The Legendary Weapons of the Three Kingdoms Explained

The Three Kingdoms is one of the most interesting periods of Chinese history, especially if you like epic battles. It is the subject of multiple movies, TV shows, and video games. The heroes of the Three Kingdoms period are a set of warlords and their generals who, as the Han Dynasty fell, divided the empire into three kingdoms of Shu Han, Wu, and Wei. Some of these characters had some pretty special weapons. Some of these existed in actual recorded history and some of them are just in the dramatized novelization San Guo Yan Yi Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In this video we are going to go through all of them and will try to point out which ones are historical and which ones are fictional along the way. This is... The legendary weapons of China's Three Kingdoms period. We will start with the weapons of the leaders of the Three Kingdoms, which may not have been used in battle so often, but played a more ceremonial role. But at the same time, they were certainly exquisite pieces. Cao Cao's Two Precious Swords. Now, in myths and legends in the West, we have stories of precious, even magical swords that can only be wielded by those who are worthy. Come on, in a thousand years, archaeologists will find He-Man comics and think it's totally real historical record. Anyway, in ancient China, there were precious swords too, in both actual history and martial arts and historical novels, and these are referred to as baojian. A jian is a straight sword. Sharp on both sides, as opposed to a dao, or curved blade, that was only sharp on one side. A really famous one from history is the sword of Goujian from around 500 BC. It was excavated from a tomb in 1965, and it was still sharp. Well, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao, the ruler of the northern Wei state, had two precious swords. Yitian, reaching heaven, and Qinggang, blue steel. Yeah, blue steel. I know what you're thinking. What's that look like? It's impressive. Cao Cao was ahead of his time. But anyway, the one he used himself was Yitian. It was called Reaching Heaven because it was a very long sword, and long swords at that time were hard to obtain and thus precious. The first use of this sword in the book Romance of the Three Kingdoms is when Cao Cao suspects an ally, Liu Boshu, of conspiring against him and kills his whole family. What happens is he hears Liu Boshu's relatives sharpening knives and thinks that they're going to kill him. So he slaughters them, but it turns out they were only going to kill a pig for a banquet in his honor. Since he has already gone so far, he then kills Liu Boshu himself for fear of retaliation. And he then utters the famous line, I would rather betray the world than have the world betray me. 宁教我负天下人 Ningjiao Wu Fu Tian Ha Yin I had to show you the Cantonese version since the Mandarin version of the 2010 Three Kingdoms isn't on YouTube anymore. So yeah, this sword starts its life with a dark act. The other sword, Blue Steel. It's impressive. Yeah, I'm sure it was a very impressive sword, but this one was given away to someone else and then taken by Zhao Yun at the Battle of Changban. The sword collection Action of Sun Quan. Now Sun Quan was the leader of the state of Wu in the east and he also had a collection of straight swords. You may realize now that the leaders of each state all seem to be using straight swords even though straight swords had been replaced by the cheaper to produce Dao or Chinese broadsword with a curved blade only sharp on one side. On the battlefield by this time in history. But yeah, those in command still carried straight swords and even some generals still did. It is a more elegant weapon that sets you apart from normal troops. Sun Quan's sword collection comprised six blades. Here is a passage about the collection and this comes from a historical text, not a fictional novel. The emperor of the Wu state had three precious knives and six precious swords, white rainbow, Pure lightning. These sound like Zoolander looks, don't they? Proud owner of blue steel, the look that made him the legend he is today. The sword that wards off evil, shooting star, blue darkness. That's right out of Zoolander. And 100 li, or 100 Chinese miles. Now, the leader of the third and final kingdom also carried straight swords. And not just one, Liu Bei's double swords. So in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei wields double swords called Shuang Gu Jian. We also see them in the Dynasty Warriors game, where he's basically He-Man. Swords such as these could often share a single scabbard. And in the 2010 television version, you can indeed see Liu Bei pulling the swords out of a single scabbard. And he wields them in battle with his sworn brothers, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu, against Lu Bu. Realistically, double swords are quite hard to use due to the risk that you could cut your own arm off with one of the blades. But these are Liu Bei's weapons, at least in the fictionalized novel, and they are one of the weapons forged out of a gift. That is described as 100 Jin of fine steel fit for forging weapons in chapter one of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu all swear an oath together. So what are the other two weapons forged with this steel? Let's check those out now. Zhang Fei's snake spear. Now this weapon's full name is Zhang Ba She Mao or the 1.8 Zhang snake spear. Zhang is a unit of Chinese measurement of about 3.2 meters or three and a half yards so if it really was 1.8 Zhang this thing would be about six meters in length or around 20 feet but actually during the three kingdoms the Zhang was a bit shorter than today so it works out at about four meters or 13 feet Which is still long, but more believable. Some translations say it's 10 feet. It also had another name, which was the Zhang Ba Dian Gang Mao, or the 1.8 Zhang steel-piercing spear. The head of the spear was wavy like a snake's body, with the very tip often depicted like the forked tongue of a snake. You see it in the Three Kingdoms TV show. I especially like the scene from the 2010 version when Zhang Fei uses it to fight Lu Bu alongside Liu Bei and Guan Yu. And speaking of Guan Yu, he is the owner of our next weapon, Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Knife. So Guan Yu's weapon is also introduced in chapter one of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, forged from the same steel as Liu Bei's double swords and Zhang Fei's snake spear. Here is what the book says. For Yun Chang, which is Guan Yu's courtesy name, they forged the Green Dragon Crescent Knife, which was also called the Cold Bright Blade. It weighed 82 jin. In Chinese, the name is pronounced As for the weight, 82 jin today is about 100 pounds. But during the Three Kingdoms period, one jin was lighter, giving the whole weapon a weight of about 40 pounds. That makes it more believable, but it's still a massively heavy weapon. It'd still be hard to imagine him wielding it around like this, even at 40 pounds. But hey, this is Guan Yu. He was an absolute unit. This is the guy who allowed his doctor to scrape poison from his bone while he sat there and got drunk and played chess with his friends. Oh, and look, there is the crescent knife in the background. Now, did Guan Yu actually use this weapon in history, you may ask? Well, the answer is probably no. You see, the Qinglong Yan Yue Dao is what is known as a Guan Dao, and this weapon didn't come into being until the Song Dynasty. Several hundred years after the Three Kingdoms period. So although we see Guan Yu being a hero with this weapon in the TV shows, and he's now been depicted in so many ancient paintings, murals, and statues, all holding this weapon, I don't think anyone cares anymore that this might not have been his weapon. That is Guan Yu. That is what he looks like. And those are some of the most legendary weapons of the Three Kingdoms period. Some actually recorded in history like Sun Quan's sword collection and some imagined by the author of Romance of the Three Kingdoms completed in the Ming Dynasty in 1522. Which one is your favorite? Leave your comments down below. If you like our work, do consider becoming a member for $4.99 per month. Really, you're just supporting our work, kind of like a donation. But as a thank you, you will get early access to some of our videos. You also have a couple of members-only videos on the channel already, and we hope to do more soon. 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