The Big Swords Society[1] (Chinese: 大刀會; pinyin: Dàdāo Huì) or Great Knife Society[2] was a traditional peasant group most noted for the killing of two German Catholic missionaries at the Juye Incident in 1897 at Zhang Jia Village where the missionaries were ambushed in their sleep by about 30 armed men.
In 1927, the Fengtian government's harsh taxes and ill-treatment of local people in the Linjiang area, close to the Korean border, led to the Big Swords Society being organised there on a large scale, triggered by the collapse of the prevailing Feng-Piao paper currency.
During the rebellion the Big Swords were respected by the peasants because they did not harm or plunder the common people, but resisted the officials of the warlord Zhang Zuolin.
These societies soon formed part of the Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies resisting the Japanese establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 and their later pacification campaigns.
The large numbers of men from the Manchurian countryside inspired to take up the fight against a foreign invader under the traditional and quasi-religious Big Sword Society were of a unique character.