dynasty. Arrows or quarrels for the crossbows increasingly shifted to
steel heads, demonstrating greater production of steel and steel weapons.
The trigger mechanism for the crossbow continued to be manufactured
of bronze, with Han dynasty trigger mechanisms surrounded by a bronze
box. Qin trigger mechanisms lacked the bronze box, and were simply
slotted into the wooden stock.
The variety of weapons was matched by a variety of weapon dances and
a better understanding of opposing weapon techniques. Weapon dances of
all kinds presumably grew out of set training patterns, where an instructor
would demonstrate how to use the weapon to a large number of soldiers
or a smaller number of students. This, in turn, extended into the realm of
performance as these same routines took on an aesthetic value. The neces-
sity of learning how to oppose a variety of weapons was inherent in the
military writers’discussion of the advantages of short and long weapons.
There was a way, for example, that a halberd could best contend with
illustration 6.Mao spear head, Warring States period, Laufer Collection.
Courtesy of the Field Museum and Ernest Caldwell. Photo by Ernest Caldwell.
The Han Dynasty Hundred Events and Martial Arts 71