Hello everyone, I take the time out of my busy schedule today to bring you the following article, welcome to taste it together!
Although the sword is not the most outstanding kind of cold weapons, due to its sharp, symmetrical appearance and frank body style, coupled with the reason of the ancient sharp users, the sword has always been the most popular cold weapon in ancient mainland China. The ancients often gave it the title of "Gentleman of Cold Weapons", and even the weapons given by the emperor were Shangfang swords, which showed that the ancients loved swords.
Based on this, the swords of the past and the present have always been in the minority. For example, the Longquan Sword in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, which helped the later Liu Bang to slay the snake in the Mangzhong Mountain uprising. There was also the cadre general Mo Xie of the same period, and the Qingyi Sword wielded by Zhao Yun in the Three Kingdoms period, all of which were the best of many swords in the same period.
I don't know if you have found it, whether it is the ancients or the present, when describing these swords, they always like to use the idiom of "cutting iron like mud". Whether in Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" or Shi Nai'an's "Water Margin", they like to use iron like mud to describe the sword.
There is no doubt that "cutting iron like mud" is the highest evaluation of the sword by the ancients. After all, iron belonged to the hardest substance in ancient times, and even iron could be cut, and it was bound to be invincible when fighting.
But then again, even in the modern era when the forging process is so mature, no iron weapon dares to call itself "cutting iron like mud", why in ancient times, this feature became an essential function of various swords? Is it just the fiction and exaggeration of the ancients?
In fact, it does contain exaggerated ingredients. However, after careful examination and study, historians have found that the ancient "cutting iron like mud" does have a certain rationality. However, the ancients' "cutting iron like mud" is conditional, and it can be changed to a modern kitchen knife.
The so-called condition is what the ancients called "iron", which is completely different from today's iron. Also because of the limitation of the ancient forging process level, the hardness of the metal is actually incomparable with today. In the Qing Dynasty's "Commentary on the Interpretation of Texts", it was said that "gold, five-color gold, and all gold belong to gold", what does it mean? That is, ancient iron does not refer to a metal, including softer gold, silver, copper can be divided into the ranks of iron.
Normal iron has a Hardness of about 4.5 on the Mohs scale, but silver and copper are only 2.5. The latter can even bite out tooth marks, and it is not surprising that the sword "cuts iron".
For example, in "Water Margin", it was mentioned that Yang Zhi sold knives on the streets of Beijing, and in order to show the sharpness of the knives, he stacked up 6 copper coins and cut them down. Only to see the light of the knife flash, the 6 copper coins shattered into two halves. And in the 70s of the last century, some people used iron swords to restore this scene at the Mainland Craft Expo, and the ancients called this "cutting iron like mud". Even today's kitchen knives are not difficult to achieve.
In addition to the difference in the perception of metals, even if it is really iron, because the purification process is not as good as modern, ancient iron is incomparable with the present. Junior high school chemistry tells us that iron is also divided into steel, pig iron and wrought iron depending on the carbon content. In general, the higher the carbon content, the harder the texture. The carbon content of wrought iron is much lower than that of pig iron, and its hardness can be imagined naturally.
Most of the iron in ancient times was actually wrought iron, but when casting the sword, due to fine grinding and thousands of hammers, there was still a probability of making fine iron, that is, pig iron. Using pig iron to cut wrought iron is like a modern person with a kitchen knife to cut an old-fashioned water pipe. But with a little force, you can easily split it with a knife.
In summary, why the swords of the ancients can always cut iron like mud, in fact, it is not a problem of the sword, but a problem of iron. If the sword in their mouths touched modern and steel, it would be clear who was the king.