Knife and sword have always been symbols of power in ancient China, among which sword is more brilliant, implying noble status, and has always been the title of king of hundreds of battles. Knife is popular among the people and has its own strong way, also known as the king of hundreds of soldiers. A really sharp knife, it takes minutes to cut the sword.
In the era of cold weapons, if you really want to choose a weapon to represent everyone's love, Dao must be on the list. And there is also a "king fried" in the king of hundreds of soldiers, and that is tangdao. Datang is a very brilliant dynasty in Chinese history. Their iron smelting technology is very developed, and they have been studying different casting methods. Tangdao trained from this has always been admired by later generations.
However, tangdao has not been well protected in the process of inheritance. Now there are not many existing tangdao, there are only eleven * * * in the world, among which seven tangdao are also collected by Japan and regarded as a national treasure, just because the appearance of tangdao has a deep influence on Japanese knives.
Now there are many cold weapon lovers in the world who go to Japan just to see tangdao. So charming, what weapon is tangdao?
First, the instrument knife is beautiful and generous, and the barrier knife is controversial.
First of all, we should make it clear that tangdao does not only refer to the knives of the Tang Dynasty, but also includes some knives of the Sui Dynasty. And it doesn't just refer to one kind of knife, but includes four kinds: instrument knife, stranger knife, horizontal knife and enchantment knife.
These four kinds of knives are completely different in shape and function, but tangdao, which is covered by these four kinds of knives, has become one of the five famous knives in the world, along with Damascus Dao, Japanese Dao, Myanmar Dao and Kurt Dao. It is of extraordinary significance in the whole world military history. Let's take a concrete look at these four kinds of knives.
As the name implies, the instrument knife is a ceremonial knife, and the overall decoration is very luxurious and beautiful. It is said that it is only exclusive to the nobility. Its origin is Ban Jian, and its accessories are dragon and phoenix rings. Many nobles will set exquisite gold, silver and precious stones on it. Moreover, the instrument knives are generally very long and can't be worn on the waist at all. You can only hold it tightly by hand and stick the blade to the ground.
Some pictures of guards with knives were unearthed in the Tang Dynasty. Generally speaking, these guards are guards and feathers. They are either rich or expensive, and they look quite solemn. In 1990s, a Tang Dynasty tomb was unearthed in Xi City, Shaanxi Province, which contained a musical instrument knife with a crystal pendant. This knife is 84 cm long and straight. It looks very beautiful and elegant.
Compared with the instrument knife, the barrier knife has always been controversial, and there are not many records about it in historical materials. So far, there is no unearthed record of the barrier knife. At present, there are two opinions about barrier knives. One kind thinks that the barrier knife is a broadsword for removing obstacles, so the length of the knife should be about one meter, and the blade is very wide. The broadsword can remove obstacles with a wave of its hand, which may be used in the battlefield.
Another view is that the barrier knife should be a self-defense tool similar to a dagger, nearly 30 cm long, for close protection. However, supporters of these two views generally refuse to accept anyone. So far, it is certain that the understanding of the barrier knife in the Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty literally only refers to blocking the body or defending the enemy.
Second, the horizontal knife doesn't take away love, but it takes away hate.
Compared with the first two, the horizontal knife is less suspended, giving people a sense of security. The length of the horizontal knife is about 60 cm to 80 cm, which is not as long as the instrument knife. Can be directly worn around the waist, which is convenient to carry. Its audience is also very wide. Different from the target of instrument knife, the target of horizontal knife includes soldiers, police and other classes. You can wear it whether you are fighting on the battlefield or on a business trip, or just for self-defense.
After the cross knife was introduced to Japan, it laid the embryonic form for the appearance of Japanese knife. At that time, the wars were all in the form of close combat, and the horizontal knife had great advantages in close combat, so Japan began to make sharper war swords with reference to the shape of the horizontal knife.
In fact, many people can't tell the difference between the horizontal knife and the Japanese knife, because the Japanese knife was originally improved on the basis of the horizontal knife. For example, the horizontal knife is relatively large, and the Japanese knife is relatively small. Moreover, due to the advanced iron smelting technology and strong armor protection ability in the Tang Dynasty, flat knives pay more attention to penetration in the forging process.
Japanese armor pays more attention to decorative function, and it is almost broken when cutting, so Japanese knives pay more attention to the decoration of samurai itself during forging. Later, Japanese Dao was able to squeeze into the ranks of the five famous Dao. In the final analysis, it is thanks to tangdao, which is why the Japanese like to collect tangdao so much.
