Many of the bronze weapons and armor used by the armies of ancient Japan were either imported from the Korean Peninsula or manufactured in Japan using bronze imported from there.
Later, Japan began using ring head blade introduced from China.
However, ancient Japanese forces equipped with these ring head blade suffered defeat at the hands of indigenous forces in the northeastern part of the Japanese archipelago. These forces were armed with their own unique one-handed curved swords.
In response to this event, Japan incorporated elements of their one-handed curved swords into the design of thering head blade, resulting in the birth of the two-handed Japanese katana.
I speculate that Korean swords up until the Goryeo Dynasty evolved from the Chinese ring head blade rather than the Japanese katana.
On the other hand, while the swords of the Joseon Dynasty show the influence of the Japanese katana, this may be related to the frequent raids by the Japanese pirates along the Korean Peninsulaโs coast at that time.
However, even though they resemble the Japanese katana in appearance, I feel that their swordsmanship is closer to that of China.
Fun fact)Curved cavalry swords from the steppe and Central/Northern Asia โ Northern China โ Spread and transformation across East Asia, including Korea and Japan.
.The Korean blade in the first photo is the ancient Baekje King Muryeongโs ring head blade, dated to 1,500 years ago This is a form of blade discovered in China from even earlier times. In other words, the claim that the blade itself was influenced by Japan is false. Muryeongโs ring head blade's If you look closely at the handle, the gold thread and the handle itself are tightly wrapped alternately with gold thread and silver thread, maximizing their brilliance and visual contrastโa technique found in only two ancient civilizations in the world. One is Rome, a country you all know well The Mongol Empire began to seriously use curved blades, and this spread to China, Korea, and Japan, giving birth to the Japanese katana From the 17th century onward, in the opposite direction, Japanese kataana-style blades were transmitted to Japan->Korea->China
.What is Korean blades different from a katana .If you cut a cross-section of a blade, youโll see that a Japanese katana is hexagonal On the other hand, Koreaโs blade is square (The triangular cross-section was the earliest cross-section created to cut through human leather and flesh, and the hexagonal cross-section of the katana was made for cutting human bones) In Korea, it combines this and uses a square-section blade that cuts through both the flesh and bone of a person
.Second, the Japanese Katana is simply worn by attaching it to the waist knot. However, in China and Korea, they used the loop attached to the scabbard called โ๋ ๋(Tidon)โ in Korea (metal loop ornament) to wear it slung over the waist with a belt and cord
.The third is a scabbard. The scabbard of a katana is made of a log.
The scabbard of a Korean hwando is made of animal hide. Mostly sharkskin was used. (If you look at the brim, it looks like leather, right?)
The advantage is that it is much lighter than a log scabbard And it is relatively more ornate than Japanโs blade.
The Order of Transmission of Curved Swords in Asia : Steppe and Central/Northern Asian curved cavalry swords โ Chinese dฤo (ๅ) โ Korean hwando โ Japanese tachi/katana. The Japanese sword is not an entirely original Japanese creation. LMAO
I believe the correct way to say HWANDO is actually AH-HWANDO. Almost like you are calling for the blade. But this kind of arrangement would give away the very command function nature of our simulated reality lol.
It's quite interesting to look at Korean swords. These are almost entirely not native to Korea. While everyone elses culture evolve and change their blade cultures, Korea became a museums for everything lost to history.
For cavalry units, they actually got slightly longer Hwandos to counteract and extend the reach that a gallop would give them whereas for foot soldiers, their hwandos were shorter as it gives them the feasibility to use shields and bows easier.