Time machine needed

I am a sucker for a sword-fighting film, always have been, and so the sword form has always been one of my favourite bits of tai chi chuan. When it comes to the actual use of the things, we have so many questions. Was the double-edged sword merely a duelling weapon, or did it see use on the battlefield? If the former, then how was victory decided, was it to the death or first blood or what? The typical sword applications that we are taught are so flashy, and involve such large movements that they can only be appropriate to battlefield use, but such a relatively delicate, double-edged number wouldn't have lasted long with hordes of hoi-polloi constantly trying to hew bits from one's aristocratic frame...The thing is that we'll never really know. If we  could just see one real chinese sword encounter, it would all make sense...all power to the reconstructionists I say. Sword geek out.