Dao
刀 · dāo
Collective name for Chinese single-edged sabres — from the bronze zhibeidao of the Shang dynasty to daoshu, a competitive discipline in today's wushu.
Quick Facts
ChinaAbout the weapon
Dao is a collective Chinese term for single-edged swords and sabres. The oldest dao come from the Bronze Age, from the Shang dynasty, and are called zhibeidao – knives with a straight back. At first they were bronze, and by the late Warring States period already iron or steel. By the end of the Three Kingdoms period the single-edged dao had almost entirely replaced the double-edged jian on the battlefield. Mongol influence, which lasted through the Ming and Qing dynasties, made more strongly curved blades popular. Late Han dao had round hilts with a ring-shaped pommel and measured 85 to 114 cm. Guards tend to be disc-shaped and often dish-curved, so rainwater does not run into the scabbard and blood does not run onto the hilt. The hilt is sometimes angled against the blade's curve. The main types are liuyedao (willow-leaf sabre), yanmaodao, piandao and niuweidao; the niuweidao, "ox-tail sabre", first appears in the early 19th century, and only as a civilian weapon. A traditional saying holds that one learns the dao sabre in a week, the qiang spear in a month, and the jian sword in a year. The sabre form, daoshu, was for its popularity one of the four main weapon disciplines at the 1st Wushu World Championships. Under the 2024 IWUF rules, the form must last 1:20 to 1:35 minutes. The large dao, the dadao, was used by some Chinese militias against Japanese forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War.