Zhang Jiasi

He was the founder of Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors who adopted the Zhejiang Longquan Sword-making technique and applied it to making scissors inlaid with steel. Today Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors are produced in Hangzhou City, the provincial capital of Zhejiang Province in East China. In China, the brand Zhang Xiaoquan represents not only scissors, but also profound Chinese culture. Every generation worked hard to keep its reputation. In the past 300-odd years of history, Zhang Xiaoquan has never been more popular than today.

In the dying years of the Ming Dynasty, a craftsman by the name of Zhang Jiasi found a way to make scissors that were both beautiful and durable.

He continued to use iron for the body of the scissors, allowing the handles to be easily moulded and shaped. But the new trick, adapting an ancient sword-making technique, was to mix molten steel into the cutting edges of the blades - using a high temperature and a lot of careful hammering - to give the scissors a much harder, sharper bite.

Seventeenth century Chinese housewives suddenly had a powerful new weapon in their kitchen armoury - bad news indeed for 17th century Chinese chickens. A few decades later Zhang Jiasi's son, Zhang Xiaoquan, inherited the business and moved it to the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, and in 1663, his namesake company was born.