However, since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, due to complicated historical reasons, our two-handed swords have declined both in weapon making and practical technology, losing their original brilliance. Especially in the Ming Dynasty, although the "Jingchu Long Sword" was still circulating among the people, and there was a place for long-handled knives such as horse-chopping knives in the army, the whole swordsmanship tended to decline, with rough production and shrinking craftsmanship, and it became a kind of martial arts that only gave people a "decoration", so that many people thought that ancient swordsmanship was already a masterpiece of Guangling, and the swordsmanship was "rarely circulated". Mr. Ma Mingda believes that Japanese double-handed knives inherit and carry forward the fine tradition of China's double-handed knives to a great extent, which is manifested in the following aspects: First, follow the correct concept of "swift horse, light knife", make the knife light and sharp, strive for perfection, institutionalize its shape and standardize its manufacturing technology. This undoubtedly provides an important premise for the standardization of technology. It should be said that this is a crucial progress. Secondly, technically, we should try our best to save the essence, delete the complexity and simplify it, use simple and clear knife methods, and be flexible and agile in footwork to achieve the effect of "rushing like the wind". In training, we should pay attention to etiquette, actual combat, teaching origin and learning methods, moral cultivation and moral norms of samurai behavior. Thirdly, in practical application, we should give full play to the unique killing effect of two-handed knives, give full play to personal skill and courage, and try our best to complement and cooperate with various weapons and equipment to form the mutual collocation of two-handed knives with bows and arrows, short knives, long guns and even firearms, thus forming a reasonable collocation of various technologies.
In the Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates and armed smugglers, known as "Japanese pirates", including some pirates from China who followed the Japanese pirates, once invaded the coastal provinces of China for a long time. Two-handed Dao, known as "Japanese Dao", is one of the most important weapons for pirates.
Compared with the Ming army, which has not fought for a long time and is exhausted, the sword of the Japanese army showed considerable lethality, which made the China army and people suffer greatly. Qi Jiguang once said: "Our commander is not agile, short soldiers don't pick up, and his reputation is ruined!" This is the words of empathy, which contains the grief and helplessness of a patriotic strategist. Because of this, at that time, many outstanding military generals and folk martial artists in China tried to learn Japanese sword skills through various channels. There was an upsurge of introducing Japanese Dao and its practical technology between the ruling and opposition parties. The formation of an unprecedented spectacle in the history of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries should also be a historical phenomenon with profound cultural connotations. Qi Jiguang, a great national hero, is an active importer of Japanese army knives.
For more than ten years, he actively promoted Japanese fencing in the army, and gradually explored a set of practical training courses, which was clearly recorded in his famous book Training the Army. During the decades-long military career, the troops trained by Qi Jiguang played an important role in Japanese invasion, Tatar invasion, Wanli Renchen Aid Korea and other wars. Obviously, learning from the enemy and applying it to the enemy is Qi Jiguang's outstanding point, which was beyond the reach of many conventional soldiers at that time. In particular, Qi Jiguang was the first to name this kind of "holding a knife with both hands" as "double-handed knife" or "double-handed long knife" or "Japanese long knife". Obviously, this is a well-thought-out name, a simple and appropriate name, so it has been used by serious martial artists since Qijia. In addition, Qi Jiguang's "Hidden-flow Knife Method" was a masterpiece of all kinds of knife methods in Japan at that time, and his "Manual of Hidden-flow Knife Method" handed down from generation to generation is extremely precious to both Chinese and Japanese researchers of two-handed knife methods today.
Information. Among the folk martial artists, Liu Yunfeng, a native of Zhejiang, has the most outstanding achievements. Unfortunately, although his name is admirable, so far we know almost nothing about his life.