In modern times, some craftsmen tried to restore the horizontal knife, but the craft of the Tang Dynasty has been lost, and the fake horizontal knife is only similar in shape, which is far from the real horizontal knife. From this perspective, we still have a long way to go to restore and inherit history.
In addition to horizontal knives, the troops of the Tang Dynasty often used strange knives on the battlefield, which is also the most famous knife in tangdao. It is recorded in the Six Classics of Tang Dynasty that it is seven feet long, three feet long and four feet long. At random, it is two meters long, which looks more like an enlarged and lengthened sword. Besides, it's heavy. According to records, this strange knife weighs 15 Jin.
The gold in the Tang Dynasty is different from our present gold. Fifteen Jin in the Tang Dynasty is equivalent to twenty Jin now. It takes a lot of arm strength to swing a 20-pound broadsword.
This configuration is doomed that the strange knife can only be applied to the battlefield. As soon as this knife appeared, it was basically nothing to the enemy.
However, even in the most prosperous period of the Tang Dynasty, the number of strange knives was only about 20,000. Because of its long forging cycle and expensive production cost, even when the court was richest, it could not afford to buy more than this price. Because it is too expensive, it is forbidden to use strange knives as funerary objects in the Tang Dynasty. So far, no strange knife has been unearthed, and everyone can only get in touch with it in ancient books.
Third, fame stopped in the Song Dynasty.
Tangdao is famous for being baptized in the war. The military tactics of the Tang Dynasty were basically that crossbowmen took the initiative, then fought the enemy with strange knives, and finally let Ma Jun or cavalry join the battle. In Tang Jun, there is also a group of strangers, basically used to deal with cavalry. Both cavalry and war horses can be cut off in one fell swoop, achieving the effect that both men and women are broken.
There are also many classic battles created by the existence of Tang Dao. For example, Li, the "magic general" of the Tang Dynasty, sent a strange knife team to fight against the Tubo army when he went out to conquer Tubo. As soon as the strange knife came out, whoever dared to fight head-on, the Tubo army soon tasted the fate of the legendary "broken horse". A total of 5,000 Tubo soldiers died tragically under the strange knife and became ghosts. Tubo dared not do it again for many years. This also made Tang Dao's reputation in Tubo, and World War I started.
In 663 AD, the battle between the Tang Dynasty and Japan at Baijiangkou, the Japanese army dispatched 32,000 soldiers, and the Tang Dynasty army dispatched 20,000 soldiers. The two countries fought in the waters of Baijiangkou. This time, both troops and ships, the Japanese army far surpassed Tang Jun, but the war ended in just one day, and thousands of Japanese troops died tragically under Tangdao, complaining bitterly.
It was because of this battle that the Japanese saw the power of tangdao, and in the next 1000 years, they dared not play China's idea again.
It can be seen from this that Tang Dao has always been a symbol of the strong national strength of the Tang Dynasty, and has helped the Tang Dynasty to carry forward its national prestige many times and won great victories in the war.
Arguably, tangdao's forging technology should be well passed down for such extraordinary achievements, but now tangdao's complex forging technology has been lost, only a few ancient books have records about tangdao, and there are not many tangdao unearthed today. Moreover, according to the ancient books, Tang Daoism almost disappeared after the Song Dynasty. How did all this happen?
First of all, the raw material for forging tangdao is Jian Zihao steel of Tianzhu. At that time, there was no such steel in the Tang Dynasty, and it had to be shipped from Tianzhu to Arabia. Not to mention the high mountains and flowing water, but also to earn second-hand price difference for businesses. The price of a handful of tangdao is basically the income of ordinary people for half a year. The Tang Dynasty was an era of peace and prosperity, but the Song Dynasty was not. Its territory is less than half that of the Tang Dynasty, and it has the desire to forge the Tang Taoism. However, the reality is often that the mind is willing but unable to do so.
Moreover, the crossbow with stronger penetration and longer range had been invented in Song Dynasty. In the battle with ethnic minorities, crossbows have occupied a greater advantage than tangdao, so they simply gave up tangdao. One more thing I have to mention. Song Taizu, who was relieved of the military power after drinking a glass of wine, obviously valued literature over martial arts, and his tangdao was naturally useless.
I'm afraid it's hard for us to see tangdao again now. There are only a few tangdao in the world, and many of them have become Japanese national treasures. Really sad! Maybe in the future, science and technology will be more developed, or a few more tangdao will be excavated from the tomb of the Tang Dynasty, so that the true face of tangdao can be displayed in front of us.