Defensive Armor of the Han Period 223 



reason to assume that both the Huns and the Chinese should independ- 

 ently have run through the same stages of development of a complex 

 series of phenomena as the Iranians did several centuries before this 

 period. The inward identity of these developments on the three sides, 

 resulting in the same styles of body armor improved by the utilization 

 of metal, and the same manner of fighting, is sufficient proof for the fact 

 that the one nation successively adopted the new practice from the other. 



It would be beyond the scope of the present investigation to enter 

 into the details of the history of this military institution in China. 

 China's military history has been much neglected, though it offers a 

 wide field for studies of great culture-historical interest. Among these, 

 a research into the subject of cavalry is worthy of special consideration. 

 A few suggestive remarks may here be offered. 1 



The Huns, the Hiung-nu of the Chinese Annals, were born fighters, 

 tribes of horsemen, and expert archers. According to the picture of their 

 life drawn by Se-ma Ts'ien, 2 they taught their children to practise 

 riding on the backs of sheep, and to shoot birds and rodents with bow 

 and arrow. Qualification in archery made the soldier, "and every 

 soldier strong enough to bend a bow was a cuirassed horseman." 3 

 This plainly indicates that the soldiery of the Huns consisted of mounted 

 archers fighting in open order and individually, like the Scythians; and 

 the historian further adds that their offensive weapon for distant fight- 

 ing was the bow and arrow, 4 while in close combat they employed swords 

 and short spears. Whether they engaged also in dismounted combat, we 

 do not know. When Se-ma Ts'ien adds that they were not ashamed of 

 flight, this is duly connected with their mode of fighting, as set forth 

 above (p. 218) in regard to Iranians and Scythians: 5 their flight was a 



1 An interesting work giving a digest of the military affairs of the Han dynasty is 

 the Pu Han ping chi (reprinted in Chi pu tsu chat ts'ung shu). 



2 Shi ki, Ch. no, p. 1 b. 



3 Thus in the translation of E. H. Parker (China Review, Vol. XX, p. 1), which 

 seems to me exact. Hirth (Ancient History of China, p. 168) translates, "Having 

 grown to become soldiers, they would thus become excellent archers, when they were 

 all supplied with armor on horseback." This, though generally rendering the sense 

 of the passage, is hardly in Se-ma Ts'ien's text; at any rate, the words kia ki cannot 

 be separated, but form a technical term, "a horseman clad with hide armor." The 

 word kia in Se-ma Ts'ien invariably refers to hide armor or cuirass, not to metal ar- 

 mor, which is k'ai. 



4 As swift and mounted archers the Huns appeared in Europe (motibus expediti, 

 et ad equitandum promptissimi : scapulis latis, et ad arcus sagittasque parati. 

 Jornandes, xxi v), as did the Mongols at a later date. 



5 Marco Polo (ed. of Yule and Cordier, Vol. I, p. 262) very aptly says in re- 

 gard to the Mongols, "As they do not count it any shame to run away in battle, they 

 will sometimes pretend to do so, and in running away they turn in the saddle and 

 shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way make great havoc. Their horses 

 are trained so perfectly that they will double hither and thither, just like a dog, in 



