Guan dao
Encyclopedia
A Guan Dao, Kwan Dao, or Kuan Tao is a type of Chinese
pole weapon
that is currently used in some forms of Chinese martial arts
. In Chinese it is properly called a 偃月刀 yan yue dao ("reclining moon blade"), the name under which it always appears in texts from the Song to Qing dynasties such as the Wujing Zongyao and Huangchao Liqi Tushi. It is comparable to a European fauchard
or glaive
and consists of a heavy blade with a spike at the back and sometimes also a notch at the spike's upper base that can catch an opponent's weapon. In addition there are often irregular serrations that lead the back edge of the blade to the spike. The blade is mounted atop a 1.5 m to 1.8 m (5–6 foot) long wooden or metal pole with a pointed metal counter weight used to balance the heavy blade and for striking on the opposite end. The blade is very deeply curved and therefore unlike most polearms, solely useful for sweeping cuts where it relies on range and power.
On modern versions, a red sash or tassel is attached at the joint of the pole and blade. Variations include having rings along the length of the straight back edge as found in the nine-ring guan dao, having the tip curl into a rounded spiral as in the elephant guan dao (literally Elephant Knife), or featuring a more ornate design as exemplified by the Dragon
head guan dao. However, apart from the "Elephant knife" none of these variations seem to have historical ground.
during the early 3rd century AD, hence the name. It is said that he specified its form and size to be made by a smithy, and was uniquely able to wield such an imposing weapon due to his large stature and legendary strength. Guan Yu's guan dao was called "Green Dragon Crescent Blade" (青龍偃月刀) which weighed 82 Chinese jin
(estimated either at 18.263 kg or 48.38 kg—a Han Dynasty jin was 222.72 grams in the metric system, while the jin used in the Ming Dynasty—during which the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written—was about 590 grams).
However, while the famous novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms
by Luo Guanzhong describes him as wielding the guan dao, this description may have been an anachronistic one intended to make the character seem more imposing: historically speaking there was no evidence to show that Guan Yu used the weapon that is thus attributed to him, and indeed there is no indication of the existence of what is now known as the guan dao prior to the 7th century, (Tang
) when it was first illustrated in the military manual Wujing Zongyao
. The guan dao, therefore, possibly did not even exist during Guan Yu's era, meaning that it is somewhat of a pop culture-derived misnomer. Furthermore, the scholar Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536 AD) recorded in the Gujin Daojianlu (古今刀劍錄, "A Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Sabers and Rapiers") that Guan Yu forged a pair of sabres using iron ore he harvested from Wudushan mountain (武都山) himself, which may have inspired the story that Guan Yu invented his weapon. However, this would also indicate that he did not use a guan dao or even anything resembling a guan dao, since the pole-mounted or long handled dao weapons such as the Pudao or Dadao were all wielded with two hands and so would not have been made or used in a pair.
If Guan Yu did use a pole arm, it is most likely that he used a dagger-axe
(ji
戟), which was one of the most common horsemen's pole arms during the era, and also because historical citations mention Guan Yu attacking his opponenets both with thrusting and hacking attacks.
While some historians still contend that the guan dao was simply an uncommon, rare weapon prior to the Tang dynasty and was thus not illustrated before then, historical evidence does lean towards the attribution being an instance of creative license—historically, the guan dao, for the most part, was not actually intended for field use, but was instead used as a tool to test the strength of those who wished to become military officers: weapons of various weights were made, the test composed simply of performing various required maneuvers using such weapons. During the Qing dynasty
some extraordinarily heavy versions of guan dao were made for this purpose: a candidate had to be able to wield a weapon weighing 80, 100, or 120 jin (48, 60 or 72 kg, using the modern value for 1 jin = approximately .6 kg), with weapons of each weight being successively higher grades in the exam, the passage of which led to appointment as military officers of various ranks based on the grade. The heaviest known "testing guan dao", which resides in a museum at Shanhaiguan
(山海關), the site of one of the gates on the Great Wall and a Ming Dynasty outpost that marked the division between territories controleld by Han Chinese and Manchu forces, weighs a whopping 83 kilograms. While the examples are taken from the Qing Dynasty and therefore may have been influenced by the book (which was written in the Ming Dynasty), military officer tests (which began in the Tang Dynasty) have always involved lifting heavy stones of standardiuzed weight and maneuvering them about, possibly contributing to the writer's decision to assign an unusual weight to Guan Yu's weapon.
