Under the relatively backward conditions of sword casting in ancient times, the way of "martyrdom of the sword" can indeed enhance the "spirituality" of the weapon to a certain extent, all of which stems from the belief and superstition of the ancients.
introduction
In ancient China, in order to be able to forge a good sword, the ancients would sometimes use "martyrdom", representative figures include Ou Yezi and his son-in-law's daughter in the Spring and Autumn And Warring States period, Gan Will Mo Evil, Gan will be his wife martyred sword, to be able to cast into the "Dry General Mo Evil" male and female double sword.
We also know that in the earlier period of ancient China, when gunpowder was not yet born, China was in the era of cold weapons. In the early days of human social development, there was no such thing as weapons, but with the escalation of contradictions between tribes, it gradually developed into a form of war.
Weapons then appeared, and the earliest weapons evolved from labor tools used in farming and hunting. In the period of primitive society, slave society and feudal society, cold weapons became an indispensable need in war, and for this weapon began a long process of development.
Weapons from low-level to high-level, single to diverse, complex to unified, continuous development and improvement, such as from the earliest stone and wood weapons to bronze weapons, and then developed to iron weapons. A good cold weapon has a great advantage in ancient warfare.
Not only can it enhance individual combat effectiveness, but it can also influence the balance of victory. For example, during the Warring States period, the Qin crossbow cast by the Qin State not only had a long range, but also achieved interchangeable parts, which was far better than the bow and arrow of other countries, and could kill and injure the enemy at a long distance before the enemy army fought in close quarters.
The development of sword casting
In the transition period from the age of stone and wood weapons to the age of bronze weapons, the cold weapon "sword" was born, cast from metal, with a long strip, a pointed front end, a short handle at the rear end, and a blade on both sides, which is the ancestor of the short soldier and the weapon of close combat.
At this point, the sword as a commonly used cold weapon ushered in a long process of development, for which there is a sword casting technique (the ancient sword casting process is roughly divided into five steps: the model (for casting), the adjustment (metal ratio), smelting, casting, post-casting processing), there is also the profession of sword casting master.
The first sword in the world was the Xuanyuan Sword, forged by the Yellow Emperor, who also became the originator of the sword casting master. From the Yellow Emperor to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the raw materials used to cast swords were mostly bronze, generally smelted by copper and tin alloys. The key to casting a bronze sword lies in adding an appropriate amount of tin to the copper when smelting, less tin, the sword is too soft; more tin, the sword is hard and brittle and easy to break.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, sword casting ushered in an era of great development, and many famous sword casting masters were also born, such as: Ou Yezi (the originator of ancient Chinese sword casting), the general Mo Xie, Lady Xu (male, the dagger caster used by the King of Jingke to stab the Qin King), Feng Beard and so on.
Ou Yezi's famous swords are: Zhan Lu, Chun Jun, Sheng Evil, Fish Gut, Ju Que, LongYuan (Longquan), Tai'a, Gongbu, all of which are famous swords, and the Gan general (who studied under Ou Yezi) and Mo Xie (Ou Yezi's daughter) cast the "Gan General Mo Evil".
Gan will Mo Evil "martyred with his body and sword"
The "Wuyue Chunqiu" records that Gan will "collect the iron essence of the five mountains and the golden ying of Liuhe" to cast iron swords. Not in March. Mo Xie "cut off his hair and cut his claws, and threw them into the furnace, so that three hundred virgin boys and girls drummed charcoal, and the gold and iron were made into swords."
It is rumored that when The Gan general Mo Xie forged the sword for the King of Wu, the Gan would collect the iron essence of the Five Mountains, the Jin Ying of Liuhe (generally referring to: the Five Mountains are wuyue, and the Liuhe refers to the iron found by the six parties up and down the southeast, northwest, and up and down), and cast the sword with iron. Gan will be industrious to forge swords, and his wife Mo Xie is gently on the side to fan the dry general and wipe the sweat.
Time passed, three months passed in a flash, but the sword was never cast, for which gan would begin to sigh, and his wife Mo Xie shed tears, and the reason was that the gold and iron essence found could not be melted, so that it could not be completed when smelting after the third step, as long as the iron essence could not be melted, the sword could not be cast for a day.
But the sword could not be forged, it was difficult to account to the King of Wu, so Mo Xie concealed his husband's dry general, jumped down from the wall of the sword furnace, and martyred the sword, and the dry general only heard his wife's last voice, "Dry general, I am not dead, we will still be together...", and finally the molten iron melted, and the sword was smoothly cast, and one male and one female were named "Dry General Mo Evil".
So when General Mo Xie was forging a sword, why did Mo Xie use his body to martyr the sword to successfully forge it?
From today's point of view, the reason is that at that time, the casting and smelting weapons were mainly charcoal fuel, and when the sword caster used charcoal smelting, in the relatively closed bellows furnace, the temperature could reach 900 to 1000 degrees, and the melting point of pure copper was known to be 1083.4 ± 0.2 degrees Celsius.
However, adding an appropriate amount of tin to the bronze, the melting point will be greatly reduced, as long as 800 degrees, and the melting point of iron is above 1300 degrees (pure iron melting point 1538 degrees Celsius), then the maximum temperature of charcoal when burning is only about 1000 degrees Celsius.
Under the limited conditions at that time, it was impossible to burn to the temperature of the iron melting point, and coal (this carbon is coal as raw material, non-charcoal) was only widely used after the Song Dynasty, so when the dry general Mo Evil smelted iron refining, it needed to have auxiliary combustion materials (we know that coal is the product of ancient animals and plants buried in the ground for a long time, loved by high temperature and high pressure, deterioration and other physical and chemical changes).
The human body is rich in fat, in the way of "martyrdom of the sword", the human body acts as a combustible, which can accelerate the combustion of charcoal and form carbon during the combustion process, and carbon can make the temperature in the sword casting furnace rise rapidly, thereby accelerating the melting of iron.
In addition, the human body is rich in various elements, and these elements are also important materials for alloy formation, in the fuel, will also release chromium, steel and nickel and other elements, density is much higher than iron, can make the cast sword more solid and sharp, and may eventually objectively promote the casting of the sword.
However, the ancients should not understand these, although they can be replaced by some livestock, but the ancients still use the way of "martyrdom of the sword", stemming from the belief and superstition of the ancients, the ancients believed that people are the head of all things, spiritual, so for a long time in ancient times may believe that human sacrifice played a role.
epilogue:
The ancients believed that the highest realm of casting swords is to cast swords with their bodies, and to be able to inject their own blood and soul and spirituality into the sword, believing that the swords forged in this way are very soulful, so that the power of the sword can be maximized, but this statement does not exist in modern scientific theory.
The swords forged by the ancients with spiritual creature sacrifices belonged to an extremely superstitious act! From the way the ancients "martyred the sword with their bodies", we can also glimpse the backwardness and cruelty of ancient society.
Text/History Zi Mo Ge
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