中国古代的甲胄 上篇(殷商——三国)

STUDIES ON THE ANCIENT CHINESE ARMOUR(PART Ⅰ)

前言战争——这个人类互相残杀的怪物,是随着阶级的产生而同时出现的。两军相杀的战争的目的,就是"保存自己,消灭敌人"。毛主席指出:"古代战争,用矛用盾:矛是进攻的,为了消灭敌人;盾是防御的,为了保存自己。直到今天的武器,还是这二者的继续。"(《论持久战》)在盾这类以防御为目的的军事装备中,比较重要而又曾广泛使用的,是护体用的甲胄。在古代战争中,战士常常是披甲戴胄,用以保护自己的肢体免于敌方兵器的伤害,以达到更好地去消灭敌人的目的。甲胄的制作,它的发展和变化,是随着社会性质的变化、生产技术的发展以及战略战术的变化而发展、变化的。因此,我们了解甲胄的发展变化的历史,对研究古代战争史是很有用处的。关于我国古代的甲胄,过去保存下来的实物极少。

In ancient China,the armour and helmets were in extensive use and occupied animportant position in Warfare.The present paper is based on a painstaking study ofactual specimens of ancient armour and helmets hitherto excavated in China,as well asof their representations in ancient Chinese painting and sculpture in the light of literarysources.The earliest armour used in China,was made of leather,which probably appeared at thetime when the primitive tribal commune had disintegrated ahd the state came into being.At first it was made of a single piece of leather,the earliest specimen of which was unco-vered from Yin tomb No.1004 at Anyang.Later the material was first cut into small piecesand then sewn together to make an armour.Gradually,each individual piece of leathertook a definite shape to fit the contour of the body and was often made of more thanone layer.From the Yin Dynasty through the Warring States period,the leatherarmour was the chief body armour in warfare.Apart from the Yin Dynasty specimenexcavated at Anyang,fragments of a late Spring and Autumn specimen was unearthedfrom Tomb No.1 at Liu-ch'(?)ng-ch'iao in Changsha,and several Warring States period speci-mens were uncovered from Tomb No.15 at Tso-chia-kung-shan in Changsha,Tomb No.1 atT'un-tien and Tomb No.5 at P'ai-ma-shan (both in Chiang-ling County,Hupeh Province.)Used in conjunction with large shields,such leather armour provided an effective defenseagainst the attacks of bronze weapons in chariot warfare.In some cases,a bronze helmet was worn along with the leather armour.Severalspecimens of bronze helmets were uncovered from the Yin tombs at Anyang.TheWestern and Eastern Chou tombs in north and northeast China have also yielded bronzehelmets,often in association with the characteristic bronze weapons of the Tunghutribes.While apart from bronze helmets from Yin Dynasty mentioned above,nobronze armour has ever been uncovered from the tombs and remains of theYin and Chou Dynasties,several have been found in Yunnan Province in ancienttombs bearing characteristic features of the Tien culture.For instance,particularlythose dating from the late Warring States period at Li-chia-shan in Chiang-ch'uan County.This discovery has thrown an interesting new light on the question of whether bronzearmour was ever used at the height of Chinese bronze culture in the Yin and ChouDynasties.The Warring States saw the appearence of iron weapons and iron defensive equip-ments.Excavations conducted in what were then the territories of the Ch'u and Yenstates have often yielded many iron weapons.The iron helmets unearthed from the late Warring States remains at Yen-hsiatu,the Lower Capital of the Yen state,in particular.attest not only to the use of such iron defensive equipments but also to the high levelof their manufacturing techniques.Ch'in Shih Huang,the Ch'in emperor who foundedthe first unified feudal state with centralized political power in the history of China,also paid particular attention to the production of weapons.The numerous life-size pot-tery tomb figures of armoured warriors unearthed recently on the east side of his mau-soleum have provided some concrete data for the study of the armour uesd in hisdynasty.By the Han Dynasty,iron armour became a major defensive equipment.The West-ern Han pottery tomb figures of warriors unearthed at Yang-chia-wan in HsienyangCOunty,Shensi Province,show that the armours they wore were of three types.Actualspecimens of Western Han iron armour have been uncovered from a Western Han tombin the western suburbs of Loyang and from the remains of a Han city at Shih-erh-chia-tzuin Huhehot,Inner Mongolia.The well-known Western Han tomb of Liu Sh(?)ng atMan-ch'(?)ng,Hopei Province,has also yielded an iron armour.All these have shed muchnew light on the development of the iron armour in the Han Dynasty(cf.Tables Ⅰand Ⅱ in the text of the paper).Metallographical studies of these specimens attest toa highly sophisticated manufacturing technique.By the end of the Eastern Han and the Three Kingdoms period,the quality ofthe iron armour was further improved with the use of the so-called'steel of a hundredrefinings'百炼钢.The armours thus produced were highly diversified in type.Forinstance,among the armours listed by Ts'ao Chin as gifts bestowed by his father Ts'aoTs'ao are many bearing such fancy names as the black and shining armour 黑光铠,brightand shining armour 明光铠,chain armour 环锁甲 and armour with breast-and-baek-platesjoined by braces 两当铠 as well as armours for the horses.The last two named later becamethe major types for man and horse respectivly in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.A study of the development of the armour and helmets in the slave society andearly feudal society of China shows that their development was dictated by the necessityof the class struggle in conjunction with the development of the productive forces andthe changes in the productive relations of the society.The leather armour and the bronzehelmet were the products of the slave society intimately associated with the socialsystem and the chariot warfare of the time.With the founding of the feudal system,theinvention of iron-smelting and the disappearence of the unwieldly chariot gave rise tothe use of iron defensive equipments.This development was dictated by the extensiveuse of the infantry and cavalry in battles.The consolidation of the feudal system gavea further spur to the development of the iron armour.All these three major develop-ments of the armour in ancient China were intimately connected with the progressivepolitical lines of the time.For instance,the development and perfection of the ironarmour was spurred by the Legalist political line of the early Westen Han in thestruggle to safeguard the centralized political power of the emperor and defend thecountry against the invasions of the military regimes of the Hsiungnu slave owners.