The weapon was also widely adopted by martial artists for the purposes of training and for demonstrating their strength, perhaps also to train specifically for the military officer's tests. It is likely that such practices influenced the attribution of the weapon to Guan Yu despite the lack of historical evidence for his use of it—the use of a weapon that was intentionally made too heavy to be of practical use would make the character more imposing in literature.
Where it was used, it was largely used by infantry. In the Qing Dynasty, it was used by the all Han Green Standard Army. Apart from that, the lack of standardization of the antique examples that survive to today seems to indicate that at least from the 19th century onwards it was popular in the civilian martial arts realm as well.
The modern guan dao as adopted by martial artists today usually weighs between 2 kg and 10 kg (5 and 20 pounds), and is typically composed of a wood shaft of about three to five feet in length, a short blade of about 12 to 18 inches on one end, and a mace head on the other (which serves mostly as a counterweight to the blade but can also be used for striking), the whole assembly rarely exceeding five to six feet in total length. The greatly reduced weight and length reflects its nature as a more practical form for martial artists.
or Wudangquan form of martial arts in modern times. According to contemporary Wushu practice, its purpose is more to disarm an opponent and deflect his strikes rather than to attack. To that end, a large veil cloth is attached to the end to dissuade and confuse opponents. However, there is no evidence of this being an authentic aspect of the weapon's usage. Tassels and cloths are attached to numerous weapons such as jian
, dao
, meteor hammer
, and guan dao used in Chinese opera, one of the sources of movements found in contemporary wushu.
In actual combat a guan dao, or any other member of the family of long handled sabers, was used to hack and slice through an opponent. The considerable weight of the blade and the leverage of the handle would have allowed it to cut through most leather, chain, scale or light lamellar armor of medieval China. It was obviously an offensive and not a defensive weapon. Deflecting motions would be done with the back of the blade and rear of the handle, with direct blocks done more often with handle than blade to avoid chipping it.
Forms utilizing the weapon in nearly all traditional styles of Chinese martial arts, emphasize strong slashing movements and momentum to keep the heavy blade moving through a series of spinning cuts. The considerable weight of the weapon also makes guan dao forms good for training the overall conditioning of the body.
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
pole weapon
Pole weapon
A pole weapon or polearm is a close combat weapon in which the main fighting part of the weapon is placed on the end of a long shaft, typically of wood, thereby extending the user's effective range. Spears, glaives, poleaxes, halberds, and bardiches are all varieties of polearms...
that is currently used in some forms of Chinese martial arts
Chinese martial arts
Chinese martial arts, also referred to by the Mandarin Chinese term wushu and popularly as kung fu , are a number of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" , "sects" or...
. In Chinese it is properly called a 偃月刀 yan yue dao ("reclining moon blade"), the name under which it always appears in texts from the Song to Qing dynasties such as the Wujing Zongyao and Huangchao Liqi Tushi. It is comparable to a European fauchard
Fauchard
A fauchard is a type of polearm weapon, which was used in medieval Europe from the 11th through the 14th centuries. The design consisted of a curved blade put atop a 2 m long pole. The blade bore a moderate to strong curve along its length, however unlike a glaive the cutting edge was only on the...
or glaive
Glaive
A glaive is a European polearm weapon, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. It is similar to the Japanese naginata and the Chinese Guan Dao....
and consists of a heavy blade with a spike at the back and sometimes also a notch at the spike's upper base that can catch an opponent's weapon. In addition there are often irregular serrations that lead the back edge of the blade to the spike. The blade is mounted atop a 1.5 m to 1.8 m (5–6 foot) long wooden or metal pole with a pointed metal counter weight used to balance the heavy blade and for striking on the opposite end. The blade is very deeply curved and therefore unlike most polearms, solely useful for sweeping cuts where it relies on range and power.
