Lightweight Poison Crossbow of Ming China
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2023
- Ming Dynasty China is the last place military crossbows were used in signifiant quantity. In fact by the 1500s, Chinese Crossbows were becoming obsolete due to the adoption of more reliable firearms. Although some militaries continued to experiment and use crossbows in very small numbers after the 17th century, most were used for hunting, self defence, rebellions and recreation.
The Mongol Yuan Dynasty that ruled China previously favoured bow and horse archery over crossbow, and the advent of true guns and cannons (instead of primitive firebombs and fire lances) during Yuan Dynasty rendered crossbow almost obsolete. Consequently, the use of crossbow in the Chinese army declined sharply, and this trend would continue into the Ming and Qing period. There were even signs of regression of crossbow technology during early and mid Ming Dynasty, although this was largely averted during late Ming Dynasty, and crossbow technology continued to advance despite its diminished importance. (greatmingmilitary.blogspot.co...)
The niche use of these weapons include the lack of metal in the construction allowing the army to supply ranged weapons to infantry with no training, with almost no metal. Such metal can be supplied to more important things such as melee weapons and firearms. This is especially true in Southwestern China where these crossbows can be made with natural materials locally available. 
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Man this design in jungles of southern China punishes people not wearing armor and if they do wear thicker cloth everywhere then the heat kills
Man I love the filthy frank welcome to Ricefield reference in the end
Where did he do it?
Last 10 sec
Great job jack!
i love the camera quality
Very cool
Please more early Chinese firearms like those three barrel revolver and explosives and rocket arrows
Yes
Id love to make some Ming dynasty firearms but I’m not sure about PAL/ Canadian law
Can we get a better look at the tilting action?
ruclips.net/user/shorts6fldWTb1x5o?feature=share
Nice arms
Id love to ride a dragon and shoot on Dragonback
Seems perfect to give melee infantry this, a cheap crossbow with cheap ammo
Are you working with Cheng Zongyou's late-Ming crossbow manual at all? It describes this sort of crossbow in considerable detail, nominally for farmers turned soldiers to use alongside pikes & long-handled swords. As you say, the crossbow was very weak & relied on poison. Cheng specified the draw weight of the standard crossbow that anyone could span as 150-160 catties (195-208lbs or 88-95kg). He also mentioned heavier prods. Cheng's crossbows used very light bolts with steel heads designed to deliver poison, which he claimed could kill very quickly. He instructed that crossbowers who encountered enemies wearing heavy armor to shoot for the gaps as you'd expect. I continue to find this text fascinating, especially given the context of Ming China under threat from Jurchen/Manchu forces. Cheng's peasant soldiers seem woefully unprepared to face fully armored horse archers on armored steeds wielding extremely powerful bows. They're nothing like Xu Guangqi's imagined heavily armored elite army equipped with firearms, bows, pikes, & polearms. They seem more intended to fight pirates, bandits, & the like.
thanks for this source. This specific crossbow design is focused on the light poison xuanhu crossbow not the infantry ones. Unfortunately I don’t have bamboo that come close to that draw weight so I made the xuanhu one that did not mention draw weight . Draw weight varied. Lighter crossbows like these are still used as shown on wubeizhi the ammo of some crossbows are very small in proportion to the crossbows which cannot shoot heavy crossbows. This suggest lighter crossbows are used (of course with poison ) specifically for the xuanhu I’m estimating 100lbs to penetrate tiger skin with poison to kill tiger
@@phawang37 I haven't be abe to find the exact date of publication for Cheng's 耕余剩技 (Geng Yu Sheng Ji). The Jack Chen translation I'm using just says in the 1600s during the Ming dynasty, which is rather vague. Cheng died in 1636, so it was written before that.
@@HistoricalWeapons That makes sense. Cheng noted that the standard crossbow he described was weaker than a 40-catty bow & had a pretty short range. So I guess the even lighter ones of the same design would be weaker still, but probably very convenient for jungle ambushes like you describe. Your account of poison acting slowly strikes me as more plausible as well, though Cheng's manual says it could incapacitate in seconds: "When the arrow hits a person, he will die within a few steps." The text tells the reader to test the poison on themself with a needle (!) & on a chicken.
