Chinese Miao Dao Two Handed Saber & Possible European Inspiration

Let's look at the legendary and giant Chinese two-handed saber known as the Miao Dao and also find out what it has in common and perhaps owes something to in imperial Prussian cavalry swords. Hi folks, Matt Eaton here, scholar gladiatorian. Now the first thing to say is this review is well overdue. You have seen this sword in the background of my videos for a very very long time now and as a general introduction for anyone who doesn't know this is a particularly iconic and for those in Chinese martial arts famous type of sword called a Miao Dao. Now the name Miao Dao is somewhat problematic and complicated and also the history of this sword is somewhat problematic as well. Let's put the scabbard down for a moment. So I'm going to start this video first of all with a basic review of this product from LK Chen, link below to the product. Okay so I'm going to look at this particular example but then I'm going to dive into the history of the Miao Dao and the first thing I want to say, I'm going to do the history part later, but the first thing I want to say is the history of this is somewhat complicated, also somewhat shrouded in confusion and misinformation and to some degree this type of large Chinese two-handed saber does indeed go back to the Ming dynasty in one form or another, although not this exact form and what we see here is really a 20th century sword and we'll talk more about that later. But now let's look at LK Chen's actual replica here. So this is based on specifications from certain martial arts schools who have been practicing the Miao Dao throughout the 20th century. Okay so this is based on surviving examples that were used by their masters and this is how this design came about in collaboration with LK Chen. Now this sword at the outset, the first headlines to say about it is yes it is long, obviously I'm not going to put the tip on my concrete floor here, but you can see it comes up to the center of my chest. Full measurements if you check out the link below to LK Chen's website you can find all of the weight and measurements and everything else there. But despite its size it is insanely light and fast is pretty much the lightest sword of this size that you will ever lay your hands on. You'll also notice that it has very specific proportions, it's got a very long hilt. If we just compare it, I'll just pull this so-called Zweihander, Montante, Spadone, whatever term you want to use, it's got a very comparable length hilt. In fact the hilt is slightly longer on the Miao Dao but the blade is somewhat shorter, quite a bit shorter, about a foot shorter than the Zweihander. So this is a two-handed sword no question, however as mentioned this is a particularly long hilt on it and whilst it does have a big blade, does have a long blade, it's not insanely long. However if we're talking about reach bear in mind that this is a very light weapon so indeed you could give cuts or thrusts whereby you let go with one hand and actually use it with the back end here. So if you were going to lance out and thrust at someone I can easily do that and I could I'm not going to see how long I could stand there because it'll be a really long time be very boring for you to watch but this is a really really light and wieldable sword. The point of balance is also pretty damned close to the top of the hilt and close to the guard so it it's just crazy light and crazy crazy quick. Now I'm not going to show you me I'm not going to show you me cutting with this sword quite simply because I lack the materials at the moment to do decent cutting tests but what we're going to see on screen here is this is LK Chen cutting himself with the sword and as you can see this thing performs absolutely excellently. Now the question is why is this sword so light? Why is it so so long and so light for its you know why is it so nimble for its size? And it comes down to one very simple factor and that is the blade cross section so if we look at the blade cross section here those of you who are familiar with 19th century British swords will hopefully quickly recognize this as a pipe backed blade. Now we're going to talk more about the possible origins of the pipe back blade but strengths and weaknesses. I've talked about pipe back blades in many videos looking at antique swords in my own collection and ones that have passed through my business and the advantages the massive advantage of a pipe back blade is that it's light. Okay the disadvantages is that it can be less durable particularly the edge because you have a very thin edge section down here so this is sometimes known as the keyhole or latchet cross section of blade so we essentially have a round back section at the blunt back round section here and then a very thin narrow wedge which means that you've got quite a narrow edge angle and you can have a very very fine sharp edge but it's not a particularly rope there's not an awful lot of metal behind the edge. I have to say given that this is a large sword this is thicker than a typical British officer's one-handed sword would be and so it's got a fair amount of metal behind the edge still and it's comparable with certain types of hollow ground medieval swords that we might find for example. The other disadvantage of pipe back blades is that they can be considered rather flexible for their length but I have to say again because this is a big two-handed sword this is not especially flexible it's not like wobbly or floppy like some pipe backs can be essentially because a decent amount of thickness in the cross section has been left in the flats of the blade so not only do we have a rod section but we've still got a relatively decent wedge section it's not completely flat in the cutting portions of the blade. Now in terms of reviewing this actual product like all LK Chen swords it is made to perform it's made to cut it's made to be used this is not a wall hanger it is a real sword made traditionally by craftsmen in Long Quan and it is hand forged this is particularly made for modern martial arts practitioners so it actually has stainless steel I believe hilt fittings both the guard and the ferrule in there and the pommel cap it's not really a pommel as such but butt cap hilt end this cap at the end here is also stainless steel so they're not going to rust and you can use them continuously in practice without having