Guan Dao
| Guandao | |||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 關刀 | ||||||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 关刀 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | blade of Guan Yu | ||||||||||||
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| Yanyue dao | |||||||||||||
| Chinese | 偃月刀 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | reclining moon blade | ||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | guāndāo |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| IPA | [kʷáːn tóu] |
| Jyutping | gwaan1 dou1 |
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | yǎnyuèdāo |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| IPA | [jǐːn jỳːt tóu] |
| Jyutping | jin2 jyut6 dou1 |
A guandao is a type of Chinese pole weapon that is used in some forms of Chinese martial arts. In Chinese, it is properly called a yanyuedao (偃月刀; lit. "reclining moon blade"), the name under which it always appears in texts from the Song to Qing dynasties such as the Wujing Zongyao and Huangchao Liqi Tushi. It is comparable to a European fauchard or glaive and consists of a heavy blade with a spike at the back and sometimes also a notch at the spike's upper base that can catch an opponent's weapon. In addition there are often irregular serrations that lead the back edge of the blade to the spike. The blade is mounted atop a 1.5 m to 1.8 m (5–6 foot) long wooden or metal pole with a pointed metal counter weight used to balance the heavy blade and for striking on the opposite end.
On modern versions, a red sash or tassel is attached at the joint of the pole and blade. Variations include having rings along the length of the straight back edge as found in the nine-ring guandao, having the tip curl into a rounded spiral as in the elephant guandao, or featuring a more ornate design as exemplified by the dragon head guandao. However, apart from the "elephant guandao" none of these variations seem to have historical ground.
It has also been called a "big knife" by some western sources.
According to legend, the guandao was invented by the famous general Guan Yu during the early 3rd century AD, hence the name. It is said that he specified its form and size to be made by a smithy, and was uniquely able to wield such an imposing weapon due to his large stature and legendary strength. Guan Yu's guandao was called "Green Dragon Crescent Blade" (青龍偃月刀, Qīnglóng yǎnyuèdāo) which weighed 82 Chinese jin (estimated either at 18.263 kg or 48.38 kg—a Han Dynasty jin was 222.72 grams in the metric system, while the jin used in the Ming Dynasty—during which the Romance of the Three Kingdoms was written—was about 590 grams).
However, while the famous novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong describes him as wielding the guandao, this description may have been an anachronistic one intended to make the character seem more imposing: historically speaking there was no evidence to show that Guan Yu used the weapon that is thus attributed to him, and indeed there is no indication of the existence of what is now known as the guandao prior to the 11th century, when it was first illustrated in the military manual Wujing Zongyao. The guandao, therefore, possibly did not even exist during Guan Yu's era, meaning that it is somewhat of a pop culture-derived misnomer. Furthermore, the scholar Tao Hongjing (456-536 AD) recorded in the Gujin Daojianlu (古今刀劍錄, "A Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Sabers and Rapiers") that Guan Yu forged a pair of sabres using iron ore he harvested from Wudushan mountain (武都山) himself, which may have inspired the story that Guan Yu invented his weapon. However, this would also indicate that he did not use a guandao or even anything resembling a guandao, since the pole-mounted or long handled dao weapons such as the pudao or dadao were all wielded with two hands and so would not have been made or used in a pair.
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Wikipedia