Defensive Armor of the Archaic Period 187 



riod it was handled together with the sword. The term kan ko ("shield 

 and spear") in the Shi king 1 is a collective notion comprising defensive 

 and offensive armor, or war-implements. In the administration of the 

 Chou dynasty, there was a special official presiding over the various 

 kinds of spears and bucklers, and commissioned with their distribution. 2 

 But no contemporaneous description of shields is handed down, from 

 which an exact conception as to their material and form might be 

 gained. 



The shields protecting the soldiers in the war-chariots were presum- 

 ably roof-shaped, as we glean from a text in Tso chuan 3 when, in the 

 battle of Ch'ui-pi, fought between the armies of the principalities of 

 Lu and Ts'i, Tse-yuan Tsi of Ts'i pursued Sheng-tse, and shot an arrow 

 at him, hitting the ridge of his shield. In this passage the ridge is 

 designated "roofing-tile" (wa), explained by the commentary as the 

 ridge of the shield. This is also the earliest document in which the word 

 shun (No. 10,154) appears as a designation for the shield, and, owing to 

 its composition with the classifier 'wood,' leaves no doubt that the 

 shields were wooden. 4 It is worthy of note that during the early 

 period, in the same manner as in armor, no metal was employed for the 

 bucklers; and it is remarkable also that in all later periods of culture 

 when the working of metals was in full swing, none were ever turned to 

 that purpose; wood, rattan, and hide holding their place. The buckler, 

 accordingly, never assumed a vast importance in Chinese warfare. 5 



A fundamental text relating to ancient shields, though dating from 

 the time of the Later Han dynasty, is contained in the dictionary Shi 

 ming by Liu Hi. He defines the word tun ("shield") as tung ("to 



son") is represented in writing by the rough figure of a youth holding spear and 

 shield, and performing a war-dance. 



1 Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, pp. 484, 578. Likewise in Li ki (ed. Cou- 

 vreur, Vol. I, pp. 233, 468). 



2 Biot, Chou li, Vol. II, p. 238; J. H. Plath, Das Kriegswesen der alten Chinesen 

 (Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen Akademie, 1873, p. 33). 



3 Duke Chao, 26th year, B.C. 516 (compare Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. V, 

 p. 716). 



4 Shi king, Chou li, and Shi ki use the word tun (No. 12,223), which is doubtless 

 derived from the verb tun (No. 12,225), "to hide away, to conceal one's self." The 

 word kan (No. 5814) appears twice in Shu king. The commentaries do not interpret 

 the differences between the three words, but explain one by another. The shield, as 

 elsewhere, was occasionally applied also as an offensive weapon. Thus, Fan K'uai, 

 girt with a sword and bearing the buckler on his arm, penetrated into the camp of 

 Hiang Yu, and used the buckler in pushing the guards down, who thus fell to the 

 ground (Chavannes, Les Mdmoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. II, p. 279). 



6 Copper shields are mentioned by the Chinese, but refer to foreign tribes; for 

 instance, in the Annals of the Yuan Dynasty under the year 1286, when they were 

 sent from a foreign country called Ma-pa; they are ascribed also to the Shan of Yun- 

 nan (see p. 193). 



