Introduction to the Chinese Rattan Shield 中國藤牌二三事

Hey guys, it's the Scholar General, Mojiang Dianbing. So today, I'm going to have a special episode and we're going to talk about the Teng Pai, or the Rattan Shield. Now I want to talk in this video a little bit about the history and some of the details about the Rattan Shield. So let's start with some of the history. The Rattan Shield in China came to be more prominent during the Ming Dynasty, mostly in the south because that's where rattan grows. Now earlier shields were fairly pointed, more pointed than this one. This one is based off a 19th century example. So it's domed but not very pointed. Earlier ones would be more of a point. And also if we look at shields outside of China, in places like Vietnam and Indonesia, Southeast Asia in general, many of those shields are a little more pointed. And they also usually come with metal decorations and like a boss and things like that too. But in China, most of the time, they're just made of rattan that's soaked with oil and maybe painted or lacquered. And they don't have as many metal decorations as they do in Southeast Asia. So during the Ming Dynasty, they became fairly popular, especially in things like the Mandarin Duck Formation or the Yuanyang Zheng. So basically it's a good solid protection that was used in the front of formations with people using spears and things behind them. Now as time went on, the military, especially during the Qing, the Qing was when Manchus came in and became the ruling body over China and formed the Qing Dynasty. Now they did not use shields as much. They were mostly nomadic horse archers and a lot of the military, especially also gunpowder, became increasingly popular in China during this time. So the role of a shield became kind of pushed off the battlefield. But it still existed in civilian populations all the way into the 19th century. And the context surrounding the use of shields changed. So shields produced in the 19th century are usually less pointed and more flat because it's easier and faster to make. And simply, basically, during this time, a lot of village militias and bandits and secret societies and things, types of things, there's a lot of turmoil going on in the countrysides. Especially in southern China. And it's just making yourself a quick, easy, cheap shield to protect yourself whenever you get into skirmishes or gang fights and things like that is a very good option. It's better than not having a shield. Very much better than not having a shield. So let's talk about some of the details on this shield. Now, whenever you process rattan, you get two products. You get a rattan core, which is what this, like, the main substance of the shield is. It's this cylinder that you wrap around. And then you get the rattan skin, which is what this thing you use to weave the core together. Now, this here is also rattan skin. And one thing about this shield that's not historically accurate, this shield is wonderful and it's very affordable, but it's not the most historically accurate. One thing, one reason that it's not historically accurate is because the rattan skin is too thin. Normally, shields are wrapped with skin that's like this all the way around the shield. Now, another thing is that the edge, if we look at the edge of the shield, we can see that the rattan skin is present, but on the historical examples, you can't actually see the core at the edge because the wrapping is so tight that all you see is just wrapping on wrapping all the way around the edge, which helps hold things together much more. So this shield probably wouldn't stand up to heavy-duty damage like the ones of the past, but it's still a really good, nice example to show. A couple other things is that this shield is completely dry, but in the past, they would usually be soaked in tongue oil, and rattan is very absorbent, so you can, you know, put multiple layers and it will steep into the wood and help it resist weather, as well as toughen it up a little bit because the tongue oil can kind of dry and get a little crusty. And additionally, many of these shields will also be painted for decoration or for intimidation. They're often painted with a tiger face on them, and some people think this is because the word for tiger in Chinese, hu, is similar to the word for protect, which is like hu. So there's a little bit of trivia. Now one other thing is that if you look at the back of this shield, we can see that you have, it's basically like a strap shield, but a little bit different. It's a little loose. You can fit your arm, your elbow goes here, and then you grab onto this wooden handle here. Now, another reason this isn't an entirely historically accurate shield is because the core wrapping that we have here, normally it's woven straight into the shield. I mean, like, we'd have the core coming from here, and it would go straight into a loop and then back into the shield, but here it's attached after the shield has already been made. So that's one other difference that makes this shield not exactly like the ones of the past. One last thing to note is that this shield is about 70 centimeters in diameter, which is around 27 inches or so. This is actually a little bit on the smaller side. Many examples from the past are, can get much bigger than this, including some that go up to a meter or over three feet in diameter, so you can get a very large shield. Now, I think that pretty much covers most of the basics that I want to talk about today about the Tong Pai. I'll have another video later which will talk about some of the martial applications that I think can be done with this. So, alright, I'll see you guys next time.