So I have been watching a lot of Chinese historical drama shows lately. My question stems from these 3 shows in particular, in which I am pretty sure they were made by the same director / film production company considering the fact that they mostly all have the same actors, sets, and costumes. The Great Revival (2007), Three Kingdoms (2010), The Legend of Chu and Han (aka King's War) (2012) all show that there are soldiers who wear armor and use shields made out of woven straw / reeds.
Was there any actual historical evidence of soldiers wearing and using armor like that? Or is it just cinematic stylistic trope to help the viewer distinguish troops of the different factions? In general I see in a lot of Chinese shows and movies where they have shields made of rope / woven straw / reeds... how do they practically work? Are they just there to absorb blunt / impact damage? Do they actually protect from slashing / cutting? Or are they hardened by adding tar or fire hardened?
Also on a slightly related question... how do leather shields work? Considering the fact many civilizations like the Egyptians and Zulu made use of them? I understand that the leather is usually hardened by drying them out but how much protection does that really offer?
soldiers who wear armor and use shields made out of woven straw / reeds.
Was there any actual historical evidence of soldiers wearing and using armor like that?
The woven Chinese armour is usually rattan (the same stuff used for cane furniture). How protective it would be depends on the thickness. Chinese rattan shields average about 9mm thick for the main coil of rattan, and could stop arrows and swords. Armour of similar thickness would be similarly protective.
Modern replicas (e.g., rattan shields for martial arts) are typically less protective, for two reasons. First, they are usually thinner; modern martial arts rattan shields are often only about half the weight of old military shields of similar size. Second, traditional rattan shields and armour were usually soaked in tung oil, which supposedly adds to their strength.
For some testing of a replica rattan shield, of proper thickness (but without tung oil), see
Note that it resists cutting to the face quite well. A sword can cut into the edge of the shield. This is similar to the behaviour of wooden plank shields (e.g., Viking shields, Anglo-Saxon shields, etc.).
The only surviving rattan armour other than shields that I've seen detailed photos of is this probably-Vietnamese rattan helmet:
which appears to be about 1cm thick (i.e., the thickness of the main rattan coil), about the same as a typical Chinese shield.
Rattan body armour was used. It's described in texts and novels. For a modern replica of Miao rattan armour from southern China, see
This looks much thinner than the previous helmet, and would not provide much protection. For a helmet and a rattan-reinforced cuirass from Taiwan, see
For some past discussion of rattan shields and other woven shields, see:
For details of the construction of typical Chinese rattan shields, see
Also on a slightly related question... how do leather shields work?
"Leather" shields are usually rawhide, which is naturally stiffer than leather and very tough. Again, the protectiveness depends on the thickness. The thicker rawhide shields, often over 1.5cm thick, would basically stop all arrows, swords, spears, and often also pistol balls. However, a shield this thick can't be too large or it will be too heavy; these thick shields are usually small round shields.
Very large rawhide shields are mostly a single thickness of hide. A sword would be able to cut into the edge of such shields, and arrows and spears might be able to pierce the shield. However, these shields are usually centre-grip shields, and are held an arm's length away from the body. Even if an arrow pierces the shield, friction between the arrow shaft and shield will typically stop the arrow from going all the way through, and the arrow won't reach the shield user. (Spears/javelins with long iron foreshafts, like the Roman pilum and many East African spears, appear to be well-designed for shield-piercing - the long iron foreshaft is smaller than the head, and won't experience much friction, and the spear will tend to penetrate as far as the wooden haft.)
Rawhide was also used for body armour and helmets, which gives us further information about protectiveness. Japanese rawhide lamellar armour typically used a thickness of 3mm or more. Side-to-side overlap gave a double thickness, and up-down overlap would often double this again, for a total thickness of at least 6mm or 12mm. Armour like this would stop arrows (and swords and spears). A rawhide helmet and body armour from Damascus, c. 1300:
Note that multiple thicknesses are used. This would be very protective. These armours are described in David Nicolle, "Leather armour in the Islamic world: a classic problem", orient.spbu.ru/books/tahiyyat/index.html#89
Body armour doesn't have the arm's-length standoff distance that shields allow - it must be thicker to stop arrows from reaching the all-too-delicate body underneath.
Some past discussion of rawhide shields by u/GeetchNixon and myself in https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8eqzq1/is_there_any_truth_to_zulu_shields_being/
Finally, I can mention another type of woven armour: coconut fibre armour from Kiribati:
This was designed to protect against clubs and wooden spears, including shark-tooth-edged clubs, and stones (hand-thrown and sling-thrown). The high back plate is to protect against friendly fire from one's own sides stone-throwers and slingers.
