armour

Chinese armour breakdown

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I try not to do too many posts that are basically just a video, but I thought this one from Kung Fu world showing how the various parts of Chinese armour were worn was pretty good. There’s not much information provided with the video, but from looking at it I think it’s based on Song Dynasty (960 – 1279AD) armour – I could be wrong about that, but what’s interesting about it is that your average person saw this they would probably think this is Samurai armour from Japan, especially because she’s holding a sword that looks a bit like a katana.

Chinese armour really reached a peak in terms of technology in the Song Dynasty because the Chinese were fighting their most difficult opponents at the time, the Mongol army. This was the time of the folk hero General Yue Fei, who is traditionally associated with the martial art of Xing Yi and Xin Yi. Eventually the Song Dynasty collapsed and the Mongols took over, creating the Yuan Dynasty which only lasted from 1271 to 1368.

History of Xing Yi parts 7 and 8 – Armour, weapons, and their influence on Xing Yi

/ taichinotebook / 3 Comments

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Jurchen Jin Cavalry. Illustrations of Auspicious Omens [Public domain]

After looking at the rise of the Mongol Empire for a few episodes my Heretics podcast has come back around to looking at Xing Yi and in particular the use of weapons, military strategy and armour in the Song Dynasty armies.

Part 7 starts with a rebuke to the criticism “You haven’t even got to talking about Xing Yi yet!” then looks at some animal-based military strategy. These are the same strategies that are used in the Xing Yi animals today.

In particular, we look at Ma Xing – Horse strategy – but also look at Snake (She Xing) and Eagle (Ying Xing).

Listen to “#29 Xing Yi (part 7)” on Spreaker.

 

animal animals backlit beach

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Part 8 looks at Chinese armour in more detail, but also talks about Xing Yi fighting tactics in relation to armour and how the armour influences the way the art works – stepping, continuous movement, minimal movement, twisting the fist in Tzuann, etc…

There are two versions of part 8, the first is for public consumption, available here:

https://www.spreaker.com/user/9404101/30-xing-yi-part-8-short-version

and we got into some controversial topics at the end of the episode, so the full version is reserved for our Heretics/Woven Energy Patrons ($5 and up):

https://www.patreon.com/wovenenergy/posts

Here’s some nice Song Dynasty style armour a google search turned up

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Image Credit: Dragons Armory.

From:

http://dragonsarmory.blogspot.com/2017/07/heavy-song-dynasty-armor.html

Like Damon says, you could show that to a ‘normal’ person and tell them it’s Samurai armour and they would probably believe you 🙂

Also, here’s an interesting clip showing how effective Lamellar designed armour was. This design is taken from the much earlier Tang Dynasty armour: