what reason the manchu design the long hornbow?

Jiao, their arrows were very long and heavy. A short bow would not be effective to shoot out the arrows forcefully. But then you ask: "why long and heavy arrows?", and I can't tell you the answer! :D

Steven could the answer to the question , "why long and heavy arrows?" ,be the same as it was for the English ? To penetrate armor.

The Manchus used their arrows at medium range, somewhat like the English, and they wanted a "knock down effect". In the early days, they were fighting the Ming and the Mongol princes and undoubtedly contended with armoured foes, but they kept using the long heavy arrows when fighting the Dzungars who were rarely armoured.

I have often thought that muskets took over long range shooting from bows in East Asia after they were introduced. However, until the invention of the revolver, pistols were quite ineffective on horseback. In countries where horse archery was known, it survived for a long time after the coming of guns.

I remember reading that it was common for the Mongol warrior to have in his equipment, two (types of) bows.

One was short, possibly drawing between around 50 and 80 pounds for use on horse-back. The range this weapon was used at would generally have been less than 100 yards.

The other was long - probably over 5 1/2 feet, and could draw well in excess of 100lb. This bow was for use on foot e.g. for seige work etc. Similar usage to the English longbow.

Long, powerfull bows - along with long and heavy arrows tended to be used by infantry archers, because they need a powerfull weapon which can strike hard at longer range. Infantry archers tended to fight from fixed positions on a battlefield and face cavalry charges. They needed a weapon capable of bringing down heavy armoured cavalry. Probably, the long Manchu bow was primarily an infantry weapon.

I wonder how long were the Manchu bows before the conquest of the Ming (before 16th c)? Was there any trend towards longer bows culminating in the extremes we see now?

Adam

I have always wondered whether the origin of the long bows and large arrows of the Manchus was not rooted in the forest parts of their domains. When you read the early history of the Manchu state before the founding of the Qing dynasty, there is a lack of the cavalry tradition of the steppe. Cavalry was present, but it was not dominant. The forests of northern Manchuria were rich in game, some of which was very dangerous.

However, the archery tradition of Northern Asia and the steppes is probably much more complex than we are currently aware. Even within China, there were great variations as Stephen often points out. There might be a degree of historical chance rather than determinism in how the Manchu bows turned out.

It is worth noting the the Liao and Jin both appeared to favour long eared bows even before the spread of the habit of recurving the ends became common. Their arrows also seem to have been large.

Long bow:
Does not flip flop
Durable on subfreezing temperatures
Somewhat resistant to water
Cheap and quick to make
Long and thefore unvieldy on horseback
More accurate on short distance
Shorter max range

Horn bow:
Able to flip flop
glued with non water resistant glue
Horn becomes brittle on subfreesing temeratures
Expensive and slow to make
Small and wieldy on horseback
Less accurate on short distance due to extream recurving
Longer max range

Jkekoni,

What do you mean by "flip flop"?

I would like to make two comments about what Nick wrote. There are a number of European sources on Mongol equipment from the period of the Great Khans. Several of them describe the Mongol equipment in some detail, but none of those are very specific about the length of bows, just the fact that two were carried. Another source mentions carrying two types of arrows: ones for long distance and others for short distance. There is also the problem of what people meant at the time by longer and shorter bows. In some Arabic manuscripts, from the context, it is clear that they meant longer or shorter draws. Most likely they were simply carrying two bows.

Unfortunately some authors of later histories have added their own conclusions without clearly differentiating them from the facts they were reporting.

There are several accounts of the Mongols dismounting to shoot, one in Syria in particular. Dismounted cavalry are not infantry and would have used their cavalry bows to shoot with.

The major sources from contemporary Europe are John de Plano-Carpini, Marco Polo and William of Rubruck.