Yes I do mean the qiang, it is true that they rarely fight in anything that resembles a phalanx, but during the qin dynasty, there is actually an experimental unit that fought like a phalanx, but that never caught on. I think the hook on a stick is the ge which I mentioned. But this weapon was replaced by the more versatile qiang after qin. The chained cavalry, if i remember correctly, is actually used by machurians originally, AGAINST the Chinese, but I might be wrong on this The chained ship , i think, was only used during the battle of the Red Cliff. It prevented soldiers from getting sea sick (since it was much more stable), but burned easily. I don't think it was used in other battles though. The repeating crossbow is my all-time favourite pre-gunpowder ranged weapon. Although in earlier versions, the power and range of the shots were reduced drastically to cope with the speed, but by the ming dynasty, the repeating crossbow gained the nickname of "anti-barbarian crossbow" (yuan rong nu) because of its effectiveness against cavalry charges used by nomadic armies against China