How long is Guan Yu's dragon crescent moon blade, and which is longer than Zhang Ba snake spear?

According to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhang Shiping, a great businessman from Zhongshan, and Su Shuang got a gift from Liu Guanzhang after their three-way vows in Taoyuan, so they used it to make weapons. Liu Bei thanked the two guests and ordered a good craftsman to make a double-edged sword, and Yun Chang made a dragon crescent moon blade, also known as? Leng Yan saw? , weighing eighty-two Jin. Zhang Fei made an eight-point steel spear. ? Only the weight of Qinglong crescent moon blade is mentioned here, but how long is it? Similarly, Zhang Fei's Zhang Ba-point steel spear (Zhang Ba snake spear) only said the length but not the weight. Today, let's just discuss how long Guan Yu's dragon crescent moon blade is. It may be longer than the Zhang Ba snake spear and shorter than the Fang Tian painting halberd. Why do you say that? Let's analyze it.

Before discussing, let's talk about the difference between a foot in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty and a foot now equal to about 33cm. At that time, a foot was about 23-24cm, a foot was equal to ten feet, and a foot was equal to ten inches, which is the same as now, that is to say, the length of a foot (ten feet) in the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty was between 2.3 and 2.4 meters (calculated as 2.3 meters in this article). I understand this. Let's take a look at the length of Zhang Fei's Zhang Ba-point steel spear (Zhang Ba snake spear).

If it is 1.8 feet, that is to say, 18 feet, then the eight-foot snake spear is about 4.1 meters, which should be impossible. It is difficult for such a long weapon to spread its hands and feet even at once. Therefore, the reasonable explanation should be that the spear shaft is one foot long, that is, 2.3 meters plus 8 inches, that is, about 18cm, so the so-called Zhang Ba snake spear should be 1.8 feet long, that is, about 2.48 meters long.

Except for some weapons with special purposes, the length of weapons used by generals in the cold weapon era should be closely related to their own height. Normally, the length of weapons used by a general with a height of about 1.7 meters is definitely shorter than that used by generals with a height of 1.9 meters and 2 meters. So in principle, tall people should use weapons longer than short people. The valiant soldiers in the Three Kingdoms period seem to be very tall. When introducing a person's height in the romance, they are often eight feet or nine feet tall, etc. Let's first compare how tall Lu Bu, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are.

Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are tall, which is clearly stated in the romance: Guan Yu is 9 feet tall, which is 2.7 meters, and Zhang Fei is 8 feet long, which means that Zhang Fei is about one foot (23cm) shorter than Guan Yu. So how tall is Lu Bu? It's not mentioned in the romance, but we can probably guess: Is this how Lu Bu's height is described in the romance? Extremely grown up? If it's ten feet below, just say that it's more than nine feet. From this word, we can see that Lu Bu's height should be quite high. Let's just say that it's ten feet (Ji Ling, a Shandong man who is 8 feet tall, is mentioned from behind him? Such as mentioning a child? Looking at Lu Bu, it is very likely that he really has a height of ten feet).

Zhang Fei is eight feet tall, Guan Yu is nine feet tall, and Lu Bu is one foot tall. In fact, this is a big gap. This gap is reflected in the fact that the length of the weapons used by each of them is probably the longest of Lu Bu's square-painted halberd, followed by Guan Yu's dragon crescent moon blade, and Zhang Fei's Zhang Ba snake spear comes last. Based on Zhang Fei's height of 1.84 meters and the length of the snake spear of 2.48 meters, it can be roughly estimated that Guan Yu, who is 2.7 meters tall, may have a dragon crescent moon blade length of about 2.7 meters, and Lu Bu, who is 1 meters tall (2.3 meters), may have a square painting halberd length of more than 3 meters.