Leather in Ancient China

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Note:
(a) rawhide (material)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawhide_(material)
(Rawhide is a hide or animal skin that has not been exposed to tanning; similar to parchment; used for drumheads; "'Rawhide' laces often sold for boots or baseball gloves are made of normal tanned leather rather than actual rawhide. Rawhide is not pliable when dry and would be unsuitable for this use")

(b) One is encouraged to go to Encyclopaedia Britannica--through Google cache--to read online the following:
(i) leather
(ii) tannin
("Tannin is responsible for the astringency, colour, and some of the flavour in tea. Tannins occur normally in the roots, wood, bark, leaves, and fruit of many plants, particularly in the bark of oak species and in sumac and myrobalan")
(iii) tanning (leather manufacturing)
(iv) vegetable tanning (chemical treatment)
(v) mineral tanning (chemical treatment)
(vi) chamoising (tanning process)
(vii) oil tanning

(b) "Around 80% of leather globally is chromium tanned."

(c) Archaeology found leather goods in China (at least hint of leather for the first two below):
(i) A Heavenly Ride, in China's Shang Culture. National Geographic, undated (photograph by O Louis Mazzatenta )
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0307/feature3/zoom3.html
("Excavating Shang tombs near Anyang in 1971, archaeologists uncovered a horse's skull studded with the bronze decorations left behind as the leather bridle deteriorated")
(ii) Robert Bagley, Chapter Three Shang Archaelogy. Cambridge Histories Online (publisher: Cambridge University Press), 2008, pp 124-225
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/doc ... china%20124-231.pdf
(Anyang)

Search the document for "leather."
(iii) Chinese Archaeologists Discover 2,000-Year-Old leather Shoes. Xinhua, Sept 9, 2006.
http://english.people.com.cn/200609/09/eng20060909_301062.html
(iv) Luo W et al, Leather Material Found on a 6th BC Chinese Bronze Sword: A Technical Study. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 79: 1630-1633 (2011).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/sci ... i/S1386142511003763

Read Abstract, Introduction, and Conclusion.
(e) Chinese Archaeologists Excavate Earliest Bronze Armor Pieces. Xinhua, Mar 10, 2013.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/englis ... /10/c_132223298.htm
("The material of the 'armor' on the famed Terra Cotta Warriors has long been a mystery")

There is speculation that those Qin armor was made of leather with metal studs.