Chinese armour

Chinese armour was predominantly lamellar from the Warring States period (481 BC–221 BC) onward, prior to which animal parts such as rhinoceros hide, rawhide, and turtle shells were used for protection.

Chain mail had been known since the Han dynasty, but did not see widespread production or battlefield use, and may have seen as "exotic foreign armor" used as a display of wealth for wealthier officers and soldiers.

By the 19th century most Qing armour, which was of the brigandine type, were purely ceremonial, having kept the outer studs for aesthetic purposes, and omitted the protective metal plates.

Armour was almost exclusively for nobles; regular folks had little to no protection and more commonly used a hide-covered shield made of wood or bamboo.

[5] Lamellar armour of leather (more appropriately considered untanned or superficially tanned rawhide), bronze and iron appeared by the mid-4th century BC.

According to the Xunzi, "the hard iron spears of Wan (宛) [a city in Chu, near modern Nanyang (南陽), Henan] are as cruel as wasps and scorpions.

Han Fei recounts that during a battle with the Gonggong (共工) tribe, "the iron-tipped lances reached the enemy, and those without strong helmets and armour were injured.

[10] Shun taught the ways of good government for the following three years, and then took up shield and battle-ax and performed the war dance, and the Miao submitted.

But in the war with the Gonggong, men used iron lances with steel heads that reached to the enemy, so that unless one was protected by a stout helmet and armor he was likely to be wounded.

According to Su Qin, the state of Han made the best weapons, capable of cleaving through the strongest armour, shields, hide/leather boots and helmets.

[17] A complete set of Qin armour, judging by the finds in the Terracotta Army consisted of 250 to 612 pieces in total, not including the helmet.

In 150 AD, Cui Shi made similar complaints about the issue of quality control in government production due to corruption: "...not long thereafter the overseers stopped being attentive, and the wrong men have been promoted by Imperial decree.

Greedy officers fight over the materials, and shifty craftsmen cheat them... Iron [i.e. steel] is quenched in vinegar, making it brittle and easy to...

[35] By the early years of the fourth century the numbers have increased enormously, with the sources mentioning the capture of thousands of “armored horses” in a single battle.

He wears a plumed helmet that protects the sides and back of the head, a habergeon with high neck and shoulder guards, and chaps.

[36] During the Northern and Southern dynasties period (420–589), a style of armour called "cord and plaque" became popular, as did shields and long swords.

[36] The elite guards of the Liang dynasty (502–557) were equipped with helmets, uniforms, and armour that "trimmed in gold and silver and glistening under the sun's glare,"[39] cost in all some several hundred thousand coppers for each soldier.

[40] In the 6th century, Qimu Huaiwen introduced to Northern Qi the process of 'co-fusion' steel-making, which used metals of different carbon contents to create steel.

After the An Lushan rebellion of the mid-9th century and losing the northwestern pastures to the Tibetans, Chinese cavalry almost disappeared altogether as a relevant military force.

The current theory is that this type of armour is made from a multitude of small pieces of iron or steel shaped like the Chinese character for the word "mountain" (山).

[69] During the Song dynasty (960–1279) it became fashionable to create warts on pieces of armour to imitate cold forged steel, a product typically produced by non-Han people in modern Qinghai.

A Song source notes that one way to pierce heavily clad Mongol warriors was to use small arrows capable of entering the eye slits of their helmet.

It was already acknowledged by the early Ming artillery officer Jiao Yu that guns "were found to behave like flying dragons, able to penetrate layers of armor.

An account from the enemy side states, "Our troops used fire tubes to shoot and fell him, and the great army quickly lifted him and carried him back to his fortifications.

[86] Frederick Coyett later described Ming lamellar armour as providing complete protection from "small arms", although this is sometimes mistranslated as "rifle bullets".

Everyone was protected over the upper part of the body with a coat of iron scales, fitting below one another like the slates of a roof; the arms and legs being left bare.

This afforded complete protection from rifle bullets (mistranslation-should read "small arms") and yet left ample freedom to move, as those coats only reached down to the knees and were very flexible at all the joints.

The archers formed Koxinga's best troops, and much depended on them, for even at a distance they contrived to handle their weapons with so great skill that they very nearly eclipsed the riflemen.

They continually press onwards, notwithstanding many are shot down ; not stopping to consider, but ever rushing forward like mad dogs, not even looking round to see whether they are followed by their comrades or not.

Some uniforms and show pieces imitated brigandine armour by keeping the outer studs for aesthetic purposes but omitted the protective iron plates on the inside.