Today, what Bian Xiao wants to talk to you about is related to this ancient cold weapon. These two kinds of cold weapons, which are very similar in appearance, are the natural enemies of ancient heavily armored soldiers-whip and hammer. Although from the ancient actual combat point of view, the lethality of whip and mace to human body is not as good as that of sword and other sharp weapons. However, from the Three Kingdoms, the heavy armor gradually became active in the ancient battlefield and began to use whips and hammers.
Take the famous bright armor in the Tang Dynasty as an example (this armor is made of high-quality steel, and its surface is very smooth, so the whole armor surface will reflect brilliance in the scorching sun, so it is called bright armor by the world), and it is difficult for ordinary swords to pierce it. On the other hand, blunt instruments such as whips and maces can easily cause internal injuries to soldiers wearing bright armor.
Until the Ming Dynasty, bronze openers were widely used to make cold weapons. Because the hardness of copper is much less than that of iron, most fragile weapons such as whips and hammers are made of copper. But generally speaking, when casting this kind of cooked copper weapon, the copper used must be specially refined (the so-called "four fire brass").
Roughly speaking, if the weight of the weapon to be cast is about 1 kg, the amount of copper alone should not be less than 4 kg. In the Ming Dynasty, the valuation of 1 gold brass was about 1.20, plus the processing fee required for hiring craftsmen to carve (generally about 500 pieces per month), the cost of a bronze weapon was at least 1 silver.
However, the salary of the first-class officials in the Ming Dynasty was only 2 1 6 silver. As for the thousands of military attaché s, the annual salary of 1 is only 38 taels of silver. On the other hand, the price of 1 piece is only 3 to 5 yuan. Therefore, judging from the manufacturing cost of this bronze weapon alone, it was a luxury in the Ming Dynasty (most people simply couldn't afford it).
However, whip and mace are both short weapons in ancient China. But the origin of whips is earlier in history. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, whips were very popular, including single whip, Shuang Bian, soft whip and hard whip, among which hard whip was mostly made of copper or iron.
As for the soft whip, it is divided into 7 whips, 9 whips and 13 whips (completely different from the whips used to drive cattle and ride horses). The general soft whip consists of a dart head, a handle and several iron whip or iron rings connected in series. Soft whip has been recorded in the Jin Dynasty, when people still regarded it as an irresistible violent hidden weapons.
As for the history of mace, it is much later than the time when whip appeared. According to records, mace is a simple whip. However, mace usually appears in the form of a combination of two maces. Moreover, mace is as heavy as a hard whip (ranging from 20 kg to 50 kg, and the length is generally 65 to 80 cm), so it is impossible to use it freely without any effort. This weapon also has advantages for soldiers wearing heavy armor. If you can hit the enemy with a mace in actual combat, even if the enemy has heavy armor, he will be killed alive.
It is worth mentioning that in the Ming Dynasty, most of the tips of many pearls and hairpins were designed like pagodas, and the reason is very simple, mainly because the pagodas themselves have the meaning of compassion and repression.
In addition, weapons such as whips and maces are dull and blunt. Therefore, under normal circumstances, as long as the holder of the whip (or mace) doesn't hit the key parts of the enemy, he won't kill it immediately, which is one of the typical representatives of China's "king has no hegemony" temperament since ancient times.