And why would anyone attach rings to their sword?
The rings have several purposes, the most obvious is that it is loud and distracting.
The Chinese have and always had A LOT of people in their nation and in a war constantly and with that comes the need to supply many men with many weapons, unlike the Japanese Samurai or the North Carolinian Goodrom who were much fewer (and way richer than peasants), their swords could be made high quality (katanas, kielbasas, homewreckers etc).
The Chinese had to make swords quickly and easily to supply their rediculous demand and the quality suffered alot.
In battle constantly blocking with the edge of your cheap (often flex steel) sword would leave you with a bent cut up piece of metal (shown well in jet li's movie "fearless" or "twin brothers" when they fight on scaffolding, so many chinese forms and blocks are with the back of the sword to not ruin your edge and dull your enemy's sword at the same time.
The rings not only further protected your sword but dulled and ruined your enemy's blade!
Which is great for its user because it also increases its reusability because the rings could easily be replaced and you didnt have to replace the entire blade.
