"Hey! This is more interesting! The Earth Cold Weapon Museum! Shall we go in and take a look?" Ha Gang's wife said, holding her son's hand in one hand and Ha Gang's hand in the other.
Upon hearing his wife's request, Ha Gang pushed open the door to the Earth Cold Weapon Museum, which had been specially set up by the deacon of the foreign tribe, without saying a word.
The first thing that catches the eye is a row of stone weapons.
Beneath the crude stone weapon was a description of the weapon projected onto a screen resembling a glass table.
Turning to the first page of the introduction: "The Stone Age spanned approximately 500,000 to 600,000 years, from the time primitive humans learned to make tools such as stone axes and knives until the advent of bronze weapons in the Xia Dynasty. Judging from unearthed stone weapons, the oldest weapons in China were made by ancient ape-men from raw materials such as quartz, sandstone, and zeolite, which were then hammered and polished. They come in various irregular shapes, including flat, round, square, and curved, and some are bladed or shaped like a spear."
Page Two: "In that primitive environment where wild animals roamed and overgrown with vegetation, human ancestors relied on tools that served as both labor and defense weapons to hunt and hunt, practice slash-and-burn agriculture, and survive and evolve. By the end of the Paleolithic period, people were able to manufacture weapons such as stone spears, javelins, and stone axes that could be fitted with bamboo or wooden barrels, and then invented projectile weapons—the bow and arrow."
This fully demonstrates the wisdom and superb skills of the ancient Chinese working people, who thus bid farewell to ignorance and embarked on civilization.
By the Neolithic Age, the technology for manufacturing stone weapons had greatly advanced, and the variety of types had increased. In primitive society, stone weapons were also tools for labor. At that time, people were bound together by blood ties, forming tribes.
To compete for limited resources or forcibly marry, tribes frequently clashed, sometimes even erupting into large-scale wars. Driven by the needs of war, the tools people used for labor increasingly evolved into weapons, leading to weapons leaving their primitive stage and becoming widely available, distinct from tools. With the advent of class society, war took on the nature of class struggle. These uniquely designed and specialized fighting implements then evolved into true weapons, which, along with the army, became the monopolistic tools of the ruling class.
After briefly reviewing the descriptions of the stone weapons, Ha Gang continued to touch and flip through the pages on the projection panel, eventually revealing descriptions and corresponding images of bronze weapons.
"The Bronze Age began in the Xia Dynasty and lasted until the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods."
This period coincided with the decline of China's slave society, from its rise to its fall.
Amidst the flourishing of the Shang Dynasty's bronze culture, bronze weapons rapidly emerged, quickly becoming tools controlled by the slave-owning aristocracy and scholar-official class. They completely replaced ancient stone weapons, becoming the primary weaponry in armies during the chariot warfare era. Ancient bronze was actually an alloy of copper, silver, and tin.
The artifacts cast using this material are bluish-gray or bluish-green in color, hence the name "bronze ware." The Bronze Age coincided with the entire period of slave society. During this more than 1600 years of warfare, the slave-owning aristocratic ruling class of each dynasty used their military power as a pillar to strengthen their autocratic position and conquer vast numbers of slaves. They established workshops to supervise slaves in casting large quantities of bronze weapons to equip their armies. At that time, military operations were strictly hierarchical. The sons of the aristocratic and scholar-official classes served as generals or armored soldiers, riding in chariots, wearing leather armor, and wielding bronze spears and halberds as they charged across the battlefield.
The slaves could only serve as foot soldiers, armed with simple weapons such as staffs, following the chariots and charging into battle on foot. With the development of social productivity, the weapons manufacturing industry flourished. Various bronze weapons, such as halberds, spears, swords, daggers, and bows, all saw further advancements and development.
Especially during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, continuous warfare took place across the vast plains, with chariot battles becoming increasingly large-scale. The various feudal lords, vying for territory and expanding their power bases to ascend to the throne of hegemony, spared no expense, investing manpower, resources, and time in forging advanced weaponry.
Since bronze weapons are not displayed in kind like stone weapons, the projected descriptions are accompanied by clear, high-resolution color images, seemingly to ensure that humans and all living beings on Earth can see and understand them clearly.
Ha Gang nodded as he read, then continued scrolling through the projected description, where he saw the Chinese melee weapon: the halberd.
The ge is an ancient Chinese long weapon used for striking, thrusting, hooking, and pecking.
Its characteristics are generally that it has a short blade that extends horizontally at the end, with the blade pointing inward, and a long handle, which is used to hook, cut or peck at the enemy.
The earliest ge (dagger-axe) evolved from primitive tools such as stone knives, stone axes, and stone sickles into stone ge and bronze ge. Ge came in various shapes and sizes.
The specifications of a ge (戈) are: 2 inches wide, 7 inches long internally, 6 inches long in the tang, 8 inches long in the blade, and weighing 1.14 jin (approximately 0.5 kg). The handle is 6 chi (approximately 0.33 cm) long. However, the actual dimensions of a ge are not uniform. A standard ge consists of three parts: the head, the handle, and the bronze vessel.
If Ha Gang continues flipping through the pages, he finds: spear.
A spear is a long, straight weapon with a sharp blade used for stabbing.
The stabbing or throwing weapons used by most peoples on Earth in the past during hunting and warfare.
It appeared in the Paleolithic period.
The earliest spears were sharpened clubs; later spears had spearheads attached to the shaft. They ranged in length from 1.5 to 5 meters. Stone and bone spearheads were used in the Stone Age, while metal spearheads began to be used from the Bronze Age onwards. The spear was most widely used during the Iron Age.
Infantry were equipped with throwing spears and long spears with heavy, long spearheads.
In the Middle Ages, cavalry and infantry used spears. The spear was a common weapon for both foot and mounted soldiers, who typically carried throwing spears inside cast spear hilts.
The spears were primarily made of iron or high-quality cast bronze with ridged spearheads.
The head of the spear is called the spear tip, and the tube portion of the spearhead that fits onto the spear shaft is called the spear cap. The end of the spear shaft has a metal ferrule. The portion connecting the spearhead and the spear cap is mostly spherical.
A long-handled, lightweight spear was used by infantry until the advent of bayonets, and by cavalry until the 1930s. In China, the spear was also known as the "pin" or "plated spear," and later evolved into the "gun." A spear consists of four parts: the spearhead, the shaft, the handle, and the girder. The spearhead is the bladed part, with a ridge along the center line, and sometimes blood grooves on both sides.
The lower edge of the blade is called a "絵" (huǐ), which is conical in shape. It is used to insert the spear shaft. The shaft is made of bamboo or wood and is 2 zhang or 2 zhang 4 chi long. To prevent the spearhead from falling off, there are often two rings or two small holes on both sides so that the spearhead can be tied to the shaft with rope or nailed in place.
The handle has missing characters from the original inscription and was used to insert into the ground. Initially, spearheads were made of pointed stones or bone and horn, bound to bamboo or wooden shafts. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, spearheads were made of bronze, resulting in two types: chieftain spears and barbarian spears. After the Warring States period, they were made of iron. With the emergence and rise of the spear, the role of the spear diminished, and after the Jin dynasty, the spear gradually evolved into the gun.
Ha Gang quickly flipped through the weapon descriptions, and there were more and more as he went on.
"It seems we'll be flipping through this book on projecting stone weapons for quite some time," Ha Gang said wearily, glancing at his son, Pingyao, and Xu Que.
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