to worry about rust forming on the blade however is carbon steel they come with a few different blade options as most LK Chen swords do but they're carbon steel and obviously heat treated hardened and tempered and sharpened designed for cutting practice in your martial arts training. So it's an incredibly light and nimble sword it's made of good functional materials the wood of the grip is very nicely finished and it is pinned in two places now let's oh and the scabbard as well also has a traditional stainless well traditional style fittings but in stainless steel so it's the marriage of kind of modern metallurgy and kind of not having to worry about rusting essentially but nevertheless with a wooden scabbard and the whole thing is incredibly robustly made as I say very much made to be used and it sits very well in the scabbard there's no there's no vibrations or rattles or anything like that it's as you can see it does wobble a fair amount as all long blades do but the vibrational node is very close to where you'd expect well it is where you'd expect the central percussion to be so functionally a fantastic sword. Now let's get back to the issue of the history of this sword and also the ambiguity about its origins so if we go all the way back into the Ming dynasty so now when for those of you who don't know the Ming dynasty we're essentially talking about in Europe what would have been the late middle ages and into the renaissance okay now during the Ming dynasty there were various things going on in China militarily and historically one of those things was that the various Chinese were having Chinese rulers were having to deal with Japanese piracy and indeed Chinese piracy and and other issues so but during particularly in reference to this type of sword during the Ming dynasty they encountered Japanese warriors you know sometimes just bandits pirates sometimes ronin but they encountered them and particularly were impressed by the no dachi okay so that is the large version of the Japanese warriors two-handed sword so bigger than a katana bigger than a tachi essentially about the size of this now this is this is something which is difficult to pin down there's not a huge number of written sources what I'm going to do is I am going to link you below to a website which which we'll call Kung Fu Tea which will explain in far more detail the possible ancestry of the Miao Dao but in a nutshell during the Ming dynasty there was something called the Dan Dao which essentially means single sword or single saber I believe which designates the fact that it was used by itself without an offhand weapon such as a shield or another sword or whatever so it was used by itself and therefore was known as the single saber Dao meaning we translate it roughly as it can mean knife as well but we translate it single-edged sword for the purposes of this we'll translate it as saber so there was the Dan Dao now the Dan Dao has a particular subdivision should we say of the Chang Dao as I understand it and the Chang Dao is something which comes about specifically emulating large Japanese Nodachi okay so large Japanese swords so in the Ming dynasty without getting too caught up in the terminology and all the different types of Dao that we see in period texts the what in the modern world usually the Dan Dao or the Chang Dao and those to some degree can be used interchangeably in the Ming dynasty comes about as a response to large Chinese swords and is used by some troops and is shown in some treatises some Chinese martial arts treatises of the I think 17th century and is shown being used and it is a large saber superficially similar to this however if we actually look at the Ming dynasty examples there are some design differences between this Miao Dao here and the Ming examples and in fact LK Chen has subsequently looked at the replicas of the Ming dynasty types this Miao Dao is replicating essentially 20th century descendants of those Ming dynasty two-handed swords that survived in martial arts training okay so the Miao Dao really should be viewed as a 20th century sword but it is a descendant of the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty two-handed swords that now with the Ming dynasty swords the big difference between those and this is that this in particular has a pipe back blade now one of the great questions that me talking with LK and the people who work at LK Chen was where did this pipe back blade come from because if we look at the Ming dynasty Dan Dao or Chang Dao then we don't see this type of pipe back blade now what's interesting is although it's lost in the mists of time and we don't yet know the answer we haven't found written sources we haven't found anyone who knows for certain it appears that the pipe back blade came into Chinese sword design around the year 1900 now things were interesting things were happening around this time of course because there was a cultural military revolution in China at the beginning of the 20th century and one of the groups of people who were involved in facilitating the mechanization of the Chinese military system and you know the changes in their uniforms their rifles and the swords that they carried were European officers and advisors and particularly Prussians now this is very very interesting so initially I came at this Miao Dao talking with KK who works at LK Chen and I was like you know where does this pipe back come from I've never seen a pipe back blade on old Chinese swords before but I'm completely familiar with pipe back blades on British swords so here is a British example this is actually an East India company sword and you'll notice it's got a very nice Prossa made Prossa very good maker of the time pipe back blade so exactly like the Miao Dao it has a rod section at the back and then it has a very narrow or flat section wedge section for the rest of the blade just like with the Miao Dao this makes for a very light very responsive blade however in British service these were found to be not as durable and strong as the later fuller type of blade well the type of filler blade that replaced it in actual fact that type of filler blade had been around before as well so it wasn't a new invention so this type of fullered this type of pipe back blade passed out of British service around 1845 1846 in official usage obviously they still remained in use for a few years after that but in terms of manufacturing