@@b.h.abbott-motley2427and poison quality varied on region, duration and shot placement and we cannot take “on paper” as literal all the time. In ideal situations of course poison has stopping power but I’d imagine the quality and expiry date of poison will alter results significantly. The biggest advantage of light crossbows is easy to switch to melee weapons and to skimish with to cause attrition
@@HistoricalWeapons I have no idea apart from what Cheng's text says. I assume you have it, but other folks reading the comments might be interested:
"Bamboos’ characteristics differ from place to place. There are those that will recoil, and those which won’t. There are those which are firm and won’t break. There are those which are crisp and break easily. There are those infected with worms, and those which aren’t. Here, we shall choose bamboo shoots which are over 3 years old with white powdery frost on skin, similar to those found on the skin of white gourd, with a size of 1 chi 2 cun. The bamboo segments must be long, flat and straight like a line. It must not be crooked. One must examine the bamboo thoroughly, to make sure there are no holes made by worms. The size must be the same throughout the entire length, with no irregularity in size."
Great crossbow build Jack! I like those primitive handbuilt bows. It would be really neat to see how a crossbow like that would work with a horn & sinew prod. Great video! Thanks for sharing!
I don’t think these 17th century crossbows used horn and sinew. The whole point of Ming crossbows is to supply soldiers with something cheap including the ammo
I do not know, but I have seen photos of primitive crossbows with horn&sinew prods. The prod made same as a horsebow, but it was a crossbow prod.@@AnkunFang
@@rayjohn3946 that’s a Han dynasty crossbow 2000 years ago. These are Ming dynasty crossbows 400 years ago. The difference is basically the entire history of Chinese crossbows in recorded history
for the triggers, you mentioned it is more advantageous to have a trigger made of bones. I would like to add, the string would need to pull the roller-nut down first on the ancient design, so the weight of the roller-nut is actually pretty important if the draw-weight is low, as a metallic roller-nut would only add to the weight and reduce the efficiency of the bow.
Asian triggers never show that design. This is a tilting block Vietnam style
Roller nuts are not needed for these flicky triggers that shoot light weights but poison dart
The last crossbows don’t need to be good. Some debate the boxer rebellion chu ko nu are the last but these are the last “infantry” crossbows and not militia use
Nice build and the one dude (or demon) in the picture is riding a dragon. Fairy-tales, they are not.
Also did you notice your archer example was an ox headed nephilim?
The old Tartarian world sure was weird.
Darn not Dragon ball x cav
@@AnkunFang They will be back again soon, too.
@@AnkunFang Horse beats foot, but dragon eats horse??
Idk man I think the Tartarian thing is a bridge too far. I think that’s the clowns pulling us off that bridge and making us look bad.
All around the world historical accounts miss this period & they were just rediscovered? Everything was just mud flooded?
What is the time you propose they were around.
I don’t trust the desclassified clown doc on Tartary. But idk.
Can you point me in a direction.
Personally I stick to the Fed & 9/ll.
People’s pockets & hearts/worIdview.
I even stay away from moon talk outside the harnesses, CGl, bubbles, foot prints, petrified moon rocks, comments by Buzz, and Don Petit’s “pockets of gravity”.
Have you ever gotten a bow from bowyer nico hogenes?
I think Chinese are first to invent and last still use crossbow
They still use it today for suicide bomber
❤
Oh this will be good😎👌
Filthy frank is back
I never knew about the Great Yuan closing the trigger factories.
Fascinating.
Thank you.
Too bad Manchu erased Chinese
Manchu are primitive
Long live
Salty Chinese 😊
Manchu are Chinese bro
Screw them
Your woodwork is getting better :-D
Nice
coool
I recently found your channel and you seem very knowledgeable on bows.
If I start training now with no prior experience could I as a 27 year old male build the strength to use a bow with 200lbs draw weight using the principle of progressive overload?
