Guys,

I've found this pic posted in one of the Chinese forum (Taiwan site)... Basically it's a over view of all types of armor in various dynasty ancient China.



I'll try to translate the titles as below:
1st Row:
-- Pic 1 Armor of the ancient Chou dynasty... where the main gaun wear under the armor are still in long dragging skirt form
-- Pic 2 The heavy armor of warry states period (end up with 7 strongest). Note the standup colar for neck protection.
-- Pic 3 The Chow state intoduce the Nomad style wearing which better mobility than the traditional long gaun.
-- Pic 4 The armor of a general of Qin Dynasty. Army of the first emperor ShihHuangTi
-- Pic 5 The armor for calvary and infantry of Qin army

2nd Row:
-- Pic 1 Typical Han dynasty foot soldier (light armor). Main form like T-shirt.
-- Pic 2 Ending period of Han dynasty heavy armor. (starting of the 3 kingdom)
-- Pic 3 and 4 Jin and Wei period armor (Romance of the 3 kingdom)
-- Pic 5 Early Hsui Dynasty (Mulan period) Note the mirror armor (Ming Guang Jia)

3rd Row:
-- Pic 1 Early Tang Dynasty. Note the western influences, mass use of chain mail combination (mainly Turkey and warrior of the steppe) one of the figure is wearing a leapard as helmet like the Roman.
-- Pic 2 Mid Tang Dynasty. The famous "Chinese" armor often use by the Hong Kong movies.
-- Pic 3 Late Tang Dynasty. Not much changes...
-- Pic 4 Sung Dynasty armor. Notice 2 of the figures show wearing a jacket on top of the armor.
-- Pic 5 Liao state armor. Liao is consider barbarian tribe by the Chinese who often raided it's border. The fanous story of the Yang warrior family fought these Liao enemy.

4th Row: (mostly barbarian tribe consider by the Chinese)
-- Pic 1 Jin (Gold) state armor. Jin is basically "NuChen" tribe who invaded Sung Dynasty and taken the north portion of China. The Sung government fled to the south. The famous Chinese hero General "YueFei" was the defender of China at this state.
-- Pic 2. SiXia state armor. A small growing state but was cut to pieces by Ghengis Khan before it could blossom.
-- Pic 3 The Mongol warrior (Yuan Dynasty). First conquered the Jin (northern China), then the Sung (Southern China)...
-- Pic 4 Ming Dynasty armor. Combination of scales and chain mail widely used. Quite similar to Tang and SUng period.
-- Pic 5 Qing Dynasty (last dynasty). Qing originate from the former Jin dynasty... It was reform and united by the famous leader Nurhachi, who chamge the name from Jin to Qing... The Qing army killed the Ming dynasty and stay as Conqueror of China for decade. Note the picture shows the later type of Qing armor which made of mainly padded cotten merely serve as uniform due to the western introduction of fire arms...

Below are more reference pictures:

Typical armor of a Han Dynasty. Note the T-shirt type.


Drawing of a MingGuangJia (mirror armor) widely use in 3 Kingdom period


This is the typical Scythian armor which is one of the steppe warrior that influence the Chinese armor a lot.


The figure standing on the right is a Chinese infantry wearing the famous MingGuang Jia (mirror armor) which the 2 large chest plates covered with fabric.


Notice the figure stands on the right is wearing a Turk armor which mounted huge animal head as shoulder protection, in which influenced the Tang Chinese armor through the Silk Road trading....


This is a heavy armor Mongol, Most people always imagine Mongol warrior wearing light or No armor.... which is not totally correct :-(


Typical Ming armor of a thomb guardian statue still in China today


Another clear drawing of Sung or Tang armor. beloved by Hong Kong movies


Example of Qing padded cottan armor.



Hope these info helps

CPTan

Most excellent info CP. Thanks for the effort in gathering and comparing this large amount of valuable info.
You may need quote some of your reference sources especially those from Osprey just in case others need to source for more info and also because of the copyright thingy, my friend. ;)

Hi CP

this is good, it very hard to find any reference on any early chinese amoury

since i cant read chinese it hinder me more on getting all this info.

Have you made any insight studies on their mass weaponary ?

im sure they have some advance weapon in the early days.

The HK movies industry distorted most of the infor and not accurate

they even have warship with multiple tiers when doing battle in big rivers
( some infor from history channel )

Too bad we cant get much infor on this.

Greeks have it , romans have it , im sure china didnt do bad either

Hi Sentry,

About ancient Chinese weaponary, there's one that really impress me which is the repeating fire crossbow (some said invented by ChuGeLiang of the 3 kingdom period)

Refer to this link crossbow

Note that there's a scene in the recent Hong Kong movie by JetLi "HERO" which shows the mighty Qin army firing thousands missles of arrows, which I dare to say it's true, There exist history references shows soldier laid on their back and using their legs to "hold" the crossbow as firing position...

Now about the ancient Chinese warship, there were 2 kinds of warship. One is the sea going warship and other were the river battle type. Below are some pics:

Tang Dynasty River Warship


Sung Dynasty paddling River warship


Sung and Jin ships battling on the Yellow river


Yuan Dynasty (Mongol) Sea going warship battle the Vietnamese Sampan,


Note the warships picts are taken from aanother Historucal Forum - Chinese warships

You may visit this forum which is in English consist of everything about Ancient Chinese Arsenal



Regards,
CPTan

This is a fantastic write-up on armor & ancient warships, great find!

Many tks for compiling & sharing it.