The shields are light but durable, and in later ages where guns are used, the firearm projectile/shrapnel would get stuck in the softer rattan rather than piercing through and hitting the user.

In the classic Chinese and Korean martial arts manuals the use of the rattan shield (téng-pái or deungpae), is explained in combination with both the spear and the sword.

However, rattan does not grow in the climate of Northern China, so troops equipped from that region bore yuan pai ('round shield'), made of willow wicker and covered with leather or rawhide.

While mainland China was lost to the Qing Manchus (Later Jin), Koxinga invaded the island of Formosa (Taiwan), which at the time was the colony of the Dutch.

The Qing wrote on their encounter with Tungning's army: "The rebels wore quilts, had tiger skins on the body, and many of them held rawhide, rattan shields."

During the Qing dynasty, an elite special forces troop emerged wearing a tiger uniform, the Tiger-Skinned Rattan Shield Soldiers.

These specialists did not suffer a single casualty when they defeated and cut down Russian forces traveling by raft, only using the rattan shields and swords while fighting naked.Thereupon [Marquis Lin] ordered all our marines to take off their clothes and jump into the water.