@@DivineWindSerpent I need to tell you that since posting the above comment I have rethought my stance on Japanese swords, the massive Japanese odachi that was used primarily by Samurai cavalry has won favor with me, it probably is the most original sword of that variety given how Samurai mainly preferred fighting from horseback much less on foot (that was mostly archers and musketeers, the standard katana was used to a lesser degree and was mostly a last line of defense). I would certainly be honored to own one if I could afford it so hopefully this makes you feel a lot better.

@@DivineWindSerpent I don't know about the aesthetic aspect but I do know that the odachi was a rugged and hardy weapon, it was Oda Nobunaga's preferred sidearm as well.

The Japanese got the knowhow and many of its cultures from China for China japan is a kingdom level while China is the empire.

@@MyYuwono The katana seems to have originated from a Tang Dynasty cavalry saber, the Samurai really gave serious thought to their weapons when they made them. Makes sense given how Samurai were originally horse warriors anyway.

I honestly like them for the simplicity, especially jian. Just simple, elegant, nothing fancy but nothing especially lacking. A sword in its purest form.

Where can I buy one?

wait, mandarin mansion?

@@atom8248 yes, that’s me.

(Why do I only find videos like this when they're five years old?) The wrap is beautiful and quite intricate. How is it done? I'd love to be able to do that.

@@markfergerson2145 I have a tutorial up on my page: www.mandarinmansion.com/restoration/grip-wrapping

@@PeterDekker Wow, I didn't actually expect a reply much less a tutorial. Thank you so much!

Bosieful Why?

+dapperedavid Katanacultists are the reason. You hear everwhere how great it is until you are fed up with it. Now we wan't the Dao. That is my opinion.

Bastard Species I don't know, why the Dao instead of the Katana if you were to choose. I'm neutral on this. You could say, the katana because I like Japanese history and admire samurai, that'd be one argument, but why favour the dao. I just want arguments dang it.

+dapperedavid It looks cool, seems practical and I heard enoughof the Katana and can't stand it anymore.

+VanceHelw That's what I thought. Japanese were very influenced by the Chinese in their cultur.

d3rrial Someone's trying so hard to get likes they tried to cram 3 memes into one. Keep it short next time.

Inverse Matrix meh, fuck likes. I just wanted to make a lighthearted comment. And I quote Monty Python whenever I see a chance.

+d3rrial AWWWWW YEEEAAAAAAAH!

This comment was the best thing I've read today.

d3rrial Bearded men living in Canada talking about swords is no basis for a system of government.

Also, skall, many of my knives (I'm talking nice knives) seem to not keep an edge, and I don't use them much. What should I do? Like the KA-BAR I just bought, I've sharpened it twice. And I haven't used it almost at all

+VinylScratch389 some of Kabar's plastic sheaths dull the edge of the blades. I think it's because of the glass in the plastic formula.

Guess you don't like the warriors from Hammerfell then huh?

+Chris Nichols I'm talking $50-150

+MrNinjakob probably, I have a kydex sheath

Mush V. Peets yea ancient china was badass af with characters that one would expect to find in sterotypical anime or game of thrones

Remember that China has 3 main groups. Manchurians, Hans and Mongolians. Each groups have different subgroups in them, difference of tribes or Clans. The Manchurians were the ruling party who has restricted the Hans and Mongolians for several hundred years when the European and Americans arrived at China in the late Qing Dynasty. A very brief explanation in the 3 groups would go as following. The Manchurians: Excellent administrators but extremely resistant to change and most obsessed with retaining traditions. They are decent warriors but what was terrifying is how good they are at organizing things and that was reflected in organized combat, their efficiency in managing resources until Empress Dowager Cixi went to fuck the Imperial Empire over and over with her stupidity. That and the Manchurian's innate fear of the monstrosities the Hans tend to produce in their free time. Mongolians: Excellent warriors, religiously very liberal group, take Genghis Khan for example has superhuman level of tolerance to religion that he even allowed missionaries from east and west to talk about their religion. Extremely poor administrators, poor organizers which didn't do well for being rulers. Nice folks to get smashed together with alcohol if you don't mind playing rough because they are tough people who can get rowdy. Hans: Excellent merchants, scientists and sages. Decent administrators, poor warriors, highly liberal and innovative. Han, Tang, Song and Ming Dynasties were run by the Hans. These are the times China's technologies made giant leaps. I mean in their quest to discover secrets of immortality elixir, they found Gunpowder instead. By 900 A.D. The Hans used Gunpowder in warfare in the form of Fire Lance which is a cheap spear with a fucking Bamboo container filled with gunpowder and some small rocks. They have a fuse coming out of the bamboo container. Range is short (About 10 feet max) but those were first time the Chinese ever used Gunpowder as weapons in warfare. By 1000 AD they produced the most primitive forms of Grenades. Hand thrown and lighter ones that is attached on Arrows. These are good candidates to get booze together if you don't play rough.

