; As a skill, shooting has become one of the "six arts" that doctors or officials must be familiar with. It is not only regarded as a high-level etiquette at the monarch's meetings and banquets, but also an early nobleman, if he has a boy at home, must shoot six arrows in the four directions of heaven and earth to show the world that a man wants to conquer, which shows his position in people's hearts. " A bow or an arrow is sometimes hung on the door of Manchu people in Northeast China, which is a continuation of this ancient folk custom. By the Spring and Autumn Period, bow and arrow making had been very particular, and there were strict regulations on material selection, production technology and specifications. Some good bows take three years. The bows at this time are all compound bows. Usually, the core is wood with good toughness, such as Cen Mu, and the outside is wrapped with wood with good hardness, and the outermost is wrapped with beef tendon, which greatly strengthens the potential energy stored in the bow body, so that more power can be converted into potential energy, and the bow and arrow can be shot farther within the tension range allowed by the human physiological structure. This kind of bow and arrow has extremely high technical requirements, complicated procedures and an effective range of 60-80 meters. A good bow and arrow can shoot through a bison in the distance! The strength of archers is very important. Generally, the tension of a top-grade bow is about 1.20 Jin, and a brave general with great strength can pull open a strong bow of 300 Jin, because the tension of the bow determines the range, penetration and hitting accuracy of the arrow. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the composite technology greatly increased the potential energy stored in the bow, enabling people to transform more strength into the bow and shoot faster and farther arrows within the scope permitted by the physiological structure. Of course, this is also inseparable from the credit of the Shang Dynasty. The humble invention of finger plucking makes it possible to pluck a strong bow and a hard crossbow, and avoids reducing the firing rate or even cutting your fingers due to pain. Banzhi was so important to the shooter that the Qing nobles who started riding and shooting eventually alienated it into a kind of jewelry. The Han Dynasty is an era of great development of bows and arrows. When the soldiers were released, they said, "Bow, dome, and the dome of Zhang. At the end, it is called the flute tip; Also known as "Yi", the bones are slippery. The central government says "caress" and "caress", and people caress and hug. Fu Xiao's idle talk is meaningful, profound, graceful and meaningful, and his words are graceful and melodious. There are tiger bows, carved bows, angle bows, road bows and strong bows in the Han Dynasty. Most bows are inlaid with bronze ornaments or jade ornaments. Moreover, the shooting technology and theory of bow and arrow in Han Dynasty also rose to a higher level. Where's Yi? A Brief Introduction to Soldiers: Two Shoots at Every Gate, Eleven Shoots at Yin Tong, Three Shoots at General Li, Six Shoots at Wei, Wang Wu's Volume of Strong Crossbow Shooting, Fifteen Shoots, Five Shoots at Wang He by Guards and Pu Mao form a complete theoretical system.

When it comes to bows, you can't help mentioning arrows. We have to say that the crossbow is the source of strength and the arrow is the carrier of strength. The performance of the carrier has a considerable influence on the exertion of power. A well-designed arrow is usually divided into three parts: arrow, shaft and feather. The arrow is the warhead, the shaft is the balance part and the feather is the adjustment part. Let's start with the arrow. At first, arrows were made of animal bones, stones or mussels (mainly bones). Copper arrowheads appeared in the Shang Dynasty, but stone arrowheads and bone arrowheads are still in use because of their high cost. (There are 62 bronze cymbals, 365,438+00 bone cymbals and animal horn cymbals found at the Western Zhou site in Zhangjiapo, Xi 'an. ) Until the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, some bone arrowheads were still used for shooting, but they no longer appeared on the battlefield! The types of arrows are far more than crossbows, and there are many types of arrows recorded by Zhou Li. The design of bronze arrowheads in Shang Dynasty is quite dangerous, with ridges and triangular flat wings. When the arrow pierces the body, the barbs of the two wings will be firmly hooked on the closed wound and it is difficult to pull out, while the blood groove (up to 6! ) will continuously release the enemy's blood, and the lethality will be greatly enhanced. The arrows in Qin dynasty increased the lead content of poisoning, which can be called poison arrows! (The lead content of Qin cluster is as high as 7.7 1%) At the same time, like some, the surface chromium oxide technology that flies over the times also makes some arrows durable. However, copper is rare. The Qin dynasty has tried to make an arrow collar with iron. With the development of steel-making industry in the Western Han dynasty, all-iron arrows have also come out. The early iron arrow was cast, obviously unwilling to bear the malice of the bronze arrow style, but immediately found that its sharpness was not as good as the latter, so it had to be forged instead. The disadvantage of forging is that it must abandon the complex shape of casting, which is as easy to build as the four-sided body of an iron sword, but its advantages are more obvious. Forging will make it much tougher than its predecessors. The bronze arrow retired from the stage in the Eastern Han Dynasty. With regard to the types of arrows, the Order of the Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty * Arsenal recorded armor-piercing cone arrows, wolf-tongue arrows suitable for shooting horses, willow arrows for both men and women, rockets carrying kindling, and so on. In order to improve the lethality of arrows, the ancients also adopted the method of stewing arrows with arsenic and coating them with poison. We are all familiar with Guan Yu's story of scraping bones to cure poison, which is an example of using poison arrows. Some arrows have special uses, such as piercing arrows with silky arrows, crescent arrows aimed at enemy ships' ropes, whistling arrows after arrows, ropes at the tail, trailing arrows that can be pulled back after shooting, etc. By the way, in order to avoid the penetration of rockets in the water war, the ancients tied a Xiao Mu cross after igniting gunpowder and let the rockets be nailed to the sail to burn. The wisdom of ancestors can be seen! Because the forged iron arrow has established the