Tao ( Chinese trad. 刀 , pinyin : dāo ) is a Chinese blade single-blade weapon.
Most often, under a dao (with an indication of its type, for example, nuweidao - bull tail, luedao - willow leaf, watero - Japanese sword, chandao - long sword, zhanmadao - horse-cutting sword, - “belt dao,” show dao) means one-blade falsions , sabers and broadswords, both one-handed and two-handed. However, as a significant element, the word tao is included in the names of the pole arms - guan tao , chuanweidao , yanyedao , dadao ( 大刀 - "big sword", a kind of Chinese halberd , which is a showdao blade on a pole exceeding the length of the blade), etc.
As a significant element, this same character is also included in the name of some specific types of weapons of Chinese martial arts (for example, Baguadao ), but in this case it means only the presence of sharpening along one of the edges of this weapon.
Japanese katanas are written in exactly the same character 刀 , which is read in Chinese as Tao , and in Japanese, depending on the context, both as a katana and something like that .
European counterparts of the Tao are a falsion similar to a classical Tao and a broadsword similar to a soldier's Tao of the Han era .
See also
- Jian