While not as common as
sword,
spear,
bow or
gun, axe remained an important weapon in Ming arsenal. For the most part, Chinese axes are quite consistent in form, different types of axes are simply minor variations of each other.
Da Fu (大斧, big axe)
 |
| Drawing of a Da Fu, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'. |
Da Fu is the catch-all term for all long shafted axes. Proper names for war axe include
Yue Fu (月斧, lit. 'Moon axe'),
Kai Shan Fu (開山斧, lit. 'Mountain-openning axe'),
Jing Yan Fu (靜燕斧, lit. 'Silent swallow axe'),
Ri Hua Fu (日華斧, lit. 'Sun ray axe'),
Wu Di Fu (無敵斧, lit. 'Invincible axe') and
Chang Ke Fu (長柯斧, lit. 'Long shafted axe'), but all are essentially different names for the same thing.
E Mei Qu (峨嵋鑺, lit. 'Emei axe')
 |
| Drawing of a E Mei Qu, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'. |
E Mei Qu has a three
chi long shaft and nine
cun long edge. It is used by sappers.
Feng Tou Fu (鳳頭斧, lit. 'Phoenix head axe' or 'Phoenix crested axe')
 |
| Drawing of a Feng Tou Fu, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'. |
Feng Tou Fu has a two
chi five
cun long shaft and an axehead with
Chinese phoenix motif. It is also used by sappers.
Hi! This is the book I did mention in my reply to your post on my blog; have a look, do you think they look Chinese? ( Sorry for the low quality and small dimension but that's all I have unfortunately)
ReplyDeletehttps://iwiz-chie.c.yimg.jp/im_sigggETJwFwqqB7x29jFrKrQbA---x320-y320-exp5m-n1/d/iwiz-chie/ans-107541486
The axes in that picture do appears to be similar to Chinese ones.
DeleteALso, the kanji for both Ono and Masakari are also the Chinese word for axe, read as Fu(斧) and Yue(鉞) respectively. Although Yue has become largely obsolete.
It won't be a big surprise if some Chinese war axes would have ended in Japan due to trading and Wokou. Thank you for clarifying my suspects ;)
Deleteinteresting, does this kind of weapon also used back during Han dynasty?
ReplyDeleteYes, axe was used a weapon since way back.
Delete