Tyranno Ganbat long story short races in China is just about as diverse as Europe except all of them view themselves as part of China that is why no matter how chaotic or how many kingdoms China split into during Ancient times, they always end up become one Empire again.

China and Japan are better described as master and disciple. China is an old, hefty martial artist. She had many students under him, but Japan was very quick-learning and liberal. She considered Japan, her most exceptional student, but Japan often slandered her old ways being traditional and ineffective. One day, Japan challenged China over rulership. China agreed with a faint smile. She beat Japan, making Japan respect China as a master, yet she was not sincere at heart. Years later, Japan dismissed her teaching, learning new techniques from foreign masters. Japan was now confident she would beat her.Japan rechallenged China. China, upon seeing the unfamiliar techniques was puzzled. Japan managed to beat up China, tainting her name into the abyss. This is their story.

+Jacky Chew i see ur ass everywhere. what is with you and ur racism. bruh please, anyone from anywhere can see ur pure hatred for everything Chinese. u need to stop pulling the race card everytime u want to discredit an argument. instead provide scholarly proof and links to established research papers, otherwise ur just another kid spouting racist comments to support ur racist views. Please grow up.

4 years later and it still cute

Alucard Hellsing Awesome. :)

I've heard and seen many depictions of the jian as an officer's weapon like a rapier such as Cao Cao's Blue blade and Trust of God

@@simpleviewer1334 In the Three Kingdoms period, straight bladed swords were still the main sidearm for the warrior elite since the Qin and Han dynasties respectively. As time went on, the Imperial government found that it was much cheaper to produce curved blades for the militaries rather than straight blades which tended to be more expensive. General Cao Cao, I think, probably had the luxury of two jians given how rich and powerful he was, a simplified one for use on the battlefield and another fancier sword for special occasions and ceremonies.

You know you've got a dedicated fan base when they start noticing your new beard styles

FrostFurr I´m in. Starting to grow a bigger beard some month ago. That one inspires me. :)

FrostFurr Skall's slowly but surely becoming a real life viking!

usaid alfatih Vikings wish they were as cool as Skall

+usaid alfatih wait you see it too

+joniuxas You can see the philosophy of Japanese 'one cut, one kill' with their katanas. With such as this willow-leaf blade, you can really imagine a kung-fu master saying 'be like water' when a student is practicing with it. I respect Japanese sword, but I love Chinese sabers.

+joniuxas What I don't like about the chinese sword is the overly fancy decorations , otherwise it is perfect.

You could always move...

@@Nemoticon This is actually funny cuz katanas are considered masterful blades while sabers in China are considered noob-friendly. And this is a Saber, not a sword. I know it's confusing but Saber isn't a sub-type of sword at least in China.

@@96dragonhunter You couldnt be more wrong. You're just perpetuating a mass generalisstion that has no bearing on reality. Too 1 dimensional..........

Yeah the guards seem like they would bump against you. The handle itself doesn't bother me personally but see how it could. They lack of sharpened false edge is disappointing too

They also do this round- the-neck swing, as a lot of these blades are used more in CQC, so if it's sharpened on both sides, you'd be killing yourself

Agreed

Big fan of Southern Fist

You mean hwandudaedo or more like bonguk geom?

South Korea's something just copy China

No It is a European Sabre attached to a Chinese hilt. It was an innovation in the past couple of centuries

@@morningmidnight9398 have u know the mongols actually have Sabre？

Roborvski Sabers are my favorite swords, second being bastard swords. I'm a big guy, so I prefer a nice heavy-ish feel to a weapon without it being too cumbersome or top-heavy (like axes or maces. >_> )

+Billaxle sabers are my fave too

Allow me to join the saber love train. If you want a nice, shorter saber that still has a monster cut, try a tulwar. Big guy as well. Love me some sabers

Allow me to join the saber love train. If you want a nice, shorter saber that still has a monster cut, try a tulwar. Big guy as well. Love me some sabers

Allow me to join the saber love train. If you want a nice, shorter saber that still has a monster cut, try a tulwar. Big guy as well. Love me some sabers

No Dachis are quitte nice.

