Through its enlightened politics and powerful military power, the Tang Empire became the center of the world at that time. From the battle of unification in the early Tang Dynasty to all the internal and external wars in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, weapons that had a huge impact on later generations appeared in the history of cold weapons - —Tang Dao. At that time, it was two famous knives in the world, together with the Arabian Damascus knife. They had reached extremely high achievements in both technology and art. They could be said to be the pinnacle of the history of swords in our country.
Judging from historical records, Zhan Dao and Heng Dao are the sabers of guards and ordinary soldiers; judging from the murals on the tombs of Princess Changle of Tang Dynasty and Prince Zhang Huai, as well as the sabers worn by Qiu Xinggong in the "Salu Purple" of Six Horses of Zhaoling, they wear The horizontal knife has no ring, and the handle is shorter than the instrument knife. The handle head is a metal tube that is placed on the handle. The middle of the handle is waisted and has a hole for a rope.
Due to the lack of physical objects and detailed mural data, it is impossible to accurately restore the shape of the horizontal sword. However, the Keishe straight sword unearthed in Japan was also spread to Japan in the late Tang Dynasty. Its shape is very close to the horizontal sword. The only thing that can be known is the horizontal sword. The wearing range is wide, and it should be a mass-produced and manufactured weapon. The hand rope was moved from the ring of the sword to the middle of the handle to prevent the sword from falling out of the hand. This craft has been passed down to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In the subsequent evolution of the sword, It has become a self-defense weapon for military soldiers and ordinary people.
From the existing archaeological data and murals, as well as from fragments of history books, we strive to restore the shape and development of the Tang Dao and appreciate the charm of the cold weapon culture during the Tang Dynasty. As a peak in the development of China's cold weapons, the Tang Dao not only With the establishment and prosperity of the Tang Empire, the joys and sorrows of honor and disgrace also successfully affected the cold weapon culture of the entire Asia, along with the changes in the shape of war.
The Yidao and Hengdao among the Tang knives developed into later sabers. The Yidao spread eastward to Goryeo and Japan and evolved into the cold weapon of the nation. To the southwest, it became the ancestor of the Tibetan sword. In the subsequent evolution of the Mo Dao It became the Song Dynasty Dao, and several types of long knives evolved from it, which were passed down to later generations. The birth and development of the Tang Dao witnessed the most powerful empire in Chinese history. It is the most splendid in the cold weapon culture, and this is the only one. Wen recalls that period of great history.
Based on the solid foundation of previous dynasties, Tang Dao was finally born. It inherited the fine traditions of Chinese knives. After absorbing the technology of hundreds of steel-making and partial quenching, it added earth-covered burning blades and steel-clad steel clips. The technology formed a new type of Chinese war knife.
First of all, we need to introduce the two advanced knife-making technologies at that time: earth-covered burnt blades and steel-wrapped ones.
Burning Blade
A local quenching technology. The basic method is to cover the parts of the blade that do not require high hardness with prepared soil, and then heat the sword to a specific temperature. When the red-hot blade enters the water, the exposed part cools quickly and is covered with soil. The temperature change of the part will not be very obvious, causing the hardness to be different from the final part. This can accurately control the different cooling rates during quenching of different parts of the blade. The cooling rate is directly proportional to the hardness and inversely proportional to the toughness.
Baidu steelmaking: a traditional method of folding and forging when making weapons. The steel block needs to be beaten, burned and beaten up to hundreds of times. Since Baidu steelmaking has more carbon content, the structure is finer and the composition is more precise. Uniform, so the quality of steel is greatly improved.
Baogang
It is a knife-making technology invented after in-depth research and understanding of steel. The main method is to sandwich softer low-carbon steel into V-shaped hard high-carbon steel.
Clamp steel
A piece of high-carbon steel is sandwiched between two layers of low-carbon steel. Both technologies embody the basic idea of "good steel is used on the blade" to make superior swords, and also make the steel knife have excellent toughness.
Of course, in terms of materials, people in the Tang Dynasty still put a lot of thought into it. The best steel in the world at that time - Indian Utz steel, which is also known as Damascus steel (it was called iron at the time), was used by Chinese knifemakers.
Favored, it has become a necessary raw material for high-end steel knives, and the average price is more than three times that of ordinary high-quality steel knives.
The horizontal sword manufactured with the above technology played a great role in the wars of the Tang Dynasty. It could be used both on foot and on horseback. In terms of shape, it was divided into two-hand grip and one-hand grip. The shape still inherited the shape of the ring-shou sword of the Han Dynasty.
It has a straight blade, but the ring-head shape of the Han Dynasty has been removed. In actual combat, it is basically a one-handed horizontal sword, and a two-handed sword is generally used for ceremonial purposes. The handle of an advanced horizontal sword is wrapped with an iron stem with a wooden clamp and a silk rope.
The head of the knife is wrapped with metal ornaments, the handle and sheath are inlaid with gold and jade, and wrapped with shark leather. The decoration is very gorgeous, reflecting the style of a great country in the Tang Dynasty.
The difference between the casting methods of Tang sword and Japanese sword
Tang Dao first made two pieces of hard steel, using the folding method. The temperature was controlled between 750-800 degrees during the making, and the number of folds was about 15 times, with 32768 layers. Then the two pieces of hard steel with 327687 layers were combined, and a piece of soft steel was made.
The steel is clamped together, heated to about 1300 degrees, and forged, so that the three pieces of steel change into one piece of steel, and then extended to the original shape of the knife. At this time, because the steel knife has been heated to 1300 degrees, the surface
It has been decarbonized and the hardness has become smaller. At this time, it needs to be carburized to strengthen the surface hardness. This process seems to have been lost now (but in recent years, Zhou Zhengwu, the successor of Longquan Jian Qianzi, claimed to have restored this technology).
It is the quenching mentioned above, followed by shaping, grinding, and polishing. This is the traditional and famous three pieces. Japanese swords are made of a piece of jade steel, which is the same as the Tang sword. After it is made, it is beaten into 20cm.
Cut a V-shaped groove on the side of the steel block that is about to be used as the back of the knife. The depth is one-third of the entire steel block. Then put in a piece of mild steel. At this time, heat the steel to between 750-800 degrees.
, the temperature is the same as the folding and forging, and it is shaped into the shape of a knife, and then it is covered with earth and burned. The method of covering the earth is different from that in China. The Chinese Tang knife is covered with earth once, while the Japanese is covered with earth multiple times. Each time it is very thin and still.
There are layers, so when a Japanese knife is burned, there will be a very obvious sea pattern. The knife pattern is not the pattern of folding pattern steel. The real folding pattern steel is not obvious because it has many layers. You need to be very careful with the naked eye.
Only then can we see that the Tang sword is soft on the inside and hard on the outside, and tough in the middle. The Japanese sword has a sharp edge, high hardness, and a tough back. If the Tang sword and the Japanese sword collide, one Japanese sword will become two. The Tang sword is for cutting hard objects.
Japanese knives are used for cutting meat, and the angles of the cutting edges are different. Tang knives are larger, while Japanese knives are smaller and thinner.