Author's Note: Hello readers, I haven't seen you for a long time! During the epidemic period, I don't know if everyone is okay, but the author has been up five times to climb in the middle of the night to maintain law and order and check in the community, tired back pain... Although work has resumed, but the epidemic is not completely over, please do a good job of protection and personal hygiene, your health is also our health. Okay, without further ado, let's get down to business. (In order to pay tribute to the authors who are still fighting in the frontline of the fight against the epidemic, this article replaces the editor's note with the author's words)
As a veteran player who has been looking forward to "Ride Slash 2" for many years, on the day of the release of this work, I got the game (in fact, I won the bet before, and I was pleased that my friends had kept their promises) and began to play it at the first time. Due to the choice of his origin in the game, the author only has a horse, a sword, a shield, a bow and a bag of arrows at the beginning of the game. Practice has proved that this configuration is more difficult to survive in the early stages of the game under 100% damage difficulty, especially in the days when the bandits' pitchforks are far enough away than your sword, players will often rush into the bandits with a sword and a shield after shooting the arrows, and when they are ready to imitate Changshan Zhao Zilong to kill seven in and seven out of the bandits, the robbers' special weapons for demon hunters are stabbed to death under the horse... At this time, of course, what I want most is a long weapon to take advantage of! But because of the addiction to ancient chess gambling, arena studs and recruitment, the shy author could only ride an old horse (for a while even sold for a camel captured by desert robbers) to fight the robbers with a pitchfork to guard the security, so that the group of friends gave me a nickname - pitchfork knight. Some even dressed up the NPCs they had recruited early on their new archives as me, but I also gained the capital to laugh at them, and even left a famous saying: If you have a pitchfork, you will not be robbed like this. - Baron Youssef
Having said that, baron Yousef often loses his hand when confronted with roadblocks. For players in the early stages, the jagged spear in the hands of the roadblock bandit with a certain number of long pole points and the throwing spear in the hand of the mountain thief are far more dangerous than the pitchfork. Fortunately, this useful weapon soon fell into the hands of Baron Youssef, and in his hand he easily poked his opponent's chest through the heart.
▲ In the case of 100% damage, I do not recommend that the novice go head-to-head with any robber leader, and then the baron will step into the steppe robber camp with one foot, and when he is singled out with the bandit leader, he is cut by the other party with a moon knife! The baron, who had eaten a knife and a wise man, immediately went to the nearest city, paid for the first time to buy a crescent moon knife of the same style as the bandit leader, and attacked the camp again one night 3 days later. With a knife cut down, the bandit leader fell to the ground in response, and the big head of the bucket dripped on the ground and grunted and turned... It turns out that it is not the author's dish, it is the other guy's thing that really works.
▲Although it has been weakened, it is now fully powerful
Of course, I am not the only one who discovered this raider element. Soon, the news that "the Crescent Moon Knife is the strongest weapon in the early stage of "Riding Slash 2" will not go away. This slashable, piercing, powerful weapon with a wide range of kills quickly gained recognition from players around the world. The videos of some players like Guan Gong reincarnated and the big moon knife slashing a dozen miscellaneous fish also once filled the home pages of major video websites. However, soon, the Crescent Moon Knife and the Great Moon Knife ushered in two official rounds of weakening. Fortunately, these two rounds of weakening are mainly aimed at the piercing attribute of the Crescent Knife (also known to some players as the "Riding Gun Attribute" or "Touching Porcelain Attribute") and the probability of buying in the city, which is harmless to most players. In most combat environments, the Moon Knife and the Great Moon Knife can still kill and kill.
▲ The big crescent moon knife is not everything better than the standard crescent moon knife, which one to use still depends on personal choices
However, with the popularity of the legend of the crescent moon knife imba, some controversy about this weapon has also become more and more controversial. Some European players began to question its power and the rationality of its existence; while some domestic players had doubts about the translation of "Yanyue Knife", and began to wonder whether the "Yanyue Knife" in the game was the popular "Yanyue Knife" in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"... The arguments snowballed, and even my friends who gave me the game asked me the question. It seems that it is indeed time to talk about this "crescent moon knife". Let's start with the text part, change the game setting from Chinese back to English, and the original setting name of the crescent knife is presented to us - haftedblade. The phrase, which is generally thought to be an English translation of a weapon title from Eastern Europe or Turkey, first appeared in an early update of Mounted Slash 1, referring specifically to a long-handled machete in the hands of Non-Commissioned Officer Rodoc and Khan's personal guards. The two words in this phrase are actually very bluntly stitched together: haft means handle, grip, and blade means knife, knife. If the meaning is understood, the translation of "long knife" or "long handle knife" seems reasonable. But this definition is too broad - there are many weapons in the game that fit the positioning of "long knives" and "long-handled knives" in Chinese. The Thracian-style anti-curved long knife used by the veteran sickle of Badania, or the star-shaped large chopper of the Sultanate of Asselae,d'être, fit this broad definition. According to the setting, the prototype of the Kusset Khanate was the Kumans and other nomadic peoples of Eastern Europe, who used weapons and armor almost entirely from the eastern steppes, and haftedblade was a common weapon used by the senior cavalry and infantry of the Kusset Khanate. From the perspective of source and precise definition, it is understandable to translate it as "crescent knife".
