As a kind of armored weapon for cavalry, the sword also played a defensive and close-quarters combat function in ancient riding warfare. As early as the Han Dynasty, in order to deal with the Xiongnu cavalry who were good at fast horses and archery, the Han army was specially equipped with sharp swords for the Han army cavalry units, and when it encountered the Xiongnu army, it could not win immediately, so it "dismounted and fought, and the swords intersected." Han Chenchao once gave the emperor a royal Xiongnu text, in which he preached that "the urgency of using soldiers to fight and combine blades" meant that cavalry could not use a single weapon. It is also said that "the two arrays are close, the flat ground is shallow grass, but the front can be back, and the land of this card is also, and the sword and shield are not one (the open land is ten not one)". It means that when encountering overgrown areas, it is difficult for long soldiers to unfold, and at this time it is necessary to rely on short swords, which is what the art of war says: "Give full play to one's own strengths and fight the enemy's shortness."
In the pottery pit excavated in the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin in 1974, a large number of cavalry were found, these warrior knights were wearing heavy armor and holding bows and crossbows, some holding long soldiers in their hands, and some wearing short swords at the waist. This further shows that the cavalry of the Qin and Han Dynasties was equipped with weapons of length and length.
Cavalry and swords during the Tang Dynasty
In the Tang Dynasty, the sword was still a weapon often worn by cavalry. According to the Book of Tang, when Emperor Tang was emperor, Tian Lingzi sent troops to Baoji on the orders of Emperor Xianzong, but because the way forward was blocked by the enemy army, the two sides could not win or lose the battle, and in order not to delay the speed of the advance, Emperor Tang ordered the cavalry to "fight with a long sword and five hundred advances" to open a path for winning victory.
The Book of Tang also records that there was a Huainan man named Zhang Xiong in the army, who was excellent at riding and shooting martial arts, and was characterized by "good sword on horseback, zhang shen sword". Even the emperors of the Tang Dynasty had the habit of wielding swords on horseback. The "Tang Hui Yao Search Hunting" records that Tang Taizong was good at riding horses and hunting, often holding a large bow in his hand, hanging a sword around his waist, and riding a jujube red horse to hunt in the mountains, so that he would inevitably encounter danger.
Part of the Hunting Trip Map
In October of the eleventh year of Ruzhenguan, Tang Taizong went hunting in Luoyang Garden and met a group of wild boars on a mountain road. A large group of wild boars in the roadside jungle rushed out to block the way, Tang Taizong was not in a hurry, he took a bow and arrow, and shot four wild boars in a row, but unexpectedly the herd of pigs suddenly burst into a wild hair and pounced directly into the crowd, one of the big male pigs had rushed to Tang Taizong's horse pedals, and Tang Jian, in order to save the car, regardless of his personal safety, "threw himself on horseback", but Tang Jian was a literati man, and his strength was small but the barbaric animals, and the wild boar knocked him to the ground and opened his fangs. Fearing that they would hurt Tang Shangshu, the crowd took bows and arrows in a hurry. At this critical juncture, Tang Taizong pulled out his sword and jumped off his horse, rushed to the wild boar, and used all his strength to cut the pig into two pieces with a sword, ending a life-and-death struggle between man and pig.
The bravery of the emperor made the courtiers admire the five bodies, and the cry of long live resounded throughout the valley. It can be seen from the above that the short weapon sword is very necessary as a weapon for cavalry, and in the face of special circumstances, the sword can play a role that bows and arrows and long soldiers cannot play. In fact, the sword never left the cavalry.
This article is reprinted with permission from Chinese Wushu magazine