About: Assassin's mace

An assassin's mace (Chinese: 杀手锏; pinyin: Shāshǒujiàn) is a legendary ancient Chinese weapon. The term has its roots in ancient Chinese folklore, which recounts how a hero wielding such a weapon managed to overcome a far more powerful adversary. "Shashou Jian" was a club with which the assassin incapacitated his enemy, suddenly and totally, instead of fighting him according to the rules. According to many military analysts, the term is now used in China to describe a specific type of military system that demonstrates asymmetrical warfare and anti-access/area denial capabilities to counter the United States, though whether "assassin's mace" refers to a defined class of weapons or is merely used in the Chinese government to describe these weapons is disputed.