Defensive Armor of the Han Period 215 



beads in the upper part, while only the skirt was formed by jade plates. 

 It is self-evident that these jade plates, of which we hear nothing at 

 any earlier period, were produced in imitation of metal armor-plates; 

 and Yen Shi-ku's simile with an armor strongly supports this opinion. 



By what factor was the innovation and progress of the Han in mat- 

 ters of defensive armor caused? The development of the defence of the 

 body moves along as the natural consequence of the advance in weapons 

 of offense. "The history of invention as applied to war has been the 

 record of alternate advances in this line, and in overcoming defence." 1 

 The steadily growing perfection of weapons necessitated a corresponding 

 increase in the efficiency and power of resistance of body armor. The 

 chief weapons of the Chou period were spear and bow; and the armor of 

 rhinoceros-hide offered to them adequate opposition. In the age of 

 the Han we meet the more effectual crossbow and the two-edged sword; 

 and Chung Ch'ang-t'ung justly says that hide armor then was no longer 

 a suitable shelter for the arrows shot from crossbows, if the interests of an 

 army were to be maintained. The copper or bronze swords in vogue 

 among the Former Han dynasty gradually gave way to iron swords 

 under the Later Han dynasty; and parallel with this movement, we 

 notice a logical development from plain hide and hide scale armor 

 to copper scale and iron scale, and ultimately to iron plate armor. 

 Thus, judging from appearances, it may be conceived that this 

 sequence in the gradual perfection of armor might have been evolved 

 from purely inward causes and necessities, and that no factors of any 

 outward influence need be invoked in order to account for it; but 

 such a conclusion hazarded without any regard to historical agencies 

 would be plainly illusory. 



It cannot be denied that an entirely different point of view may be 

 pursued in this problem. It may be argued that the Chinese, despite 

 the numerous aggressive and defensive wars which they have made 

 on the adjoining tribes, cannot be called, in the strict sense of the word, 

 a warlike nation, and that they were always deficient in inventions of 

 military implements. At all times they were ready to adopt any 

 superior arms from their more belligerent neighbors, and to vanquish 

 their enemies with their enemies' devices. The crossbow is properly 

 claimed as a contrivance of the aboriginal tribes of southern China ; and 

 the type of the short bronze sword of the early Han (see Plate XX) 

 bears such a striking similarity to that of the Siberian bronze age, that 

 imitation due to historical contact may justly be suspected. Under 

 the Han, cast-bronze swords (Plate XX) gradually gave way to 



1 O. T. Mason, The Origins of Invention, p. 389. 



