Chinese polearm

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Left to right: Spear (qiang), sword staff/long lance (pi), dagger-axe (ge), halberd (ji), axe-halberd (yueji), and great dao (dadao)

The three most common types of Chinese polearms are the ge (戈), qiang (槍), and ji (戟). They are translated into English as dagger-axe, spear, and halberd.^[1] Dagger-axes were originally a short slashing weapon with a 0.9–1.8 m (2 ft 11 in – 5 ft 11 in) long shaft, but around the 4th century BC a spearhead was added to the blade, and it became a halberd. The spear is also sometimes called a mao (矛), which is sometimes used to designate polearms with a wavy snake-like spearhead.^[2] There was another polearm weapon known as the pi (鈹), translated into English as either sword-staff or long lance, that was used from ancient times until the Han dynasty. It was essentially a short sword attached to a stick. From the Warring States period onward, the length of Chinese polearms varied from around 2.8 to 5.5 m (9 ft 2 in to 18 ft 1 in); however, there is no specific designation for a pike in the traditional Chinese lexicon. A very long spear is just called a long spear.^[3]