That is my favorite sword type. I blame bushido blade for that.

DREXIAN Yeah, who needs a katana when you've got one of those?

Lizard Prince Parsha-Lei True, so true.If I would have one, I would do everything with it :>

yes!

Really cool point, considering it was Chinese smiths who originally taught the Japanese the techniques of sword making. Now it's come back full circle!

wtf are you talking about , you guy had some wrong infomation here

***** ??? in sword making in chinese the are not thing is "old and useless" in the progress , because is stupid and unreal for what chinese had been through the history

Zhang Lee the point in sword making in Japan is mainly for cultural preservation. It's very unfortunate that the communist party hate ancient Chinese cultures so much that they decided to destroy every thing remotely related to culture during the cultural revolution, churches, temples,paintings,literature,old architectures. Don't you think it's weird that as a country with at least 4000 years of written history it would look more culturally intersting? look at Japan it's barely 2000 years old it looks so cutural! It's sad and scary how much a couple of years can wipe out entire cutural lineages of 5000 years. So sad that countries like Japan and Korea preserved so much more of ancient Chinese cultures than we actually do. Also yes in Japan almost everything from sword smithing and to architecture to language is heavily influenced by ancient China, especially Han dynasty.

Jeff Absher indeed

aethertech It's there for you to unscrew it and throw it at the opponent :-3 , they tried to compensate for the lack of a removable pommel

aethertech I agree, but t's not the fact that there is a nut; the problem (at least in my opinion) is that it is cockeyed and looks too much like a modern nut.

+Archmage Vengard nice meme

aethertech Always a solution to that: end someone rightly with it.

aethertech personally I don't mind it, but IMO it looks like it needs a washer in there to fill that gap (still would look a bit amateurish though, can't believe it was shipped that way)

The "nut god"? That typo is actually a better joke than the unoriginal one you were trying to make. xD

***** I just noticed xD

why am I summoned here in this comment?

LOL

Snoop Azlan All swords need to be able to unscrew the pummel to end one rightly.

Also Katana cultist need to stop lying to themselves because Chinese, European, Indian, and Arabic swordsmanship requires as much discipline as Iaido, Kenjutsu etc.

The dao is pretty much the reason why the katana even existed in the first place.

Iaido is pretty much the katana's saving grace, and it's not much of one. I like the idea of the art, but it's not all that special

I prefer the variety in Chinese swords, since there's more than one type of sword, and katanas really just come down to varying lengths. I very much appreciate a well-crafted katana, and if someone gifted me a $1000 katana I'd probably be overjoyed. But like everyone, the rabid fantardism sorta killed most of the appeal for me.

环首刀 used by Han dynasty cavalry were the first swords that the Japanese took inspiration from.

Jacob Butchko I'd say this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oMx0ZMKYrdbWkas.html

***** Thanks a bunch! Just curious, I'm really not looking to give it an extremely sharp edge, could I get away with using a generic knife sharpener?

Jacob Butchko I wouldn't recommend that, since those give a terrible edge.

***** Thanks for replying, just one more question, would a common whetstone work? I could get one for like $10 at a local hardware store, not really in the market to buy a $100+ dollar sharpening tool for a wall hanger I just want to play around with.

Whetstone would work get a 1000 grit and a 3000 or above and youl be good its just gonna take 30 mins of sharpening and you should be done.

Neoedu Definitely not possible, it's just a way to ascribe mystical power to a person to glorify him.

ok, thx

Neoedu You have to remember the measurements (weights) were probably not standardized back in ancient china so any records would not match our current scales. The legend of Lu Bu also came from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms - a work of historical fiction that came centuries afterwards. Lu Bu probably just used a normal halberd like everyone else. *edited fiction to historical fiction.

It is actually only about 12kg... So many ppl believe it is 50kg(not 100kg) because it is really long 3.65 meters and Lu Bu was able to use it easily. In China there is a weight unit called 斤(jin)， it is half of a kg.

Neoedu a general in china is supposed to be known (so have i read on a website selling this kind of weapons for films )for having a hallberd, known as the "pu dao" it was supposed to weight 10 to 12 kg, it's already wayyyyyy to much....

