Ancient Han Crossbow for Tombs

hello this is Jack from historical weapons and today we have this Chinese crossbow reproduction from the hand Dynasty based on the burial crossbows the burial crossbows are smaller in dimension and they're usually designed for noblemen for burial uh probably representing a crossbow for their afterlife or something they really like and personally enjoy to bury with and and this one is 120 lb at 20 in which I would think is a pretty good Dimension and draw weight for a nobleman uh infantry crossbows are typically heavier in the 300 something pound range and maybe with a little bit more draw length which means you need to sit on your butt to span this thing or using a spanning device but infantry men don't care about getting their butt dirty for your nobleman especially with a silk robe you don't want to get that dirty so you want something maybe with a spanner like a rope s and rope stups are historical and try not we have especially in the main Dynasty pictures uh depicting rope stups um now this way you don't get your your robes dirty now in the context of horseback or Chariot Warfare it's more likely that noblemen are on Horseback or on Chariot and a smaller crossbow is better uh in the context of Chariot and horseback Warfare as well and a spanning device like a simple rope is quite intuitive now for the hand Dynasty crossbows you have the bronze trigger which is the typical sear and tumbler trigger and you also sometimes have bronze fittings like a trigger guard um sometimes they even have a trigger lock here for safety and uh depending on how rich the nobleman is he's going to have all kinds of decorations with ivory with gold depending on how rich he is um so that could be the case now the the draw length of these bows are quite short only 20 in so at 100 20 lb at 20 in this is going to behave around an 80 lb bow what are the contexts of using these well you can use it on Chariot on Horseback um and because of the lightness you can reload faster and especially for mounted Warfare horses are often not armored so you can easily shoot the horses at the very least um for infantry crossbows is a little light but that doesn't mean an infantry crossbowman cannot use this there are documentation of one stone and two Stone crossbows you can use broken arrows um and they have quite light gpp tolerances it it won't break the bow as much because light Arrow that's broken um if you use it on a 300 something PB bow it's going to make the bow explode but on a 60 lb bow or 120 lb it's quite sufficient oh [Applause] yeah now for Hunting Expeditions I think a nobleman would take something like this along with lots of companions or slaves because they want to booler the reputation of taking down a tiger or some exotic animal and that's going to boter their reputation and Renown and of course you're going to have other folks with you to to actually do the hunting uh but you're going to carry a crossbow yourself of course um if you miss your companions can shoot as well um and maybe with 20 men shooting at one tiger the Tiger's screwed so I don't think that the noble would be hunting by himself you probably have a bunch of companions um slaves that do the actual protection and he's the one pulling the trigger if he misses well uh his his friends can uh do it for him now I don't think peasants would be using these because crossbow triggers are highly regulated crossbows themselves are highly regulated in the hand Empire and armor as well it's basically a death sentence uh to carry lots of crossbows with you because it instigates rebellions so then bonobo men are kind of an exception because they kind of owned the land of that region so they don't have to tell anybody uh if they owning crossbows plus they can use crossbows from The Garrison uh what you know the people in power do is is much more flexible in comparison to a peasants owning these crossbows wow ready yeah ready yeah wow it's quite powerful even though it's 120 lbs of 20 in it's behaving like a 80 lb vertical bow like 80 lb at 30 in or may 80 lb at 20 in that's the kind of performance it's getting very powerful for a compact package and I can see why nobleman would like this because it's more accurate than a vertical Bowl you don't need as much training and especially if they're riding a chariot with an umbrella on top I'm sure they'll like it for playing I would hunt a tiger with this along with 20 men doing the actual shooting here's the typical ammunition they would likely use you want it to the right gpp so here's the bolts I have they are flat instead of Knocked they have both options if you want and then tanged is the typical arrowheads used um so that's the kind of historical arrowheads they could have used well anyways thanks for watching this is Jack from historical weapons and stay tuned for some other interesting [Applause] stuff sh

Channel: Historical Weapons

Views: 4,284

Keywords: chinese crossbow, single shot, repeating crossbow, han crossbow, long powerstroke, ancient crossbow, bronze, historical crossbow, oldest crossbow, tang, gastraphetes, hornbow, composite prod, tod's workshop, skallagrim, sca, military, recurve, reflex, heavy, heaviest, longest, largest, fastest, three kingdoms, total war, aoe4, earliest crossbow, archery, hunting, 汉弩, 神臂弩, dynasty, powerstroke, terracotta, age of empires 4, oldest, weapon, joerg sprave, early crossbow, song dynasty, gunpowder, firelance

Id: ZK7u12qWFAE

Length: 7min 2sec (422 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2024