Egy Ming-kori kardvívó kézikönyv bemutatása és fordítása: új távlatok a kínai hadtörténet kutatásában

Abstract

The Wubei zhi 武備志 is a comprehensive military encyclopaedia, compiled by Mao Yuanyi 茅元儀 in the early 17th century. It contains several martial art manuals, recording fighting systems of different weapons used by the Ming military. Among these fightbooks, there is a fencing manual, which is the first known recorded description of the fencing system of the Chinese double edged straight sword (jian 劍). This paper introduces the fencing manual by investigating its historical and military context, points out its relevance in the study of Chinese military history, and provides the Hungarian translation of the text with commentaries. Based on the example of the jian manual, the article also proposes the application of the interdisciplinary research methods of historical European martial art studies on Ming Chinese martial art manuals to obtain previously unknown knowledge about Chinese military history.