Chinese Gekken (half moon) pole arm

[bvieira]

In the "Wubei Zhi" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubei_Zhi) there is a reference to this kind of weapon, but this book was done in 1621 and patterns and names change with time, but this is clear indication that the imperial army use this kind of weapons.

There is also a reference to the "spade", that as said earlier and pointed by Fernando in the monks version usualy has a shovel.

We can clearly see that these are 2 diferent weapons, one acts more like a cutter and other is a long pole arm, wich i believe has used to go against cavarly enemies, but this is a subject open to discussion and this is only my humble opinion by reading and seeing the very few documents i found.

BV

[fernando]

An interesting blog; and apparently one with significant knowledge.

https://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.c...t=161069358338.

(scroll down to spades).


.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by fernando

An interesting blog; and apparently one with significant knowledge.

https://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.c...t=161069358338.

(scroll down to spades).


.

Nando, the photos you added are worthy of comment. There is a demilune below a trident, they were separate classes of weapons. In China (as well as Korea and Vietnam) the trident was much more widely used than the demilune, obviously the central spike made it more useful for direct thrusts and ease in trapping an opponent's weapon. Tridents (I don't recall the Chinese name, in Vietnmese it's dinh-ba) can roughly correspond to the use of the spetum in the European martial arts repertoire of roughly the same time period; as you are no doubt familar with, the military writer Pietro Monte had much to say about its utility. And we see many more speta in museums and collections than demilunes probably for that functional reason.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Philip

... Nando, the photos you added are worthy of comment. There is a demilune below a trident, they were separate classes of weapons...

That was an extra photo i though of adding to those in the blog ... unedited .

[Philip]

Originally Posted by bvieira

In the "Wubei Zhi" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubei_Zhi) there is a reference to this kind of weapon, but this book was done in 1621 and patterns and names change with time, but this is clear indication that the imperial army use this kind of weapons.

There is also a reference to the "spade", that as said earlier and pointed by Fernando in the monks version usualy has a shovel.



BV

Thanks, Bruno, for posting the pics. The text is an 11th cent. military encyclopedia, Wujing Zongyao It has a plethora of polearms, which scholars like David Nicolle have commented that such a wide variety was unusual in any military context, and the fact that there were later editions of the work in which drawings of mechanical catapults were inexplicably altered to include cannon barrels in the same designs, lead one to believe whether this work reflects "real" vs "ideal" conditions.

We don't see the huge variety of very specialized pole weapons in later works like the 18th cent. Huangchao Liqi Tushi compiled at the direction of the Qing court, which is a catalog of regulation patterns of all the material accouterments of imperial, civil, and military activity as of 1759. I don't recall seeing spades among the lineup of spears and shaft weapons.

The 16th cent. books on military tactics and training by the Ming general Qi Jiguang have detailed discussion of arms and their deployment, and demilunes were not included. Now it is true that Qi incorporated forces recruited from monasteries in the campaigns against coastal pirates, but their combat skills and weapons were separate from what he prescribed for the regular military units he was in the process of reforming.

Discussion of the weapon is also absent in the late 18th cent. Korean compilation of combat arts, the Muye Dobo Tongji which is heavily indebted to Ming and Qing precedents.

In China and Korea, the spear was considered "king of weapons" on the battlefield. The demilune was certainly useful in specialized contexts, but in the big picture of military operations, versatility and general utility were far more important.