🗿👍🏿
HOW primitive Manchu can defeat advanced Chinese
You need to understand, Ming dynasty was not defeated by manchu. It’s always Chinese elite vs farmer that causes major rebellions and the Manchu took the opportunity. So in other words it’s Han Chinese causing their own downfall. Such cycles of history occur everywhere and another cycle is bound to happen possibly in our generation
@@HistoricalWeaponsManchu are not primitive
@@HistoricalWeaponsthe next cycle gonna be Taiwan
@@HistoricalWeaponsTaiwan reclam
@@bugger6881lol
Southeastern* China
South west is yunan
Both south west and south east used these but culturally these are more south west. At least south west geography preserved these from mongol
Posion is always avaliable! Han records told something about dipping arrows and bolts in piss. So when you hit an enemy, you injected piss into his blood stream, their arms would rot off if hit and not amputated for example.
That is a good and simple wooden light crossbow that doesn’t require metal due to limited amount of metal resources. It is good against modern infantry without armor such as the Napoleonic Wars until the end of WW2.
The cheap counter is shields again
Hello, how are you? Greetings. I ask you something about what material the crossbow bow is made of and how long the bow is.
What's the trigger mechanism? How does the string release the bolt?
More dragon cav
how do you make sure the bow and string of your crossbow is symmetrical?
You could achive more speed with those bamboo bolts with much, much less power. 50lbs for such lightweight botls is overkill.
I build crossbows and bows my entire childhood. And i even developed i simple trigger wich rely on friction and an kind of like S shape piece of iron.
Now, just like bows, release is a very important factor in the power of a crossbow, and the reason i used that kind of triger, it was because i could use an U shape piece of wire to hock it to the trigger and the arrow nock would be in direct contact with the string, wich makes a huge difference in consistency and speed.
I made the bow of the crossbow usually from steel rods, harden steel wich i stole from my grandfather who was a fiser man and used these rods for fishing devices. I don't know what kind of steel it was, but if you try to bend it in a 90degree angle it would break.
I remember the last crossbow i build was like i don't know 15kg, i think is a little above 30 lbs, and i used heavier bolts than yours and it was much faster than yours, for example i would use nails wich were about 4 mm thick as tips and i could drive a nail into a 2.5 cm thick piece of pine wood easily with that cross bow.
In this design where your bow is not laminated there is also friction between each segment of fiberglass and that slows the speed too.
So if a crossbow is well tuned you don't need alot of power to be fast and powerfull. Is more of how well you manage to use the power it has in the most effective way possible.
The trigger design you presend in this crossbow is a simple one and you can make it with zero metals, but it has it's disadvantages, that's why some of the modern hunting crossbows use a trigger sistem wich have a release style similar with the compound bows trigger systems. And some even use just like the comboud bow a D lop. But that is kind of dangerous in crossbows because it can fail.
A modern hunting crossbow compared to medieval crossbows is like a sniper rifle compared to a glock pistol in these days.
So, you can use lighter bow for a crossbow to achive even faster speed than a heavy bow, by increasing the space in wich the arrow accelerates, this is why compound bow crossbows are so powerfull, they have a very long draw.
To me, from all the medieval crossbows, the english one kind of crossbow is the dumbest crossbow to ever existed, it literally build to be hard to operate at very low power. I've always have been more fascinated more about asian crossbows and war bows, they had a much better understanding at that time of the mechanics in bows and crossbows.
The real beauty of the english long bow was, it was easy to make, and cheap. And i love that in designs too, the simplicity of things.
But as in terms of efficency, speed, acuracy and power, the asian bows are superior. The only down side to them is that are hard to make and not everyone can make them.
I've seen in a documentary that the turks took even 6 months to complete a horn bow. Wich is ALOT.
A long bow you can build it in a day if you have the right wood. So i guess every technology has it's + and -. But let's face it. If you were a archer solider on those times, you would much prefer to have an asian bow in your hands than a long bow
9:24 lmao
🎉
4:38 woah where did you go, and who is that other guy?
Same guy
@@aoe2_elo037 I know just kidding cuz he got a new haircut at that point 🤣
What is the weight of those bolts?
I don’t remember but very very light
Crosbow ❤🏹
Bro, you made it into other people's memes lol: ruclips.net/video/zlUhAA7jkaY/видео.html
Lol
With dat or a typical barebow I be Che Guevara
Just wear more armor
These were used in the jungles of southwestern China/Southeast Asia. It’s hot and humid there, armor would cook you before the enemy gets to you.
Nice Filthy Frank call back at the end 🤣
Yes
True forgotten
Thick
I feel crossbow is faster and more accurate then a flintlock.
i love uuu
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