It's actually quite possible that Byzantine & Hungarian (Magyar, Avar) swords heavily impacted the designs of Ming and Qing era Chinese Military sabres.

Our family heirloom is an antique Hungarian sabre.

Hungarian Sabers to the Sabers of the Ming and Qing Dynasties have one dominant common element --- the design came from the Mongols, Turks and other steepe horse riding peoples.

@@adenyang4398 Not really, as all these sabers from China to Europe came from a common ancestral saber used by the Mongols and the Turks, who both fought both Chinese and the Europeans to great effect. The lineage of the traditional Han Dynasty Dao ended with the Japanese katana, and when the Dynasties moved from the Song to the Yuan, then Ming, the swords of the period also changed from the traditional Chinese daos to the Mongolic sabers.

Chris Robato It's a highly debatable topic actually. Sabre culture with the Avars/Magyars and the Byzantium paramerium is likely quite a bit older than the curved swords of Turks and Mongols.

And the Naginata is based on the Guandao

Well that’s debatable. These are different swords with different contexts. You can’t really compare them that simply.

Torrin Maag Comparison is as easy as shape, weight, and quality. Quality aside, the two swords are practically the same, only katana have a wider curve. Doesn't change the fact they took inspiration from China. Is it original to copy another person's test paper but change the phrasing?

Nigga stop speaking bullshit.

So? Dao is just Chinese for any single-edge sword. This particular style of curved dao was copied from the nomadic cultures. Inventing a weapon doesn't mean much, what one does with it matters more. No one denies that Japanese swordmaking draws its origins from China, you're just looking for boogeymen to argue against.

+Brian LO 1095 is commonly used for swords, it just needs the right tempering. And this sword held up fine, as you can see.

+Skallagrim Still would have preferred spring steel tho.

+Itchy Foot Well that was condescending , but anyway when it comes to swords , I was referring to the 9260 spring steel that's alloyed with silicon. You can bend that shit sideways and then it'll flex back to the starting position. 1095 would snap.

+Brian LO too much bend is a bad thing, as I'm sure your aware, since you know so much about metalwork (Not being condescending, I swear, I actually have not studied metallurgy.) Isn't that why blades are forged of different types of metal, to create a blade that Has that hard edge for the blade, and a softer metal along the spine, to prevent that hard metal from snapping? (again, I am not trying to be condescending, I am asking honestly, I honestly want to know)

sapherno11 I think you're talking about differential tempering. I'm not aware of a single sword having different metals for the spine and edge. I do know that if we cover the edge with clay then quench the sword , the edge will turns into a sort of hard martensite but the spine will be softer thereby giving you a resilient edge but also overall flexibility. I'm just an amateur hobbyist but I just didn't appreciate being "mansplained" that's all lol

Katana is actually based off of the Tang Dao I believe, also from China.

True and thank u for the information I honestly love the katana and Chinese swords they are great weapons and I respect anyone who brings me new information on them

I'm talking about the edge geometry and the way the blade is shaped

also PBS I think u may be wrong in fact I think it's the other way around

thanks but wasn't it based off of the Chinese straight sword then it took the edge geometry and blade shape from the Chinese sabers

+Deccease Yang But this isn't a 剑 it's a 刀.

And the history channel will be back after this commercial break

It ain't a sword,it's a saber(A long sharpened piece of metal with a handle used for cutting). A sword is a long sharpened piece of metal with a handle used for cutting. You don't see the problem here?

Sharpness don't matter?? That's the problem within Chinese martial arts circle, too many of us pay so much lip service to forms and lost focus on the actual weaponry that we become ignorant of it. There are historical texts that describes the quality of swords by testing how many layers of armor they can cut thru. Sharpness totally matters. You can't expect every soldier to skillfully aim for the wrists, neck, achilles heels

Incorrect, this is a native Chinese design with inspirations taken from middle eastern sabers and adopted by Manchurian tribes as well as koreans. In any case your point is moot because even if it is a anchurian sword (which it's not) then it is a Chinese sword.

Janus Jones oh sorry. Not Han Chinese sword. Manchurian sword

SeopTheLittleGiant Manchurian Chinese sword.

Janus Jones Manchurian Sword. C'mon Yuan was also not the chinese Empire. It was Mongolian's Empire. Just like the last empire of Manchurian's Qing.

That's irrelevant. Like i said, it was a native Chinese design, not designed by the manchus, but simply adopted.