Portrait of Guan Yu
With the blessing of the popular historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Qinglong Yanyue Sabre and Zhangba snake spear have become the star weapons in history. They are Guan Yu’s and Zhang Fei’s best weapons, or must kill weapons. Zhangba snake spear later became the equipment of leopard head Linchong in water margin.
However, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in history may not have used these two artifacts. Let’s first look at the biography of Guan Yu in the annals of the Three Kingdoms. There is a section in which he killed Yan Liang: “Yu saw the cover of Liang Hui, rode a horse to stab Liang among the crowd, and cut his head back.” Guan Yu saw Yan Liang’s mantle from afar, so he drove his horse into the army, stabbed Yan Liang to death, beheaded him and returned. It seems that the spear is used to stab the head, and then the knife is used to cut the head. Anyway, I can’t find out that Guan Gong and Qinglong Yanyue Dao have a dime relationship. Of course, it doesn’t matter what kind of sabre you use as long as Guan Gong has divine force. We can’t just talk about weapons.
Besides, Zhangba snake spear does exist. It was mentioned in the book “Shi Ming · Shi Bing” by Liuxi, a scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but it is unknown whether it was in Zhang Fei’s hands. In the biography of Zhang Fei in the annals of the Three Kingdoms, it was mentioned that “flying over the water to break the bridge, angry eyes crossed the spear”. In the battle of Changbanpo, Zhang Fei raised his eyes at Dangyang bridge and immediately crossed the spear. It’s a spear. Whether it’s Zhangba snake spear or not can’t be verified. As a matter of fact, as long as general Zhang can retire Cao Bing, no matter who he makes.
However, at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, there was a great general, Chen an, who could use a seven foot long knife in his left hand and a eight foot long snake spear in his right hand, and took all the unique skills of Guan and Zhang. The book of Jin · biography of chen’an records that he “worked hard with a seven foot Sabre and a eight foot snake spear.”. Note that this may be the first time that “Zhangba snake spear” is mentioned in history books.