Patron only: Telling apart Chinese polearms — EXTRA: Armour-piercing awl and hanging moon spear

This blog post contains some extra information about Chinese polearms, which is exclusive to my Patrons and can be accessed here. If you like my content, please support me via Patreon!

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Mu Huo Shou (木火獸)

Tiger (top) and Qilin (bottom) Mu Huo Shou, from 'Wu Bei Zhi (《武備志》)'.

Mu Huo Shou (木火獸, lit. 'Wooden fire beast') was one of the weirder weapons of the Ming Dynasty, being a wooden pushcart with paper model of an animal—typically a tiger or qilin—mounted on top. The paper animal was treated with fire retardant (i.e. potassium alum), and a flame throwing bamboo Peng Tong (噴筒) and two smoke dispensers were hidden inside the "mouth" and "eyes" of the paper animal respectively. When the weapons were ignited, the pushcart looked like a terrifying fire-breathing monster from afar, since the soldier pushing the cart would be obscured by all the smoke and fire.

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A critique of Samuel Hawley's The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China — Part 1.5: Truce and negotiations

Left: Emperor Shenzong of Ming. Right: Toyotomi Hideyoshi, regent of Japan.

Translator's Note: I originally only intended to translate the critique into a two-part article. However, it turns out that the critique is significantly longer than I anticipated, so in the end I have to separate it into a three-part blog post instead.

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