Traditional bow - Qing bow (1)

The Making of Traditional Bows

I study Qing Dynasty bows and have a certain understanding of their form, performance, and lineage. However, due to significant cultural discontinuities, the details of many archaeological bows remain unclear. While there are artifacts to support this, there's no way to verify the details. My personal principle is this: When we encounter a question we don't fully understand, based on actual evidence, we can simply say our knowledge is incomplete. We can question it, but we shouldn't blindly deny it. With thousands of years of experience, what we can imagine must have been imagined by the ancients. Since it's a traditional bow, we must first respect tradition.

Traditional bows are now widely available on the market, boasting a wide variety of styles and a diverse range of schools of thought. I personally don't oppose the use of modern materials in traditional bows; this is an inevitable trend. However, from a truly traditional perspective, genuine sinew and horn bow making, as a traditional craft, should be preserved and developed. Furthermore, a well-made horn bow has a much longer lifespan than a bow made of modern materials. My collection of Qing Dynasty horn bows still remains viable, at least 20 of them. These bows have withstood the test of a century and still function well, demonstrating the longevity of sinew-horn bows.

Zhou Xiaochu's Qing Dynasty Bow Collection

Regarding the shape of traditional bows. my country has a long and rich history, and while traditional bows naturally have a wide variety of shapes, as an ancient combat weapon, their development inevitably progressed with the times. To say that bows from one dynasty were inferior to those from another seems inappropriate. Bow and arrow shape primarily depends on factors such as regional raw materials, tactics, armor, and national character. Thousands of years of ancient culture and warfare shaped the bows of each era to meet these requirements. Therefore, bows from different eras should not be ranked as superior or inferior; they must have met the needs of the time.

The Qing Dynasty bow represents the final stage of traditional Chinese bow and arrow development, and its existence must have had its reasons. As a true combat weapon, it must have been developed based on the needs of warfare at the time. Therefore, it's probably inappropriate to measure the performance of traditional bows by the standards of modern competitive archery.

The bows used by archers in some ethnic minority areas today are often derivatives of Qing dynasty bows, yet these archers achieve remarkable accuracy with these bows. Furthermore, the traditional bows we have been able to retrieve and disassemble for research are mostly Qing dynasty bows. Therefore, I personally believe that among modern reproductions of traditional sinew and horn bows, the Qing dynasty bows are likely to be more objective and accurate in terms of form and performance, and closer to the original Qing dynasty bows.

Thumb Rings

Chinese archery has a long history, and many different types of thumb rings have been used. However, examples like the Po thumb ring and the Fuhao thumb ring are so ancient that there's very little information available on their materials and usage at the time, so I won't delve into this here. Let's talk about Qing-style tube thumb rings. As everyone knows, tube thumb rings are categorized into civil and military types. Rings made of materials like jade, gold, and silver are considered civil.

The military thumb rings used for archery in the Qing Dynasty were made from moose antlers, commonly known as handan horns. The breathability and friction of the central veins of moose antlers, combined with the stickiness of the upper and lower bone layers when exposed to sweat, prevented them from slipping during use. Based on the numerous pictorial materials currently available, it can be said that during the Qing Dynasty, from the emperor down to the soldiers, the only military thumb ring used for archery was the moose antler tube ring. The distinction between high and low quality was simply the regularity of the veins. The highest-quality rings were those with a black ring surrounding the veins. Military thumb rings were designed solely for combat, just like a sword. Even an emperor couldn't forge a sword out of gold simply because of his noble status.

Qing Dynasty Bowstrings

Bowstrings in the Qing Dynasty were made of two main materials: raw cowhide, which was highly ductile and twisted into a thin cord after special treatment. However, this type of bowstring is relatively inexpensive and simple to make, making it primarily used for combat bows. Most of the combat-grade Qingjiao bows in my collection use this type of leather string. The second type is silk bowstrings, which do exist and are considered higher-end. Silk is an excellent bowstring material, with very low elasticity and virtually no impact from humidity. However, its production is complex, requiring many strands, which are then wrapped with silk thread to strengthen and reduce elasticity. To facilitate storage, two gaps are typically left at the top and bottom of the string when wrapping it, allowing for folding and storage. To maintain strength, a complex bowstring design, called the "three-ring-within-a-moon," has emerged. This design involves dividing the bowstring into five interlocking sections, also designed for ease of folding and storage, and preventing the entire bowstring from needing to be replaced if it becomes worn.

Bow enthusiast "Yi Zai Wai" uses a silk-woven "Three Rings and Moon" bowstring.

Generally speaking, Qing Dynasty bowstrings are usually divided into three sections, with one section running from the bow tip to the string pad. Then, a special buckle is tied to the main string. This creates a three-section structure between the two end strings and the center main string. The buckle rests perfectly on the string pad, providing a certain degree of shock absorption. The "Three Rings and Moon" bowstring also uses this method, but the string is divided into five sections.

Qing Dynasty Bows with a Straight Tip

Deviation in horn bows is actually quite normal. Even well-made, high-quality horn bows from the past have many that do. Of the dozen Qing Dynasty bows in my collection, more than half have varying degrees of deviation. In the past, because the heat source used for adjustment couldn't be moved, bow tip adjustment had to be performed from a fixed source. Nowadays, with movable heat sources (such as air heaters), the bow can be completely fixed and heated directly using a mobile heat source.