When the CHINESE invented the LONGSWORD: Roaring Dragon Jian from LK Chen REVIEW 

Sadface chapeau my friend chapeau

This is, what i would describe, a perfect pun.

Little-known fact: I actually did kung fu before I did HEMA.

Damn, what style did you train, Sifu Matt?

@@icyrazor I do Nam Pai Chian, North-South Fist. Matt needs an Easton-Western Fist style.

i see what you did there heh

An elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

10/10

Actually, there was a chinese saying that goes "jians are used by gentlemen, dao are used by warriors"

@@omnomnom5359 And Thor, God of Thunder, uses a hammer.

Dynasty warrior type beat

Weird way to observe the use of a weapon.

@@0MVR_0 weapons are best judged by how many peasents they can slay

@098765 Craper idk didn't the crazy original two handed anti cavalry dao also come from this period. Think its multi purpose. Could also fuck up spearmen. So could a dao but thrusts.

Swords were largely sidearms and not really the primary weapon for war. In China, pole arms, glaive and halberd were the primary weapons and had much more penetrative power.

Just wait till you get to him reviewing the Han Flying Phoenix :)

Just ordered this one

Free swords

@@LuffyFanBoy99 That would be my guess. They figured a few thousand in advertising on RU-vid would do more than in putting it into ads that cost more to begin with.

@@LuffyFanBoy99 it is obviously a marketing campaign but goodlord do I not give a fuck given how rare good quality chinese reproductions are. and the price is pretty damn fair too

Free swords. They give you a sword, you review it to your audience, you get views, both sides are happy. It's also a plus that these are high quality and not Raid.

It is nice to see quality Chinese sword replica enter the sight of historical arms&armors community :)

I have a sword from him a few years ago, it's good but not as good, it means he's improving his craft, which is good, I'm glad he now spent more effort to market his stuffs so people would know how those weapons really looks like.

I like your imjin war series. Keep ip the good work

noobzaebot Thank you!

The question isn't whether it's done today, but whether it was done historically. It probably was, but we'd need textual evidence for that.

Odds are that none of the Jian forms practiced in modern Gongfu systems, most of which date back to the Qing Dynasty at the earliest, have much connection to times when Jians were actually used on the battlefield. Daos were still being used when many modern Gongfu styles were being developed, so there is more of a chance that a Dao form reflects actual historical usage.

@@CrossingFist Forms, yes. But the question is about techniques.

@@CrossingFist The modern wushu system, essentially acrobatics, was invented in the 1970s by the PRC to suppress martial arts. You'll find very little in there resembling techniques used in actual combat.

They did. There was some tempered long swords that existed in Europe by then and before. I remember reading about a Germanic sword found in the Ryan that dates back to 900 BC and was able to flex. The Germanic & Celtic (mosly Germans like Nordics) people were making some tempered swords that can flex, some being as long as 52 inches! That's longer then some Long Swords in the medieval Ages!

@@Reactionary_Harkonnen sources?

@@Reactionary_Harkonnen I heard that Celtic longswords were longer than spatha (and later migration period and Viking era sword), but it's notoriously known for bending. So to know that some of them could flex is new information for me. Could you please give us the source that states it? it would be very interesting for me.

I use a Cold Steel 'so called' Nodachi to fend off the Yew hedge, at 57 inches I don't have to risk using a ladder to reach the top. Ladders are dangerous. Hope this helps your argument.

"It is a Chinese pruning/mowning tool, heard it is super good when you get the hang of it, I just need to practice a lot"

Rhubarb harvesting tool or any other large stalked edible

Use it on the wife, free yourself 😎

Does she need to convince you she needs jewellery?

I thought I'd be able to get the zerchau through, but I didn't want to use up too many bottles because I have lots more reviews to do soon. And I neither teach nor really do zerch/twerch very often because I am a Fiore/Vadi guy.

Skallascholagrimagladiatoria duhhh

Scholagrim has the better ring.

It would be epic

SkalLindyShadiaTronia. Let's get them all together!

Scholagrim! In the not so distant future, there is only sword.

interestingly, these kinds of swords were indeed used by ancient Chinese infantry to kill enemy cavalry :)

So he was attacked by an assassin twice then?

@@Likexner Only once. Please refer to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jing_Ke

Jinhan Cai: The wrong use of "carry' ,u should have said "moved" the sword to his back. Very informative ,thanks

@Tango Zulu nodachi were worn on the back sometimes over the shoulder. Depending on the actual scabbard no its not impossible just not with typically scabbards. Imagine a loop holding the blade relatively bare.

@Tango Zulu hes also a scam artist if im not mistaken.

The bulletproof rattan shields (they could be resistant against bullets but were still highly vulnerable against firearms and heavy arrows at closer ranges) was a glaring flaw imo. Wokou swordsmen charging into shield walls without any form of tactics or ranged support while wearing robes was also rather funny to see.

That movie is full of errors. As a history lover, I can't really stand it.

