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| Drawing of the flat back side of a Xian Mei, with placeholder soldier and military unit names written on it. From 'Ji Xiao Xin Shu (《紀效新書》)'. |
The Xian Mei (銜枚, lit. 'Bit stick'), or simply Mei (枚) was a simple wooden or bamboo stick used as a gag for soldiers—both to prevent unnecessary chattering while the army was on the move and to maintain noise discipline during special operations like night raids and ambushes. Such devices had a long history of military use in ancient China; records of soldiers conducting night raids with a Xian Mei between their teeth can be found in some of the earliest Chinese texts, including Rites of Zhou and Records of the Grand Historians.
The Ming Dynasty iteration of Xian Mei, its design largely finalised by famous commander Qi Ji Guang (戚繼光), was a 4 cun (12.8 cm/5 in) long and 5 fen (16 mm/0.6 in) wide bamboo stick that came with a lanyard so that it could be worn around the neck or hung from the side of a helmet when not in use. Qi Ji Guang also specifically preferred semi-cylindrical slip over a round rod so as to have a writable surface, as he intended Xian Mei to double as identification tag for his soldiers.
I wonder if this identification tag had some death rite connection as it had for the Greeks. The Greeks wore "Charon's obol" which originally was not a coin but a metal spit/spike as "identification" and payment for Charon punting his boat to Hades. Is there any evidence that the Chinese had similar ideas?
ReplyDeleteNo to my knowledge. It was purely a functional gag/dog tag.
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