Far eastern horse armour

[Dangun]

I might just email David Graff, he' still alive and with an email address on the Internet. In what book and page did he make the claim?

[Andreas Johansson]

The Eurasian Way of War, p55. Duncan provided a link to the Google Books version of the passage earlier in the thread.

(If the Google page says you're not allowed to view that page, try reloading it. Depending on which computer I use to access it, I either get to see it immediately or only after reloading.)

[Andreas Johansson]

While at it, Graff's Medieval Chinese Warfare p147 says that the first company of each army had iron horse armour with green tassels, attributing this to the Sui shu ch. 8, p160 in a 1973 Zhonghua shuju edition. The second company had horse armour (of unspecified material) with red tassels; nothing is said explicitly here about whether the remaining companies had horse armour, altho Graff's following remarks seem to imply that he takes the Sui shu as saying or implying so - but he also raises the question to whether the described level of equipment was actually reached or merely aspired to.

[Dangun]

Again, thank you Andreas.

The Eurasian Way of War, p55. Duncan provided a link to the Google Books version of the passage earlier in the thread.

I think I call (politely) BS on Graff's p55 comment, the ZZTJ paragraph we examined above is the same as the one he referred to in the text.
"40 squadrons of armoured men on armoured horses, a total of 4000 men"
But I will ask him. 

[Duncan Head]

I did mean to check my sources for this passage, but never got round to it. Try Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China, p.257.

[Dangun]

I exchanged email with Professor David Graff. Very nice of him to get back to me so quickly.
He agreed that there is nothing in this chapter (ZZTJ ch. 181) that says the horses and riders had armour.

So personally I think it seems a bit... inaccurate (?) to write on p. 55 of Eurasian Way of War that, "forty squadrons of armoured soldiers on armoured horses, a total of 4000 men, reportedly formed the fighting core of each of the thirty Sui armies that invaded the Northern Korean Kingdom of Koguryo in 612." The quote combines elements of a near exact quote from the source which we can say with high precision: "forty squadrons of cavalry... a total of 4000 men", with an implication he presumably draws from some other place with potentially FAR lower precision. Ideally the thought process could be bit more visible?

In my exchange with David Graff he pointed out that the paragraph does contain a reference to armour. And it does:

骑兵四十队，队百人，十队为 (previously described bit about cavalry)
步卒八十队，分为四团，(previously mentioned bit about infantry)
团各有偏将一人 (each tuan has a sub-general)
其铠胄、缨拂、旗幡，每团异色 (every tuan has a different colour of flags, tassels, and armour - 铠胄.)

But, it doesn't say what kind of armour, it doesn't mention whether the horses were armoured, its not a statement that is clearly about either the infantry or cavalry or both, and it doesn't say whether all soldiers were armoured. Given the preceding paragraph was talking about at least a half a million soldiers, there is no support for a sentence that begins with the word, "all", but specifically there is no support in chapter 181 for any horse having armour, and we are just as well off pointing at tomb murals and pottery.

To be fair to David, he did very clearly say that the horse armour idea comes from the Sui Shu 8, and I will have a look at this in the coming days.

LATER EDIT. I haven't managed to look at the Sui Shu yet, but I have thought of a scenario where everything makes sense... perhaps the Sui Shu was the source for the ZZTJ and there are a couple of extra details in what is exactly the same story? That would mean the David Graff is not linking two otherwise only-potentially linked pieces of data, but to justify the quote on p. 55, perhaps it is two versions of the SAME story....  (Only thought of this idea this evening)

[Duncan Head]

Here we go. From Yang Hong, Weapons in Ancient China (Science Press, Beijing/NY, 1992), p.257:

For example, in the expedition to Liao Dong in the seventh year of the reign of Daye (611 AD), each Sui army had four regiments of cavalry, two of which were equipped with iron armour, and two with leather armour. According to the History of the Sui Dynasty, the first regiment was equipped with iron ming guang armor and iron horse armor, threaded with black silk cord and decorated with black tassels. It also flew a flag with a drawing of a lion (suan ni). The second regiment had red leather armor and red leather horse armor threaded with red silk cord and decorated with red tassels. It flew a Bi Xiu (a fabulous wild beast like a leopard ...) flag. The third regiment had white iron ming guang armor and iron horse armor, threaded with white silk cord and decorated with white tassels, it flew a bi xie (a legendary wild beast....) flag. The fourth regiment sported black leather armour and black leather horse armour threaded with black silk cord and decorated with black tassels, and it flew a liu bo flag.

Footnoted to Sui shu : Li Yi Zhi (Book of Etiquette, History of the Sui Dynasty) 160-161.

I don't recall where it came from - maybe Graff's "green" - but somewhere I have a note that the first regiment had "blue/green" lacing and tassels, from which I suspect that their "black" is qing, variously rendered blue green or black as noted in my "Chinese Dynastic Colours" Slingshot article a few years ago.

Edit: Is http://www.zggdwx.com/suishu/8.html the original, or the original of a similar passage?

[Andreas Johansson]

While at it, Graff's Medieval Chinese Warfare p147 says that the first company of each army had iron horse armour with green tassels, attributing this to the Sui shu ch. 8, p160 in a 1973 Zhonghua shuju edition. The second company had horse armour (of unspecified material) with red tassels; nothing is said explicitly here about whether the remaining companies had horse armour, altho Graff's following remarks seem to imply that he takes the Sui shu as saying or implying so - but he also raises the question to whether the described level of equipment was actually reached or merely aspired to.