I dont like the way he explained it. It was an anti infantry weapon for officers as Chinese soldiers were usually leveed peasants with spears or pykes. The is designed to deal with masses of spears and pykes and allow you to keep the distance and be light enough to quickly deal with spear thrusts. Its designed for an officers at the front of the battle line to deal with several peasants charging at you with their spears. It's not a weapon for individual combat or self protection, its a heavy infantry weapon. Its creation had nothing to do with armor and everything to do with allowing a trained skilled swordsman to deal with several peasants with spears in the middle of the battle line.

Zeitgeist X pretty risky charging a group of spearman that just keep poking without a shield

@@zeitgeistx5239 Yea well without really good armor you'll end up a pin cushion from several peasants.

@@zeitgeistx5239 In fact, there are two drafting systems used in Chinese history. One of them is mandatory military service. For example in the Western Han dynasty, all able-bodied male entering the age of 20 will be sent to train in the local commandary for 1 year, and then they will be either sent off to the imperial army or the frontline for another year, before they went home. During times of war, they will be called to join forces with the military again. This mandatory military service will end at the age of 56 for some and 60 for most of the people. Most of the time, this alone is not enough to deal with border threats, so the emperors sent migrants to the border provinces and build cities and garrisons and man them permanently as holdouts at the frontier. And then there is the other system, the voluntary military service. During the Eastern Han dynasty, for example, frequent warfare and land annexation by the rich had left many people without land. So these disenfranchised people sought military as their profession. By that time, mandatory military service had largely failed and the drafting system transitioned into volunteer military service. This trend continued into the Three-Kingdoms period when warlords began recruiting their personal armies. A separate warrior class was created by both the kingdoms of Wei and Wu. One man from each "warrior family" called, 军户, would become a soldier and will only be replaced by another man in that same family if he was either dead or too old to fight. These two systems had alternated for much of the history of China. This is an inevitable fate because land annexation always happen. It is a natural economic phenomenon.

@@zeitgeistx5239 second, I don't think a sword could win against several spears. In fact, according to the Han dynasty record, it is the other way around. In their words, swords and shields are often defeated by long spears and halberds on level ground. It is only on hilly grounds where no one can go back and forth will swords and shields have the edge over spears and halberds.

Would you say that even swords from higher-end Chinese smiths or longquan forges tend to fall short in terms of quality?

They didn't. India made the best steel in the world until the Middle Ages.

@@BS-cc4ks nah, india didnt have blast furnace, which is a staple Chinese invention that allowed the Chinese to produce much better steel than the rest of the world

When I received my sword, it came with certification that it was able to cut through paper with a single slice from the manufacturer. I saw it do exactly that in their testing videos. But when I had it, it couldn't quite do that. I wonder how much the violence of international travel can dull the edge - it's still sharp, but it's not razor-sharp anymore. People throwing packages and vibrations in the plane cargo hold are probably not great for it!

Thanks, I'll take a look :-)

Yeah I'd also like seeing some Dao reviews, though since it seems it's LK Chen who's sending the swords for review, I guess it mostly depends on him for now. But yeah there's been quite a few reviews of the jian and not much on the dao

Is it safe to assume that the early development of lamellar/scale armour and the decline of shield sizes in East Asia might have been the reason for why 2 handed weapons were so popular?

Probably true at least for mass produced weapons, but if your sword is not razor sharp then even a light gambeson can prove very hard to cut and you have to thrust to get through with reliable results.

No, there are no rules about sharpness, other than something being blunt or sharp. This is sharp, so no reason not to send it as sharp as possible.

@@scholagladiatoria ah I see I figured if it was something as simple or obvious you would have made mention of it. I guess there's just some variation between individual swords sharpness's as with most other manufacturers

Such a blade shouldn't be hidden away!

Always appreciate a Highlander reference

Scott mcleod

Cut down all in your way

sadly not most culture and not most blade type.

Most swords of the Warring States era were made of bronze, wrought iron, or different types of steel. The copper was still combined with tin to create bronze (which is an alloy of copper and tin). The levels of tin varied depending on the location of the sword (more tin or less tin for more or less hardness). Bronze was more common earlier in the era while iron and steel became more common later in the era.

@@Intranetusa iron? Thought that was just a video game thing. Iron is almost as soft as bronze and harder to work. Why would they use it for weapons?heavier too iirc

@@elirantuil5003 Iron has the exact same weight as steel. Steel is just iron with a tiny percentage of carbon. Iron is malleable like bronze but is cheaper to produce. Iron ore is also more common than copper + tin ore. Iron was used for military equipment because it was cheaper and more readily available compared to bronze, not because it was stronger or lighter. As time went on, iron was more relegated to armor while better grade iron (eg. iron with a certain % carbon in it to form steel) was used for weapons. For example, some Celtic swords supposedly had an issue with bending - possibly meaning they were of wrought iron or low carbon mild steel construction that made them soft. When people could produce higher carbon steel more reliably, they certainly would use them for weapons.

The Qin kingdom didn't necessarily have the best metallurgical or sword making skills overall though. I've read the Kingdom of Chu had the best iron & steel making industry and their swords were famed in the Warring States era.

This directly lead to the end of the "sword" story in ancient China, and Blade 刀(and tons of other different cold/hot weapons), took it's place.