basic characteristics of the iron arrow before the Song Dynasty-flat quadrangle, which is a favorable forging style. From Wei and Jin Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, the classification of iron arrows is very simple. The development route is to make the arrows harder and longer enough to penetrate the increasingly sophisticated armored armor and tear the muscles and bones of the enemy. By the Southern Song Dynasty, there were only five kinds of arrows in the "Cui Wei North Road Sign", which was beneficial to large-scale standardized production. As for the manufacture of shafts and feathers, there was little change in ancient times. Lightweight and tough bamboo and wood will always be the first choice for arrow shafts. As for the arrow feathers that make the flight and landing follow the correct angle, so as to fly farther and attack more effectively, eagle, pheasant and pheasant feathers are the top grade, and goose feathers are the bottom grade. During the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the installation length of the arrow shaft could be determined according to the floating state. In the above-mentioned "Cuiwei North Race", the arrow, arrow feather, shaft shape, feather sticking material technology, weight ratio of arrow and shaft, quality inspection method and craftsman's traceability system of crossbows are all specified in detail, which completely standardizes the production and manufacture of arrows. At this point, the bow and arrow has become a very perfect weapon of war! Ancient wars were often carried out in the form of array, and bows and arrows played an important role in the army. It is recorded in the Taibai Silent Document of the Tang Dynasty that when the First Army of the Tang Dynasty prepared12,500 men, it was equipped with "bows12,500 pieces, 37,500 strings and 375,000 arrows". Archers lined up in front of the array, controlled bows and fired arrows, and thousands of bows and arrows were fired in unison. In an instant, arrows are like rain, arrows are like migratory locusts, and a cruel dysprosium eats blood. The refinement of iron arrowheads began in the Song Dynasty, which is really an interesting era. At the same time, military technology has advanced by leaps and bounds. In the Song Dynasty, with admirable patience, he carefully crafted every weapon and improved the style of arrows, such as iron ridge arrows and cone arrows, which broke away from the monotony of flat square and became more professional. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the curtain of the firearms era opened, and the continuous wars with Liao, Xixia, Jin and Yuan made firearms mature rapidly and became the leading force on the battlefield. However, when the firing rate and hit rate of firearms were not satisfactory at that time, the growth of arrow sequence continued until the Ming Dynasty, creating more dazzling types and shapes. The main weapon of nomadic soldiers on the grassland is bow and arrow, which is also their main hunting tool for the simple reason. Soldiers who grew up on horseback only ate cattle and sheep, not rice and wheat, chased sheep with the army, had no worries about logistics, and rode alone, so they marched quickly and swallowed up in all directions in an instant. Because these nomads can only be equipped with leather armor (leather armor keeps their mobility), and they don't pay attention to tactics, and the attack team is not strict, which is not suitable for forming a phalanx to attack like western knights. Only the bow and arrow can exert the power and flexibility of the attack, so that the enemy can be killed without contact. Their archery is terrible. According to historical records, a patrol of the Han army met Xiongnu archers in the Han Dynasty. After a battle, a team of dozens of people only ran back to report one wounded soldier, and none of the three archers broke. Finally, Li Guang personally came out to capture and shoot. However, the quality of nomadic people's bow theory is not better than that of agricultural people. The early arrows of Huns were made of bones. On horseback, people can't rely on the strength of bending over, so they can't use strong bows. The cavalry of Liao army and Jin army, but 6-8 bears bows and arrows. Even this is enough. In the wild, nomads often gather troops and horses, and archers rush to one side, because the collapse of one corner leads to the collapse of the other side. There are many such examples in the war with the Central Plains army. Bows are characterized by lightness and quickness. It occupied the main position of cavalry long-range weapon sequence before the middle of Qing Dynasty. In the case that the development of firearms eliminated the strong crossbow, the bow can still play its own strengths and be equally divided with firearms for 400 years. By the middle of19th century, bows and arrows were basically not used in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War. Although the bow and arrow is a weapon of war, it is also widely used in ancient life in China: the arrow can not only carry letters and send them over a long distance, but also be used for entertainment competitions and judging according to events. Archery also became a competitive and entertaining activity in ancient times. Emperors and generals often rewarded their subordinates with archery competitions for fun. Even the ladies-in-waiting in the Tang dynasty have to learn archery, and there are many games such as shooting ducks and shooting pink balls. The elegant opera Shuaguo, which has been studied by the court for a long time, is a change of shooting ceremony in the Spring and Autumn Period.

/kloc-when the era of cold weapons ended more than 0/00 years ago, bows and arrows also faded out of the historical stage. At present, the traditional bow production in China is facing a loss. From 65438 to 0998, Mr. Yang, a ninth-generation old artist from Juyuan, Beijing, resumed the production of our traditional Manchu compound bow with horns, and passed this craft on to Mr. Yang Fuxi, a descendant of the tenth generation. In 2006, Juyuan's bow and arrow has become a world intangible cultural heritage. Now, Xie Yang, a descendant of the eleventh generation, has begun to learn from his father to make the traditional compound bow with horns. In Fuyang, Anhui Province, Mr. Zhang Li completed the research, development and production of modern traditional bows after ten years. As far as making traditional bows in China is concerned, they have become a guide. Now many friends in China learn, make and practice traditional bows from their predecessors. In the near future, their craft will continue to be passed on to our descendants. Now bows and arrows have become an inseparable part of China culture.