so we're talking about the middle of the 1800s so if they disappear in British service in the middle of the 1800s why are the Chinese using them after 1900? Well that's where the Prussians get involved so bizarrely despite the fact that the British seem to have if not invented I think the French probably with right at the end of the Napoleonic Wars were experimenting with an official model that was in brief service that had a pipe back blade but the British additionally had been experimenting with pipe back blades in the early 1800s in the Napoleonic Wars in the second half of the Napoleonic Wars but despite the fact that the British and the French pushed them out of service well before the middle of the 19th century for some reason around the middle of the 19th century and in the couple of decades after various countries including Prussia and Switzerland decided that they were going to start using pipe back blades. Now in a sense this has always been one of the great mysteries of European military sword technology say or design even politics to an extent of the 19th century. Why when Britain and France had got rid of pipe back blades why did sometime very soon after that certain countries Prussia Switzerland to some degree Austria and occasionally Italy why did they start using the pipe back blades? Because the problems of pipe back blades well the advantages and the disadvantages hadn't changed and we don't know the answer. I've never seen a written text maybe someone who's working with German sources Austro-Hungarian, Swiss maybe they'll find something written one day which explains why they adopted pipe back blades. Anyway what we've got here is a I believe it's a non-commissioned officer's a cavalry sword of 1889 pattern and you will notice straight away that it has a pipe back blade and indeed this type of sword was still being used in the first world war and it's got a blade very similar to certain Swiss swords as well. You'll notice it has a raised what's called yeoman with a the rod section carries up the point so it ends up with the spear point quite good for thrusting and then it has the rod at the back and this cross section exactly like the Miao Dao the point is different but the edge section exactly the same. So our current working theory and we've got pictures of course from China around 19 well after 1900 the early early 20th century we've got pictures of Chinese soldiers wearing Prussian inspired and sometimes French but usually Prussian inspired uniforms carrying Prussian inspired swords. In one case here you can even see this characteristic 1889 style finger rest in there you can actually see that in one of these pictures. So these were and we also know that the Prussians were not only giving them ideas about the design of their uniforms and equipment and everything else they were also making it so the Chinese were importing German swords made for the most part in Solingen straight into China and using them in their military. So it's my current hypothesis and KK LK Chen agrees with this as well that this is my current working theory and we need more data really to make sure that this this actually stands up but my current working theory is that the Chinese military in the first couple of decades of the 20th century so between about 1900 after the so-called boxer rebellion and then up till about 1920 they had adopted huge amounts of German equipment and so when they came to either revive or update or continue the use of the two-handed sword in martial arts schools they went to the pipe back blade because they had become familiar with the pipe back blade from Prussian particularly cavalry but sometimes infantry swords as well that they basically copied that cross-sectional blade design so that they could have a very large blade that was very very light. Now I have to caveat that because we don't have a huge amount of data to go on the moment this is a working theory it is possible that they this was convergent evolution and that sometime in the 19th century independent of British or Prussian or whoever else interference in China that they came up with the Miao Dao pipe backed blade section by themselves however I think that it's I think that it's unlikely given the evidence that we have and equally people like Peter Decker who deal in Chinese swords I have not seen any Chinese swords from before 1900 which have a pipe backed cross section to them and especially so I haven't seen any pipe back cross section blades from the Ming dynasty for example on a Dan Dao or Chang Dao so I don't think that we should always particularly with this form of Miao Dao which has a pipe back blade I don't think we should always exactly equate it with the old Ming dynasty two-handed saber I think they it's a descendant of it but it's not the exact same sword. So to conclude this form of the Miao Dao which is based on examples which have been used in training for at least the last hundred years in China I believe is essentially a 20th century martial weapon and to some degree they were you know carried in the conflicts of the 20th century and it is a descendant of the Ming dynasty two-handed saber but it is not the same thing and it continued to develop and I think that it also tells an interesting story and for those of you who are not aware of it of how Europe's military influenced Chinese traditional martial practices and in the Chinese military through their hardware and other things in the 20th century and it's a very interesting facet of history to look into. So there we go LK Chen's Miao Dao an amazingly light and fluid moving quick long nimble weapon an incredible thing in the hand I don't think you'll ever hold another sword that feels exactly like this ever I certainly haven't. Not exactly the same as a Ming or Qing dynasty two-handed saber well it's late Qing but not the same as a Ming dynasty two-handed Dan Dao or Chang Dao but a descendant of it that perhaps and perhaps even probably has some European input in its design and yet is still part of traditional Chinese martial arts to this very day. I hope that's been interesting give us a like and subscribe and I will check out the links below of course for more information on this topic but I will see you back on the channel really really soon. Cheers folks! Thanks for watching we've got extra videos on Patreon please give our Facebook a like and subscribe if you haven't already. Cheers folks!