Largest Bow from Ming Dynasty China

This is a late Ming dynasty Chinese military bow, called the Dashao Bow 大弰弓 (literally means big siyah bow). This bow name started to appear in the historical text of the 17th century, such as Gaoying and Wubeizhi, but it is difficult to trace its origins of being northern China, Mongolian, or Jurchen/Manchu origin.
This is not a review of the bow but rather an educational video of the Dashao.
From the Chinese 17th century source, wǔ bèi yào luè, it depicts six types of bows in the Ming Arsenal. Dashao stands out from the crowd, being the biggest of the bunch and showing a D shape profile instead of the typical M shape profile that is synonymous with other Chinese bows of previous eras.

the Description says "These days border troops, whether mounted or foot archers, use this type of bow, its long and wide limbs provide stability". According to another Ming Chongzhen era reference of Jiǎo fěi tú jì 剿匪圖紀, which depicts Ming troops fighting "farmers rebels" and the bows appear to be Dashao Bows (with large size, D shape, long draw, etc.).

Today, some people argue that the Manchu bow, was originated from the ming dyanasty dashao bows, due to its very similar resemblance of the later manchu bows. They use the 武备志 wubeizhi printed in 1621. It quotes “Kaiyuan is what is called dashao today”. “The core is 3.5 chi, two (water) buffalo horn stripes, mulberry or elm siyah 1 chi, hardwood grip, the (total) length is 5 chi.” Doing some conversions, the bow’s total length is 160cm. If this is the string length——it is similar size to the imperial Qing bows. Critics have argued that If you look at gaoying's, the dashao bow is more D shape at the handle with less recurve at the tips, however, this is not a realistic drawing of the bow and its clearly not in scale. if you look at the wǔ bèi yào luè, those depictions are much closer to qing dynasty manchu bows.

Others have argued that The mongols were the first to use these manchu bows. After all, the earliest source is from a 16th century record made by a Ming person traveling to the Mongol (虏）regions. In which he describes the Mongols used “long wide bows” and “long thick arrows”. However this could simply be mongol longbows even used today for recreation.

And of course, there are people who argue that the jurchens are first to invent these bows, and that earlier depictions of jurchens are merely show that they used xiaoshao bows as well.

Then you have folks arguing this is a stone age invention but we just don't have the evidence. The mollegabet bow is not the same

In my opinion, we cannot be certain the origins of the manchu bow, but it is clear that the Dashao bows are earlier than the manchu bows, and do look similar based on the sources we have.

Music:
"Guzheng City" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

"Opium" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

This is a heavy bow for modern horseback archery standards but light for historical use
75lb@34 Alibow Dashao & 2000 grain arrow

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Alibow website:
https://www.alibowshop.com/product-pa...
Military Ming Big Siyah Bow "Dashao"
Dashao (lit. means “big siyah") is a popular military bow used by the border troops of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) in its late years. In contrast to the earlier short Ming bows with recurved siyah, these Dashao bows were described to be long, with wide limbs and straight siyah for stability.


There are no antique Ming bows found but fortunately there is a very detailed description of the Dashao bow----and we made this bow according to the description.

-Draw length: up to 34’’

-Length of String: 144cm
-Draw Weight: 35 to 75lbs (at 34'', NOT 28")
-Minimum Arrow Weight: 15 gpp


How to roughly estimate your late Ming military style draw length: 1/2 arm span - 2 to 3"
*Please unstring the bow if not in use, or it may loose draw weight.