Chinese armors

[Quest]

after seeing "Warriors of Heaven and Earth", i started to wonder whether those armors the people wore were chinese armors? i could recognize some as being chinese, like the japanese guy's armor, and some of the guys in the group. but the leading character's armor and helmet looked suspiciously european??

i've always wanted to find a source to ancient chinese armors from different dynasties, but failed to find any. Also i kind of got this impression that the more ancient we look back the more armor chinese soldiers wore. (Qing Dynasty (last dynasty) soldiers didn't seem to wear any armor at all; just plain clothes with that stupid pigtail and the hat!! seems to me china had been decaying ever since the mongols conquered china, or should i push it back to the fall of the Tang dynasty)

[Guest Anonymous]

Also i kind of got this impression that the more ancient we look back the more armor chinese soldiers wore. (Qing Dynasty (last dynasty) soldiers didn't seem to wear any armor at all; just plain clothes with that stupid pigtail and the hat!! seems to me china had been decaying ever since the mongols conquered china, or should i push it back to the fall of the Tang dynasty)

Or maybe we just realized that wearing all that heavy armor slow us down and isn't that protective against bullets. Although I agree that I like the ancient Chinese armor (Qin, Han, Tang) much more.

[skylee]

Quest, here is some information on Chinese armours (with pictures, in simplified Chinese).

[Quest]

Great site, thank you!

[jamiefl]

I don't speak chinese, but I'm interested in finding out the history of Arms and Armor from the Song through to the Ming period. Any URLs to pictures, examples, or discriptions would be excellent.

Jamie

[yhjow]

Visit http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showforum=55, there are plenty of topics and information on Chinese armors.