I think that there are 3 distinct families of these jointed weapons.
1. Flails derived from agricultural threshing flails. Chinese and Korean military flails are examples. There's a section in the Muye Dobo Tongji, a Korean military manual from the 18th century, on the two-handed flail as a cavalry weapon. Pretty similar to European two-handed flails.
2. Weights or blades on the end of a rope or chain. The chain versions are, I guess, cut-resistant versions of the rope weapons. Compact, easily-hidden, long reach. Probably originated as pure weapons. Possibly for police work or capture, rather than as deadly weapons.
3. Jointed iron whips. These have the weight distributed along their length, and therefore differ from 2 above. They don't look like their modified from agricultural flails, either. Maybe they derive from leather whips? Whips were being used by the Chinese military quite early. By chariot drivers, for whipping the horses. Which would suggest the idea of the whip-chain, at least.
There are various hybrid weapons which don't easily fit any of these categories. A long staff with a long chain with a weight on the end, 3 section staff, possibly nunchuks (are such short-handled flails used by farmers anywhere?). Legend says that the first 3 section staff was made from a two-handed flail with a broken handle.
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