On modern versions, a red sash or tassel is attached at the joint of the pole and blade. Variations include having rings along the length of the straight back edge as found in the nine-ring guan dao, having the tip curl into a rounded spiral as in the elephant guan dao (literally Elephant Knife), or featuring a more ornate design as exemplified by the Dragon
Chinese dragon
Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...
head guan dao. However, apart from the "Elephant knife" none of these variations seem to have historical ground.
History
According to legend, the guan dao was invented by the famous general Guan YuGuan Yu
Guan Yu was a general serving under the warlord Liu Bei during the late Eastern Han Dynasty of China. He played a significant role in the civil war that led to the collapse of the Han Dynasty and the establishment of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period, of which Liu Bei was the...
during the early 3rd century AD, hence the name. It is said that he specified its form and size to be made by a smithy, and was uniquely able to wield such an imposing weapon due to his large stature and legendary strength. Guan Yu's guan dao was called "Green Dragon Crescent Blade" (青龍偃月刀) which weighed 82 Chinese jin
Chinese units of measurement
Chinese units of measurement are the customary and traditional units of measure used in China. In the People's Republic of China, the units were re-standardised during the late 20th century to make them approximate SI units. Many of the units were formerly based on the number 16 instead of 10...
(estimated either at 18.263 kg or 48.38 kg—a Han Dynasty jin was 222.72 grams in the metric system, while the jin used in the Ming Dynasty—during which the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written—was about 590 grams).
However, while the famous novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century, is a Chinese historical novel based on the events in the turbulent years near the end of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era of Chinese history, starting in 169 and ending with the reunification of the land in...
by Luo Guanzhong describes him as wielding the guan dao, this description may have been an anachronistic one intended to make the character seem more imposing: historically speaking there was no evidence to show that Guan Yu used the weapon that is thus attributed to him, and indeed there is no indication of the existence of what is now known as the guan dao prior to the 7th century, (Tang
Tang Dynasty
The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...
) when it was first illustrated in the military manual Wujing Zongyao
Wujing Zongyao
The Wujing Zongyao was a Chinese military compendium written in 1044 AD, during the Northern Song Dynasty. Its authors were the prominent scholars Zeng Gongliang , Ding Du , and Yang Weide , whose writing influenced many later Chinese military writers. The book covered a wide range of subjects,...
. The guan dao, therefore, possibly did not even exist during Guan Yu's era, meaning that it is somewhat of a pop culture-derived misnomer. Furthermore, the scholar Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536 AD) recorded in the Gujin Daojianlu (古今刀劍錄, "A Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Sabers and Rapiers") that Guan Yu forged a pair of sabres using iron ore he harvested from Wudushan mountain (武都山) himself, which may have inspired the story that Guan Yu invented his weapon. However, this would also indicate that he did not use a guan dao or even anything resembling a guan dao, since the pole-mounted or long handled dao weapons such as the Pudao or Dadao were all wielded with two hands and so would not have been made or used in a pair.
If Guan Yu did use a pole arm, it is most likely that he used a dagger-axe
Dagger-axe
The dagger-axe is a type of weapon that was in use from Shang dynasty until at least Han dynasty China. It consists of a dagger-shaped blade made of jade , bronze, or later iron, mounted by the tang of the dagger to a perpendicular wooden shaft with a spear point...
(ji
Ji (halberd)
The ji , the Chinese halberd, was used as a military weapon in one form or another from at least as early as the Shang dynasty until the end of the Qing dynasty. They are still used for training purposes by many Chinese martial arts...
戟), which was one of the most common horsemen's pole arms during the era, and also because historical citations mention Guan Yu attacking his opponenets both with thrusting and hacking attacks.
While some historians still contend that the guan dao was simply an uncommon, rare weapon prior to the Tang dynasty and was thus not illustrated before then, historical evidence does lean towards the attribution being an instance of creative license—historically, the guan dao, for the most part, was not actually intended for field use, but was instead used as a tool to test the strength of those who wished to become military officers: weapons of various weights were made, the test composed simply of performing various required maneuvers using such weapons. During the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
some extraordinarily heavy versions of guan dao were made for this purpose: a candidate had to be able to wield a weapon weighing 80, 100, or 120 jin (48, 60 or 72 kg, using the modern value for 1 jin = approximately .6 kg), with weapons of each weight being successively higher grades in the exam, the passage of which led to appointment as military officers of various ranks based on the grade. The heaviest known "testing guan dao", which resides in a museum at Shanhaiguan
Shanhaiguan District
Shanhaiguan District is a district of the city of Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, People's Republic of China, named after the pass of the Great Wall within the district, Shanhai Pass...
