tell me about

[abracax]

The revival of Blacksmithing to me is an awesome thing, I have met people over the years that are blacksmiths and make swords, armor, and many other things.

Blacksmithing is a craft, and even at times an art form. It is something that may seem primitive to many, yet is something that hopefully we never lose. Just take the Damascus steel as an example. What a shame to lose the knowledge in how that was made. There are too many prime examples of us losing knowledge throughout history because something was no longer needed, or technology changed and a civilization raced to catch up.

[CandleLite]

i agree compleetly. lots of crafts are being taken over by macheens. now granted a macheen cand knit a scarff faster, tighter and for less money then i could, but it takes something a way from the importance of it.
i read somewhere that Nordic fishermen all wore sweaters their wifes/ mothers/ sisters knited for them. each salor had a distinctive pattern for his sweater so if he went over borad he could be identified by it when he was recoverd. HOW COOL is that!! with 100's of salors on the sea and not one duplicat pattern for a sweater. + he would have something to remind him of the love waiting for him at home.

[abracax]

Bump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kalent]

I have been fascinated by the book "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which is a book based on history. The setting is at the near end of the Han Dynasty of China, and the story mostly revolves around 3 brothers (Not blood-related), Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Cao Cao, a famous warlord.
The start of the story is where the Yellow Turban Rebellion breaks out, a vast army made of poor peasants who tried to stand against the government to live. At this time, the government of Han was controlled by the eunuchs that the king believed to be his most trusted servants.
Anyways, the Yellow Turbans were led by a fake who claimed he had powers given by the heaven, and when he got more greedy, decided to take over the country. Since the government was slow at their response because of the eunuchs, the Yellow Turban Army seemed unstoppable. The king's men hastily gathered an army and looked for good fighters who could lead the army. This was where the famous Cao Cao, and Sun Jian comes in, working as a minor military general.
Meanwhile, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei was recruiting men to make a non-government army against the Yellow Turbans. (Side Note: Guan Yu is a big man, said to be 6' tall, and Zhang Fei is said to be a giant, looming over 7' tall. Also, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are according to historical recording on of the best fighters in history of Asia) After training their army enough, Liu Bei led his army into the fight, joining up with government officials. In their first battle, Liu Bei took 200 poorly-trained men into battle against an army 10 times as bigger than them. But after Zhang Fei killed the enemy's minor general with 1 strike of his spear, and Guan yu killing the commander and general with also 1 strike of his spear, Liu Bei won against the Yellow Turbans easily with minimal casualties.
Then, Liu Bei led his troops along with 5000 of other government troops to reinforce a major stronghold on the verge of getting taken over. There, the Yellow Turban Army was much, much more bigger in numbers than the government, but after a strategical trap, they successful fended off the attackers.

Meh, I'll post more later.. But not anymore about the earlier parts, I wanna get to the part where Zhuge Liang becomes the genius he is and becomes really bad@$$.

[Kalent]

bomp........

[drizztix]

Japanese weaponry...
nuff'said...

[CandleLite]

not enough said. i want to learn. you cant just walk in here and give me a tantilzeing subjent and then walk out with out teaching me anything!!

[abracax]

not enough said. i want to learn. you cant just walk in here and give me a tantilzeing subjent and then walk out with out teaching me anything!!

Let me say what Drizz isn't saying, most weaponry from Asia were at one time farm tools. They were used as weaponry because only upper class could have weapons or soldiers to carry weapons for them.

[CandleLite]

so the tool you just cut your crop of wheat with you then turn on your attacker? or strip the blade from your plow and defend yourself with that? is that what i'm hearing??

[bob19991]

The sai, from what I know, was originally used to hold the ox cart to the oxen- the strong, center spike, the thiner outer arms to keep it from falling through.