The old saying has a cloud", "The spear of the son, the shield of the attacker." This is a contradictory allusion from "Han Feizi". In the history of our country's weapons, the shield is the only defensive weapon, and the spear is the most classic of the long soldiers. In the history of our country, there is a saying of "eighteen weapons", but the spear is revered as the "king of a hundred soldiers".
In Ma Heng's "Manuscript of the Stone Series of The Stones of the Generals", it is recorded that "the spear, the soldier who should be stabbed, three points and its length, the second is the blade, the one is", the spear is a weapon dedicated to stabbing, which can be used for infantry and cavalry. This kind of weapon generally has very high requirements for the rod part, so what material is the ancient spear shaft made of? Experts said: "It is not an iron rod, it is not that the nobles simply cannot afford to use it." ”
In the era of cold weapons, people's requirements for weapons are the ultimate lethality. When short-term combat is connected, lethality is the most direct combat effectiveness competition. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the cavalry rose in large numbers, and it became important whether the length and use of weapons were convenient.
In the ancient period 4000-5000 years ago, China's ancestors had the use of bronze, which was rapidly developed and widely used in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. According to the investigation of ancient monuments, there were already very mature bronze weapons as early as the Yin Shang period, and the spears at that time used bronze to make spearheads, which were extremely lethal.
The spear is composed of a spear shaft and a spearhead, and the spearhead is a sharpened metal product that determines the piercing ability of the spear; the spear shaft has many structures that determine the way the spear is used. According to the Records of Zhou Li and Kao Gong, the spear used by infantry in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties was 4.5 meters long, known as the chief spear, and the spear used by chariot soldiers was 5.4 meters long, which was called the nine spears.
In the era when chariot warfare was the mainstay, it was impossible to inflict damage on chariots without a spear of a certain length. Then taking into account the convenience of use, a certain reform was carried out, and it was recorded in the "Record of Examination Workers" that the infantry spear was set to two zhang, and the chariot spear was set to two zhang and four feet, about 2 to 3 meters long, which was more convenient to use.
At this time, the spear shaft is mainly made of wood or bamboo, and is divided into two types: "wooden handle" and "bamboo handle". The wooden handle is that the wood is polished by carpentry into a thin stick, and then waxed. The bamboo handle needs to be made of thin and tough bamboo, open the bamboo knot, fill the bamboo core with a cloth strip, and then tie and paint it with a rope, which is more flexible than the wooden pole.
From the beginning of the Han Dynasty, chariots slowly declined, until the Sui and Tang dynasties, the emergence of cavalry replaced the status of chariots. Cavalry with faster speed and greater mobility could not only charge at will, but also be equipped with more free weapons, which made the cavalry on the battlefield at that time.
In order to target these cavalry, especially the heavy cavalry of the Xianbei and The Xianbei, the spear as the main weapon of the infantry also made some changes. By lengthening, tenacity and piercing force, a new spear, the "Mallet", was born. In the Han Dynasty Liu Xi's "Interpretation of names", it is recorded that there has been a mallet since the appearance of cavalry in the Han Dynasty, which was called "horse mallet" at that time.
The production of the horse mallet is very difficult, and it is not an easy task to strengthen it on the basis of the spear. According to the Rongzhai Sanbi, the best Sando wood was used to make the horse mallet, which was often used to make strong bows because of its excellent hardness and flexibility.
Use the best Sangtuo wood, take the trunk of the tough wood, peel it into a uniform thickness, and glue it together. It is then repeatedly soaked in fish oil until it no longer deforms, which takes a year. After a year, the strips are taken out, air-dried for several months, glued to the prescribed scale, wrapped in hemp rope, dried, and "coated with raw lacquer and wrapped in kudzu cloth." So far, only half of it has been completed.
In the third step, the cloth is painted and dried layer by layer until the knife is chopped to make a sonorous sound of metal and does not break, which is qualified. Then go to the two ends, cut short to six lengths, "the front of the steel hammer head, the back of the red copper hammer", and then use a hemp rope as a benchmark, hanging at two feet from the tail of the hammer, if the entire horse mallet can maintain balance and suspend, then it is completed.
It can be seen that the manufacturing process of the horse mallet is extremely complicated, a horse mallet takes three years, and has a success rate of less than 40%, which makes it very rare in weapons. According to the "Order of the Horse Mallet Spectrum", only the leading generals and the chief generals were eligible to use the horse mallet on the battlefield, which is why experts say that "it is not the nobles who cannot afford to use it." "The reason for that.
Spears have always occupied a very high position in the history of China's cold weapons, and since ancient times to the Ming and Qing dynasties, they have been exerting light and heat. Behind this weapon, there is a history of development of thousands of years, and at the same time there is the wisdom of our ancestors, which requires us to continue to learn.