The earliest lance, pronounced as mao or shuo in Chinese, found in China is more than 20,000 years old. It was used for the purpose of hunting in the primitive societies. The horns from dead animals, sharpened bamboo stalks and sharp-edged stones had all been used for hunting. Then the long shaft was added to enhance the power of the hunting tools, thus the lance was born. Among the various pre-historical relics archaeologists found in the last few decades, there are manufactured pikes, which were made to put on the lance. For example, more than 700 bronze pikes were unearthed in the tombs of the Shang Dynasty in Anyang County in Henan Province. When King Wu of the Jhou Dynasty started the decisive military operation against the Shang Dynasty in the place called Muye, he asked his soldiers to hold up their lances and swear an oath. All the evidence proves that the lance was an important weapon in ancient China.

       Shuo as the other name of lance in Chinese was the warlord, Cao Cao, favorite weapon. Cao, good in both martial arts and literature, would hold the lance horizontally on the horse saddle and write poems. When he led so-called 830,000 soldiers to march southwards to conquer the other warlord Sun Chuan, he once held a lance, stood on the front deck of a boat and recounted his military achievements to his generals; he empathized with the lance saying that that weapon had accompanied him to win all his crucial battles.