Editor's note: When it comes to ancient Chinese armor, the most famous are the Mingguang armor of the Sui and Tang Dynasties and the infantry armor of the Song Dynasty. Compared with the Mingguang armor, which has not even been determined by the shape system, the record of the infantry armor is still relatively detailed. So, what kind of armor is the infantry armor? Is it really the highest peak of Chinese armor as many netizens think? Buren Jia is recorded in the "General Outline of the Martial Classics": it has a body of armor, adorned with a shawl, subordinate legs, and a doumou (doumou) dun item at the head. That is to say, the infantry armor is divided into three parts: the head, the trunk and the lower limbs. First of all, the head, in the era of cold weapons, which places are most likely to be injured? It must be the head, so as a heavy armored infantry armor, the helmet is indispensable.
▲ The infantry armor helmet recorded in the "General Outline of the Martial Arts"
Moreover, the helmet of the infantry armor is with a ton item, that is, a piece of armor that protects the neck. Therefore, the helmet of the infantry armor not only protects the head, but also protects the neck. Outside the head and neck, the torso is also a key defensive area. Historically, many lightly armored soldiers, even without armor, had to get an arrow-proof leather hat and a shield. Many medium-sized soldiers will abandon the protection of their limbs and focus on their heads and torso.
Judging from the illustration of the body armor of the foot man, the upper part of the body armor of the step man is opened like a mountain glyph. The middle part has four bands, two rings on each side, and two bands on each side. Obviously, the four straps are shoulder straps, because the armor is very heavy, and it would be very tight to use two shoulder straps directly, so four shoulder straps can be used to reduce the pressure. The two straps of the waist are responsible for the fixation of the waist and relieve the pressure on the shoulders, after all, although this nail is woven, it still has a certain support. As for the protection of the legs, it depends on the armor skirt. Depending on the needs, it can be decided whether to protect the knee or the ankle area. Although the armor skirt has a gap, you can refer to the picture below and cover it with waist armor. Basically, this set of armor is airtight in the head and neck torso.
▲ZTE Ruiying map partial
In addition to the torso, the infantry armor is also fully considered in the protection of the shoulders and arms. Because these two places are the power positions of the operating weapons, they are also the parts that are easy to attack. Once these two places were injured. Basically, you can get out of the battlefield. Therefore, when economic conditions permit, the natural shoulders and arms should also be protected. In China, at the latest in the late Spring and Autumn Period, armor appeared to protect the shoulders and arms. Like the leather armor excavated from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, it is the shoulder and arm protection.
▲ Zeng Houyi tomb leather armor
And more is the kind of ordinary shoulder armor, and the body armor is one, typical like the terracotta warriors. By the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, shoulder armor and torso armor were gradually separated.
In particular, the emergence of two gears of armor has made the torso, shoulders, and arm protection begin to develop independently. The shoulders and arms of the foot armor are protected by the shawl. However, the cloak of the infantry armor is very distinctive, unlike the previous one, which directly protects only the arms and shoulders, but even the front chest and back are covered. It looks like a short vest. The upper part of the armor of the footman's armor just overlaps with the shawl. So the chest is equivalent to having two layers of armor protection. Because the opening of the shawl is in front, the gap in the back is also covered by the shawl. Then add a secondary arm guard on the forearm, in addition to the armpit protection can not be particularly perfect, basically the protection should be there, worthy of the word airtight.
But theory is theory, reality is reality. In fact, because of financial resources and combat environment, many soldiers do not wear full clothing, but only choose to wear armor. This is also related to the Northern Song Dynasty's habit of attaching importance to bows and crossbows. When most of the soldiers said in the "Chronicle of the Lineage Since Jianyan": The soldiers have been hiding their hearts before and after ,and there is no deputy arm, there is a leather hat, and there is no pocket, and in recent years, the Chinese side of the army knows the benefits of the armor. In the history of the Song Dynasty, the full set of foot armor also appears very rarely, and most of the "Zhongxing RuiyingTu" only wears body armor, and rarely sees the full version of the foot armor.
Fortunately, with the deepening of the Song-Jin War, the Song army gradually discovered the importance of heavy armor. However, the original foot armor was too heavy, so Wang Qi's three-color armor, which weighed 58 kilograms, was not adopted. Song Jun chose a lighter version. The History of song volume 197 records that "the total length of the full armor is forty-five to fifty pounds.". Because it was too heavy to affect the soldiers' combat, the requirements for armor at that time were not more than fifty. So judging from the heavily armored samurai statues of the Southern Song Dynasty, the shawl like a short vest has disappeared. However, this is actually not much worse in terms of protection. Although the original double-layer armor on the chest has become a single-layer armor, it does increase the cost and is also excessive protection.
More importantly, the Song army mainly relied on the city-walled crossbow. Excessive armor is not conducive to the operation of the crossbow. In the middle and late period of the Southern Song Dynasty, Wu Jiangbi zaiyu found that the probability of a single soldier being shot by a bed crossbow was unlikely, and the lightness of the armor in the Jianghuai region was more important. In addition, at that time, the Jurchen army was generally equipped with only seven or eight bows, and the general single-layer iron armor was enough. And the appearance of the crossbow army of the Jurchen army is in the late stage. Therefore, Bi Zaiyu transformed the armor, so that the armor skirt was not knee-long, the armor sleeves were removed, and the helmet also reduced the weight, so as to achieve a balance in protection and flexibility. However, the full armor was not completely eliminated, but was only modified according to the needs of the operation.
When many netizens discuss some equipment of ancient armies, there are often some more one-sided views: such as the theory of pure spear invincibility, the theory of the uselessness of heavy armor, and the view that the heavier the armor, the better. Therefore, the step man armor is either said to be an artifact or an ornament. In this regard, let's take a look at the meaning of the step man in the step man A. Yue Fei's "Order of Military And Horse Movements" records: "The infantry and horse army under the control of the yuan are behind, and it is difficult to take note of it, so Fu Beg commands the horse army to march forward with the infantry." This shows that the infantry refers to the infantry, so the infantry armor is the armor for the infantry, and the infantry armor in the "General Outline of the Martial Arts" is also the embodiment of the ideal state of the infantry defense concept. But it's one thing to be an idea, another thing to have specific needs. Therefore, the infantry will adjust the weight according to the different tasks.
In addition, ancient wars were not decided by one or two pieces of equipment, and the poor performance of the Southern Song army after the Shaoxing Peace Conference was not only a matter of equipment concept. Take the quality of soldiers. Before the Northern Expedition, some officials found that among the more than 20,000 Song troops, there were only 617 people who could wear belts, which had a physique that fought with the national football team, even if they did not wear infantry armor, they could not pursue the enemy!
▲ Southern Song Dynasty warriors
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