Warriors of Ancient Ba Tribe
Dong Yawei: After it was processed, it was sharpened. It could split plates, jars and other sacrificial vessels of bronze.
Dong Yawei :Xunzi lived during the Warring States Period. What he recorded should be what he witnessed.
Over 2,000 years ago, craftsmen of the Ba ethnic group skillfully made bronze weapons with the method we see today. We are now still able to see these masterpieces.
The great variety of weapons with singular and delicate patterns was not ordinary lethal weapons. Among the ancient weapons we have seen, no other weapons like those of the Ba people carry so strong religious colour and artistic spirit.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, wars went on for years and years between the state of Ba on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the powerful neighbouring states, particularly the state of Chu .
Zhang Zhengming (Professor School of Historical Culture, Central China Normal University)
Two ethnic groups in ancient China were particularly good at fighting.They were the Mongolians in the north and the Ba people in the south. The Mongolians came like the wind and went like a lightning. They moved with the cavalrymen鈥檚 speed, fighting to reach Europe and South Asia. The Ba people were not conquered by the Yin people of the Shang Dynasty. They were not conquered
by people of the Zhou, Chu and Shu. The state of Ba was defeated by the state of Qin through peaceful compromise.
In ancient and modern wars, weapons were and are an important factor determining combat effectiveness. We began to look for the answer from the unearthed weapons of the Ba. In the era of cold steel, the length of weapons and their killing power were in direct proportion. But it was probably explained otherwise for the Ba people in ancient times.
This is a comparison of the Qin sword, the Chu sword and the Ba sword of the Warring States Period. The Qin sword was almost one metre long, the Chu sword was shorter and the Ba sword was the shortest. We wonder why the Ba people cast such short swords in ancient times when long weapons were overwhelmingly superior.
