Manual of the Dadao sword 大刀 by Jin Enzhong

[vellocet]

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/jin-enzhongs-saber-manual/

 

Jin Enzhong was a Chinese officer and martial artist who trained the dadao units in the Sino-Japanese War. China had plenty of war fit men but they were under an arms embargo. The manual is made for peasant soldiers and it's rather easy to learn and the moves are modern. This means you won't find "how to penetrate knightly armor" or other such nonsense, but rather "dadao vs. bayonet" and such things.

 

One easy attack is to lever the blade forward, pushing with one hand, pulling with the other, and when the blade makes its impact you turn with your shoulders and hip to transform the deep cut into a even deeper drawing cut. This lets you draw the blade out of the body again.  It turns out that getting weapons stuck in the enemy was a big problem.  

 

This isn't the kind of literature that usually gets discussed here, but the treatise is short and the preface reveals the strong feelings Chinese people felt in the 1930s when they were losing badly against Japan.  

 

The large saber art is something every army throughout the ages has had instruction in, but it still lacked a specialized book, which was a great pity, until our army’s Chinese bayonet instructor Jin Jingzhong [Enzhong] produced a manual of large saber techniques. Having already been printed for the students in the course, he has recently put forth his experience again and compiled it into a proper book – Practical Techniques for the Large Saber. These techniques are already commonly drilled by the army, so his brief book is meant to share the training with like-minded people [i.e. extending this part of the military’s training to the civilian militias].

 

     To deal with the scientific military of our powerful enemy, we have to rely on a fearless spirit and a “human bullet” mentality. The large saber techniques have emerged as a response to the situation, to deal with the enemy’s new methods, and the problem in this way will be solved. Therefore I say the large saber techniques are a matter of fearless spirit. I especially hope our young soldiers will keep them in mind and work hard at them, and I hope we will all give them encouragement. Thus I write this preface.

 

     – preface written by Wang Yizhe, Jan, 1935

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thinkpanda]

there is an old warsong  the dadao march

 

here is the lyric:

 

<<大刀进行曲>>
大刀向鬼子们的头上砍去！全国爱国的同胞们！
抗战的一天来到了。前面有工农的子弟兵，
后面有全国的老百姓，咱们军民团结勇敢前进，
看准那敌人。把他消灭，把他消灭，冲啊，
大刀向鬼子们的头上砍去。杀!