Er, I was evidently somewhat confused here. The armour is specified per "battalion" (evidently = "regiment" sensu Yang Hong), not "company", so this is saying at least half the "army" had armoured horses.

Anyway, Graff is evidently paraphrasing the same passage as Yang Hong with less detail, so this of limited interest.

[Dangun]

In a spasm of enthusiasm, I found the Sui Shu and VERY ROUGHLY translated the bit we are interested in....

Basically its the same story with different emphasis. One difference is that it doesn't mention the 24 armies up front, so its not crystal clear as to whether the troop breakdown is the same for ALL 24 ar,mies, like it is in the ZZTJ. Another difference is that I fund it much harder to find the difference between the 24 armies and the 30 armies (including imperial armies).

Anyway... to the point of interest....

每軍大將、亞將各一人。(Every general's army will have)
騎兵四十隊。(40 dui of cavalry)
隊百人置一纛。(each dui has 100 soldiers)
十隊為團， (10 dui makes up a tuan - a 1000 soldiers)
團有偏將一人。(each tuan has a deputy general)

So far this is about the same as the ZZTJ, but this next bit is unique to the Sui Shu...

第一團，皆青絲連明光甲、鐵具裝、青纓拂，建狻猊旗。
(The first tuan, all have blue silk thread, shiny armor (for the troops), iron horse armour, blue tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it, that would require more effort t understand)

第二團，絳絲連硃犀甲、獸文具裝、赤纓拂，建貔貅旗。
(The second tuan, purple silk thread, rhino skin armour, bestial armour, red tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

第三團，白絲連明光甲、鐵具裝、素纓拂，建辟邪旗。
(The third tuan, white silk thread, shiny armour,  iron horse armour, raw silk tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

第四團，烏絲連玄犀甲、獸文具裝、建纓拂，建六駁旗。
(The fourth tuan, black thread, black rhino skin armour, bestial armour, tassels, and a flag with a certain image on it)

犀甲 "Rhino skin armour" is leather
獸文具裝 "Bestial horse armour' is I guess leather
光甲 "Shiny armour" could be metal, but it intentionally did not use the kanji for iron (鐵 as in iron horse armour 鐵具裝) so should we think painted or lacquer?

I must confess that I doubted it a bit, but thanks for the references. I feel happier having hunted it down.
So one could infer every single Sui horse had armour... Raises my eyebrow nonetheless, but its a fair reading.
I am going t read on now about the infantry and look for the linkage that says this was all 24 armies, and not one of the 6 imperial, or some other arrangement.

But

[Dangun]

Er, I was evidently somewhat confused here. The armour is specified per "battalion" (evidently = "regiment" sensu Yang Hong), not "company", so this is saying at least half the "army" had armoured horses.

Just to address this... I think a fair reading is that all of the cavalry (rider and horses) in this army had armour. But far less than half the army was cavalry... so just wanted to flag a nuance there. Also it's unclear to me as yet how representative the described army is of the other 29...

[Andreas Johansson]

I meant "half of the cavalry of the army" there, of course. I guess infantry with armoured horses is not wholly impossible, but it'd certainly be odd!

[Dangun]

I guess infantry with armoured horses is not wholly impossible, but it'd certainly be odd!

It doesn't actually say the rider where's the shiny armour or the rider wears rhino skin armour. But given that the horse armour is listed separately, I think we can assume that.

[Patrick Waterson]

Of interest might be the following from the Wikipedia article on rhinos in China:

During the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BC) rhinoceros hide was used for armour. The Rites of Zhou specifies:

    "The rhinoceros-hide armour was of seven folds or links, one over another; the wild-buffalo's-hide armour was of six folds or links; and the armour, made of two hides together was of five folds or links. The rhinoceros-hide armour would endure 100 years; the wild-buffalo-hide armour 200 years; and the armour of double hide 300 years."[17]

Footnote 17:
William Raymond Gingell (1852). The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese: B. C. 1121, as prescribed in the "Institutes of the Chow dynasty strung as pearls;" or, Chow le kwan choo. Smith, Elder, & co. p. 81.

Translation might be a bit dated, but appears to give the general idea.

[Duncan Head]

第一團，皆青絲連明光甲....
(The first tuan, all have blue silk thread, shiny armor...

光甲 "Shiny armour" could be metal, but it intentionally did not use the kanji for iron (鐵 as in iron horse armour 鐵具裝) so should we think painted or lacquer?

明光甲 - ming guang jia. Ming guang, rendered by Albert Dien as bright-brilliant, is an armour style mentioned quite often in the texts. Some Chinese scholars, I think including Yang Hong, suggest it's the type of armour that has two large iron plaques on the chesst. Dien argues that the descriptor mingguang appears in the texts a couple of centuries before what he calls "cord-and-plaque" armour appears in art, and thinks mingguang (and heiguang, "black-brilliant", paired with it in some texts) are both types of iron lamellar.

[Duncan Head]

Of interest might be the following from the Wikipedia article on rhinos in China:
During the Zhou Dynasty (1045–256 BC) rhinoceros hide was used for armour. The Rites of Zhou specifies:

By the time of the Sui, "rhino-hide armour" was probably a classical literary topos, because rhinos were no longer available in most of China - at least, so http://chinese-unicorn.com/ch16/ suggests, and I recall nothing in the modern writings on armour to make me doubt it.