1 82 Chinese Clay Figures 



also varnished with a red lacquer. They are frequently alluded to in 

 that work, 1 and were doubtless the usual means of body protection 

 during the whole Ch'un-ts'iu period (b.c. 722-481). The states drew 

 up schedules of their weapons and defensive armor. In one passage, 2 a 

 distinction is made between soldiers wearing armor lashed with cords 

 (tsu kia, No. 11,828) and those who had donned an armor of silken fab- 

 rics (p x i lien, Nos. 8769, 7151). It is clear only that two kinds of 

 armor are here discriminated, and that their diversity of technique and 

 quality of material brought about a different effect : of the soldiers clad 

 with the former armor, there were three hundred, of whom eighty es- 

 caped; of soldiers with the latter armor, there was a force of three thou- 

 sand, of whom only three hundred escaped. We do not exactly know, 

 however, what these armors really were. Legge interprets tsu kia as 

 "buff -coats lacquered as if made of strings" (then again translating 

 "the men whose buff -coats looked as if made of strings"), and pH lien 

 as "whose coats were covered with silk." Neither is intelligible. S. 

 Couvreur 3 has proposed to explain the term tsu lien as "cuirasse faite 

 de cordons de soie, et tunique ouatee faite de grosse soie cuite," 4 and 

 the term tsu kia as "cuirasse faite de cordon de soie et enduite de 

 vernis." These definitions are helpful, yet they leave us in the dark as 

 to the contrast between the armor tsu and the armor lien. The latter, 

 which proved so disastrous to their wearers, may have been made 

 entirely from a coarse silken material ; the former, however, as attested 

 by the word kia, seem to have consisted essentially of hide, with the 

 addition of silk cords (styled tsu) , which I am inclined to think refer to 

 the lashings of the hide armor. 



A special protective contrivance employed by the archers was an 

 arm-guard, called han (No. 3799), a leather cuff wrapped around the 

 left arm, the bow being supported against it. 8 From the Han period 

 these objects were made of iron. 



The utilization of rhinoceros-hide for armor persisted down to the 

 T'ang period. Li Wang of the Han makes mention of this material 

 (si se) for that purpose. A helmet of rhinoceros-hide is mentioned under 

 the year 30 a.d. in the Tung kuan Han ki, completed about 170 a.d. 

 In the biography of General Ma Lung, 6 who died in 300 a.d., 7 we hear 



1 Ibid., pp. 289, 397, 419, 517. 



2 Duke Siang, third year (Legge, p. 419). 



3 Dictionnaire chinois-francais, pp. 494, 982. 



* In Li ki, garments of coarse boiled silk worn after the first year of mourning are 

 mentioned. 



6 Couvreur, Li ki, Vol. I, p. 621. 



6 Inserted in the Annals of the Tsin Dynasty (Tsin shu, Ch. 57, p. 2 b). 



7 Giles, Biographical Dictionary, p. 568. 