▲ The "Yanyue Knife" of the Mongol Army, if analyzed from the shape, the "Yanyue Knife" in the game and the Yanyue Knife in the traditional cognition of the Chinese people also have some differences: its blade is much shorter and thinner than the same type of weapon used by the Chinese army in the Song and Ming Dynasties. However, this is actually quite normal, because the reference to the crescent knife system of the Kusset Khanate in the game does not come from the Song Ming, but from the old enemy of the two dynasties, the Mongols. After the Mongol army occupied northern China, it also used this Central Plains-style long-handled knife for the Western Expedition. Unlike the heavy infantry of the Song and Ming dynasties, which relied heavily on large-mass knife heads as blunt weapons against heavy cavalry in actual use, the long-handled knives of the Mongol army were mainly used to equip their own and servant light cavalry units, and the envisioned combat environment was mainly against unarmored and lightly armored units. More importantly, the light cavalry units of the Mongol Empire did not have the same concerns as Song Ming—the legs were on their horses, and the strategic initiative was also in their hands, which made the blades of their long-handled knives relatively short and lighter. In the world of "Riding and Slashing 2", the countries in the Middle Ages, like the real world, except for infantry and cavalry of senior ranks and above, are rarely equipped with metal armor, and the Imperial Guards archers wear leather armor, and crossbowmen and sergeants wear only chainmail armor. This setting also allowed the power of this shaped crescent knife to be fully exerted, and the Khan's iron horse was able to travel south and north and travel to Eurasia as easily as in history.
▲ The hook and sickle used by the Valandian infantry in "Riding Slash 2" In the era after the Mongol Western Expedition, in northern and Eastern Europe, the "crescent knife" began to gradually merge with the hook and sickle and axe.
Although there are many players who have some objections to the appearance of this weapon in Europe, in fact, after the Mongols stopped the Western Expedition, the crescent knife-shaped knife did exist widely and for a long time throughout Eastern and Southeastern Europe. It's just that no one has ever formulated a standard form for this "crescent moon knife", nor has anyone given it a unified name. During the revolt of the eastern European serfs, the simple long-handled knives made by the peasants from sickle blades and tool knives were often classified as "Halberd", "billhook", or "alien halberds". In paintings, decorative paintings and film and television dramas related to the Hussite War and the Austrian Succession, we can also see the descendants of the "Crescent Moon Knife" - compared to their European and Asian bloodlines, these weapons are much rougher, but still powerful, but they have not left much footprint in history. But they did exist, at least as an experience and model for later ordnancers to improve the standard weapons of their own armies.
▲ Stills from the famous Czech movie Jan Jaska, note the hook and sickle used by several soldiers in the second half of the line
The Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Crimean Khanate in northeastern Europe received a large number of weapons and equipment left behind by the Mongol Empire, and the knives of the "Crescent Moon Knife" were naturally included. However, due to the harsh local climate and the combat configuration of a large number of shield soldiers, these "small-headed crescent knives" appeared very fragile, and the Tsar's ordnance divisions had to improve them. Eventually, they combined the advantages of the long-handled knife and the armor-breaking axe to create a more robust and lethal "bardiche", which is very common in Riding Slash 1 and contemporaneous game works. Until the time when the Tsar established the Guards Shooting Force, this long-handled weapon remained an important weapon of the Russian army – although its main use value had gradually changed from a melee weapon to a musket holder.
▲ The Tsar's Guards Shooting Army and one of the predecessors of their "Half Moon Axe" and "Half Moon Axe" is the "Moon Knife", while the other is another artifact in the early stage of "Riding Slash 2" - "Execution Axe"
In Central, Southern and Southeastern Europe, the mercenary cavalry of the Cumans and other nomadic peoples continued to use the "crescent knife" for a long time, and their actions and experiences also influenced other mercenary counterparts. However, southern Europeans did not really know what this thing was, and also called it halberd. Eventually, these southern "crescent knives" began to merge with French or Italian-style double-edged guns, becoming one of the countless precursor bloodlines of the 14th-century European halberd, Glaive, and glavie-wisarmes. By the way, the game's "Long Moon Knife" is actually a Europeanized product of the "Moon Knife", and The Kuman mercenaries used similar weapons in the Hussite War. The weapon in the game performs well in the field, but is not suitable for urban warfare; in narrow rooms and corridors, such a bulky long weapon is very difficult to cast.
▲ I will ask you if the blade at the front of your sword is familiar
When I studied this, I suddenly realized a problem... Whether it is a "hook and sickle", a "half-moon axe" or a "sword blade", there is a bulge above or on one side of the blade, and the main function of this bulge is also very similar to the small twig of the Chinese Buzi halberd - that is, used to pull enemies, cut through armor and block. On the early crescent knives and other long-rod knives of the mainland, there is also such a bulge on the back. Is the existence of this bulge really like what people later thought it would be / just for decorating and hanging red ribbons?
▲ Slice the evolutionary history of European long-pole weapons, pay attention to the long-pole knife in the middle
Many doubts should not be lightly judged. At a time when ancient books on how to use them are hard to find, speculation about them may not be able to find an answer in a lifetime. In the end, like the classics and military books of the old times, the Oriental long-handled knife or the crescent knife, and the outsiders in the Western world, haftedblade, eventually disappeared into the long river of history. But they weren't just fleeting passers-by— in the centuries to come, we can still find traces of these foreign ancestors in Europe's long-pole weapons.
This article is the original manuscript of the Cold Weapons Research Institute. The editor-in-chief and the author, Major General Eugene, shall not be reproduced by any media or public account without written authorization, and the offender will be held legally responsible.