(山海關), the site of one of the gates on the Great Wall and a Ming Dynasty outpost that marked the division between territories controleld by Han Chinese and Manchu forces, weighs a whopping 83 kilograms. While the examples are taken from the Qing Dynasty and therefore may have been influenced by the book (which was written in the Ming Dynasty), military officer tests (which began in the Tang Dynasty) have always involved lifting heavy stones of standardiuzed weight and maneuvering them about, possibly contributing to the writer's decision to assign an unusual weight to Guan Yu's weapon.
The weapon was also widely adopted by martial artists for the purposes of training and for demonstrating their strength, perhaps also to train specifically for the military officer's tests. It is likely that such practices influenced the attribution of the weapon to Guan Yu despite the lack of historical evidence for his use of it—the use of a weapon that was intentionally made too heavy to be of practical use would make the character more imposing in literature.
Where it was used, it was largely used by infantry. In the Qing Dynasty, it was used by the all Han Green Standard Army. Apart from that, the lack of standardization of the antique examples that survive to today seems to indicate that at least from the 19th century onwards it was popular in the civilian martial arts realm as well.
The modern guan dao as adopted by martial artists today usually weighs between 2 kg and 10 kg (5 and 20 pounds), and is typically composed of a wood shaft of about three to five feet in length, a short blade of about 12 to 18 inches on one end, and a mace head on the other (which serves mostly as a counterweight to the blade but can also be used for striking), the whole assembly rarely exceeding five to six feet in total length. The greatly reduced weight and length reflects its nature as a more practical form for martial artists.
Combat uses
The guan dao is used quite frequently in the part of contemporary Wushu derived from the ShaolinShaolin kung fu
Shaolin Kung Fu refers to a collection of Chinese martial arts that claim affiliation with the Shaolin Monastery.Of the multitude styles of kung fu and wushu, only some are actually related to Shaolin...
or Wudangquan form of martial arts in modern times. According to contemporary Wushu practice, its purpose is more to disarm an opponent and deflect his strikes rather than to attack. To that end, a large veil cloth is attached to the end to dissuade and confuse opponents. However, there is no evidence of this being an authentic aspect of the weapon's usage. Tassels and cloths are attached to numerous weapons such as jian
Jian
The jian is a double-edged straight sword used during the last 2,500 years in China. The first Chinese sources that mention the jian date to the 7th century BCE during the Spring and Autumn Period; one of the earliest specimens being the Sword of Goujian.Historical one-handed versions have blades...
, dao
Dao (sword)
Daois a category of single-edge Chinese swords primarily used for slashing and chopping , often called a broadsword in English translation because some varieties have wide blades. In China, the dao is known as one of the four major weapons, along with the gun , qiang , and the jian , and referred...
, meteor hammer
Meteor hammer
The meteor hammer , often referred to simply as meteor, is an ancient Chinese weapon, consisting at its most basic level of two weights connected by a rope or chain. One of the flexible or 'soft' weapons, it is referred to by many different names worldwide, dependent upon region, construction and...
, and guan dao used in Chinese opera, one of the sources of movements found in contemporary wushu.
In actual combat a guan dao, or any other member of the family of long handled sabers, was used to hack and slice through an opponent. The considerable weight of the blade and the leverage of the handle would have allowed it to cut through most leather, chain, scale or light lamellar armor of medieval China. It was obviously an offensive and not a defensive weapon. Deflecting motions would be done with the back of the blade and rear of the handle, with direct blocks done more often with handle than blade to avoid chipping it.
Forms utilizing the weapon in nearly all traditional styles of Chinese martial arts, emphasize strong slashing movements and momentum to keep the heavy blade moving through a series of spinning cuts. The considerable weight of the weapon also makes guan dao forms good for training the overall conditioning of the body.