What was the purpose of the iron rings on ancient machetes? What types of people used them?

No matter how much society changes, war and peace are states that people can't get around. And the occurrence of war is something that most people don't want to see but have to face. Therefore, how to protect oneself becomes very important, and thus the field of military was derived. Today's military development is very amazing and lethal, and this is the lethality of chemical weapons. In ancient times, people's understanding of the material is relatively shallow, so most of them rely on cold weapons to engage in combat, and the big knife is the probability of appearing more weapons.

In ancient China, the sword was a traditional cold weapon with a single edge, made of copper or steel, and danced with one or both hands to inflict damage on the enemy by chopping and slashing. A spiked weapon similar to the knife, but with a bilateral open edge, is called a sword. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, knives and swords had similar meanings. After the Song Dynasty, knife was used to specifically refer to a short weapon with a single-sided open blade.

The knife has very many functions, it can be used to cut, peel, slice and chop. The knife also appeared earlier, in the Spring and Autumn period, people began to use bronze to make knives, but the quality is not good, the appearance is not good, and not very sharp just. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the emergence of iron and steel brought great help to knife-making technology, and also made the knife into the battlefield, becoming the main combat tool.

An excavated weapon from China's Bronze Age shows the use of straight spine knives, which, as the name implies, were not as broad and curved as today's common Chinese knives, but were straight like swords, with only one side open. Knives after entering the Iron Age, unfortunately, because most of the weapons in excavated artifacts have rusted away their blades, leaving only the ornately decorated hilts, later generations know less about ancient Chinese iron knives than they do about bronze knives.

In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the southeastern states of Wu and Yue used the "Wu Hook," a long, thin, curved blade used in ship battles because it was suitable for use in the complex terrain of the southeast (with its many rivers and streams). During the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu was shocked by the path of the Xiongnu sword offered by Wang Chuang, and sent Zhang Qian on a mission to the Yuezhi Kingdom to bring back the technology of steel refining and invented the "Han sword", which was used by the Han army in their battles with the Xiongnu.

Many people like to watch ancient TV dramas, often see a big knife, inlaid with several iron rings, brush up clanking, mighty Ling Ling, and such a knife is known as the big ring knife. Then the question comes, this knife back of the iron ring in the end what is the role of it? In fact, this kind of knife in the early Ming Dynasty does not appear much, today we can see the big ring knife, generally are money made in the Ming Dynasty. And in the official records, the army has not used such a knife, because it is not convenient to wear a knife sheath, it is easy to accidentally hurt others.

That is to say, the big ring knife generally appeared in the Qing Dynasty folk, mainly for bandits private armed use. The round ring actually serves a purpose in combat, helping the user to better draw the blade, as well as looking better and providing a certain deterrent effect. During the Qing Dynasty, many executioners would use such knives to carry out beheadings. Of course, some jianghu sellers also like to play with the big ring knife, because the ring on the top will make a sound, thus reflecting the appearance of their martial arts.

As for the big ring knife, some weapons research experts believe that the more iron rings, people build the big knife is also the heavier, so if it is not a strong martial arts people, usually will not use the big ring knife, after all, if you can't hold it steadily, how can you use it smoothly? That is to say, if people encounter in life to take the big ring knife people, it is best to have as far as to avoid as far away, if they are not for show, basically is the combat strength of the people, once provoked them, easy to lead to the trouble of killing.