Jiang Ye Chapter 53

Here’s the weekly chapter! Chapter 53

While the translator wiki is mostly done and we do not believe we will stumble across unknowns from previous chapters  anymore, the week has been busy and Jiang Ye takes longer to translate, because it takes longer to convert the style of Chinese into what we believe to be equivalent English.

Oh, there’s some Translation Notes:

Dao – This is what has been translated as the “Chinese Broadsword”, and sometimes “Chinese Sabre”. I don’t really know much about sword styles in the West so I don’t know how accurate that translation is. Anywho, there is a character in the chapter who uses a weapon called the Rain Cloud (Dao). Dao in Chinese can mean anything from this weapon to a kitchen knife, but I’m sure any Westerner would call this a sword. As such, should it be Rain Cloud Sword? Or Rain Cloud Blade? 

The Dao was a mass produced weapon, that was easy to learn to use, durable and served as an infantryman’s hacking weapon, however it was not relegated as a “peasant” weapon or anything like that – any nobility who trained in warfare would know how to wield a dao. Though not as fast as the straight sword, the advantage of it’s ease of use has made it a weapon used for thousands of years. 

Oh also, I actually own this exact sword lulz. I was a broadsword guy, but now I’m interested in becoming a Jian guy.

Jian – This has been translated as a “Straight Sword” by martial arts translators. The differences between the Jian and the Dao are quite distinct, and there is a strong differentiation in Chinese between the two weapons which would be lumped together as “swords” in English. In Japanese, there is also this distinction of “swords” such as “ken” as in KenShin, and “katana” which are both translated as “Sword” but this doesn’t flow very well back into Japanese. This is a weapon wielded by Chao XiaoShu.

Jian often served as a side-arm for generals in the battlefield, and though I’m not too sure I suspect it’s because they are harder to manufacture, and require more skill to learn. A dao could be made more poorly with less pure materials, but because it is thicker, it would still be durable. Compared to that a jian was thin but still had to be strong enough to survive the rigors of battle. 

You may have seen the floppy jian swords and people condemning how the Chinese have impractical weapons… well actually the floppy versions are nowadays mostly for demonstration. A true jian is heavier, and therefore requires a pre-component of strength training, fingers, wrists, arms etc., and is inherently much slower than the showy light ones you see in demonstrations. (I don’t know for sure and maybe this is irresponsible, but I always thought that the floppy versions were made in order to teach students how to properly apply force through the body of the sword. If a clear ‘snap’ is heard, it means force traveled through it continuously, making a better transfer of force and therefore more cutting power for input power. ) – end of Cordi Conjecture.

BTW real jian are a bit flexible, this is to absorb the initial impact with a slight bend. In essence even though the blade is mostly straight and therefore making it a powerful stabbing weapon, the bend when force is applied (during a slash) means less surface area with the same pounds per square inch – in other words, it cuts like mofo with an ephemeral curve, a damn fine weapon that doesn’t need to achieve this through sturdy-ness, which in turn makes a brittle weapon. 

Gouache – we put ‘watercolor’ instead for instant comprehension, because I sure as hell didn’t know what gouache was before this chapter. It’s like watercolor with a different binder, and looks a lot like a combination between colored pastels and watercolors to me (the guy who doesn’t know shit about art >.<)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gouache

And as an after thought completely unrelated the story, an absolutely fine weapon during a Zombie Apocalypse, the Da Dao (Great Knife/Blade/Dao/…something). Two handed and tough and durable, has a long history of not being broken after rigorous battle.