What kind of saber is baxia anyway?
I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!
I mean, look at bichen, right?
Bichen in the donghua:
Bichen in the drama:
They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.
Now this is baxia in the donghua:
And baxia in the drama:
????????
THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON
it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA
pretty! But how is that he same sword??
And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.
This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?
So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.
You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.
I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!
See? only one cutting blade!
This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao
credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.
TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!
So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?
WRONG
I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:
IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!
Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?
ANYWAY
BACK TO BAXIA
Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.
I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.
No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.
I mean, come on, look at it!
Baxia!
The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.
So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.
Now: audio drama baxia!
This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?
Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!
There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!
That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!
Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.
Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.
Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.
So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work
(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)
Next option: Zhanmadao.
Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.
Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this
Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.
If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.
So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.
However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!
Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.
This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual
This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!
However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.
To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:
Dadao (大刀)
Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!
Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带 刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here
I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.
Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"
Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:
Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.
(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)
Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"
The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.
Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.
So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.
I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.
I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)
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counting coins: law x reader
can be read as platonic, very self indulgent (i collect coins and am an unemployed chemist and simply wish law would take me to sea with him) wc 1.3k
While you had heard whispers that the Heart Pirates were spending some time on your island, the last person you expected to see on your trip to the local coin shop was Trafalgar Law. You had seen his bounty poster plenty of times before—his goofy bucket hat and cocky smirk were plastered on just about every public surface in town—but something about the Surgeon of Death seemed far less intimidating in the flesh as he precisely ran his tattooed fingers through the stacks of coins sealed in cardboard holders, occasionally pulling one out to examine it.
Trying not to stare, you started making your way towards the opposite side of the store to parse through coins of your own. However, it soon became clear that if you wanted to hunt through the store’s supply of antique commemorative silver dollars, you would have to breach the tall, tanned man’s personal space.
Quietly slipping into the space between him and the wall, you began searching in vain for your target—a coin from a specific year and mint that was struck erroneously with high relief on the eyes. Turning up empty, you observe the surgeon settling on a coin of his own: a different misprint coin that you already had in your collection that made the figure on the head of the coin look like he had long rabbit-like teeth. Being nosy, you looked at the label on the cardboard casing surround the coin; the grading was iffy enough to justify haggling, and the price was far too high.
“You better not pay that much for that.” you whispered. He tried to hide the fact that he was slightly startled, but you were too close together to miss the shudder in his shoulders.
“Wasn’t planning on it. I’ll find it somewhere else.” he replied, taking the opportunity to look you over, eyes softening slightly once he realizes you’re likely not a threat, and then widening as you slip the coin out from between his fingers.
“Let me handle it.” you whispered, taking it up to the front of the store and flashing a large smile to the older gentlemen behind the counter.
“I’m interested in this coin, but I just wanted to make sure it was labeled correctly! It’s marked AU, but the details in the hair aren’t there to justify it. Even calling it Extra Fine might be a stretch…” you said, pointing at the page in your pocket-sized coin grading book.
Law grits his teeth and prepares to cut his losses and slink out the door as one of the men begins to laugh boisterously, before being taken aback by the man’s next words.
“Are you trying to rip the poor girl off?” he asks his coworker, causing the man you were speaking with originally to flush red with embarrassment. “Sorry about the bad label sweetheart, it’s yours for 500 berries.” You beam and hand over the berries, profusely thanking them in the process while Law tries to keep his jaw from dropping on the floor. He knew damn well that you had to have nitpicked the coin to hell in order to call it Extra Fine, let alone snag it for a third of its usual asking price. Law expects you to smirk at him as you pass by and exit the store, but the smile you give him is innocent and genuine. He waits a few moments after you leave before going after you and is relieved to find you hadn’t run off and were waiting on a bench outside for him. As he approaches you, you make a peace sign at him, catching him slightly off guard.
“Here you go!” you exclaim standing up and, placing the coin in his palm. He reaches in his pocket to attempt to pay you back but you shake your head.
“You don’t have to, the price I paid for that was borderline thievery.” you say.
“I’m impressed.” Law replies, still offering you the berries despite your protests. Your cheeks turn pink as you continue to refuse payment, saying you were simply happy to help him out since you already had one in your collection. Law pauses for a moment, gazing at you intensely, causing a sheepish grin to break out on your face.
“I heard there’s a bookstore with a café inside down the street. Let me buy you a drink and we’ll call it even.”
“I’d love that, I need to pick up something new to read anyways.”
Law smirks as you both begin to walk towards the café and you ramble about a novel you’ve just finished, admiring the dusting of pink on your cheeks.
“You on the hunt for anything in particular?” you ask after ordering your drink, trying to mentally guess what types of books the pirate captain enjoys most before he responds.
“Organic chemistry textbooks. I need to brush up so I can replenish the medicine stock on my submarine.” Something behind your eyes lights up at the mention of the subject.
“Don’t waste your beri, I’ve got a ton at home! I’m more of a spectroscopist myself, but I studied organic synthesis for a few years…” you said, explaining your studies to Law as he listened intently.
“It’s just a bit difficult to find a job around here; there’s no real industry built up, and I can’t afford to sail anywhere else, so I’ve been selling my paintings to scrape by.” you finished, voice taking a slight downturn at the mention of your current career state.
“How much biochemistry experience do you have?” he asks you, sipping on his drink.
“The basics, I need to brush up on some of the more complicated metabolic pathways though.” you reply.
“Experience making bulk quantities of solution?”
“Tons.”
“How are you in small, dark spaces?”
“I seek them out.”
“For weeks at a time?”
“I’d be fine as long as I’m not completely alone.”
Law examines you for a moment, looking for any signs on your face that you were misrepresenting your own abilities, but found none.
“Trust me, you’ll wish you were alone after a few days.” he joked dryly. He loved his crew dearly, but he wanted to make sure you were adequately warned about life on the Polar Tang before asking you the question that lingered on the tip of his tongue. Law gulps down the rest of his coffee before speaking again.
“If you’re interested, I’d like to invite you to join my crew. I need a chemist to help me out and relieve some of my workload. The hours are long, the conditions are abysmal, and the sea is dangerous. The pay is good at some times and horrible at others, but you’ll always have three square meals. You’d spend most of your time either working with me or alone in the lab, but there’s twenty of us in total on the ship; you can meet them first before deciding if that’s what you’d like.”
You were flattered, and a bit taken aback by the offer. Piracy had never been on your radar, but the opportunity to travel the world and learn a ridiculous amount of medicinal chemistry in a hands-on environment was calling to you like a siren’s song.
“I’ll have to buy some water-based oil paints. Traditional ones give off too many fumes to use in a submarine.” you say with a smile, and you notice Law relaxes just the tiniest bit. “I’m very interested, but I would like to meet the crew first, just to be sure.”
Law writes down the name of the bar and tells you to pack your things and meet them that night, and assures you if you were to change your mind there would be no hard feelings. However, he couldn’t hide the relief he felt and the smile that crept across his face later that night when you fit in so well that Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo plead you to come along, leading the rest of the crew in a chant of “Please stay! Please stay! Please stay!”, followed by a cheer when you agree.
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