Speaking of the Yue King's Gou Jian Sword, most people know the historical figure Yue Wang Gou Jian from the idiom "Lying down and tasting the guts". Gou Jian was the last overlord in the Spring and Autumn Period, and it is said that he was very fond of forging swords, the most famous of which is the "Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword", because the historical story of Gou Jian makes this sword more historical significance and cultural relics value, and is known as "the first sword in the world".
In 494 BC, the armies of Wu and Yue engaged in a life-and-death struggle, and the Vietnamese army was defeated. After offering the worldly beauty Xi Shi, the king of the Yue Kingdom became the groom of Wu Wangfuchai. Twenty years after lying on his salary and bearing the burden of humiliation, Gou Jian returned to The Kingdom of Vietnam, where he appointed sages, developed production, and made a comeback. It took 9 years to destroy the State of Wu and become the last overlord in the Spring and Autumn Period. "Dove", the name of this low-paid Yue king, is Gou Jian. And this sword is the sword of the king of the Spring and Autumn Overlord.
A national first-class cultural relic, it was excavated in the winter of 1965 in the Wangshan Chu Tomb Group in Jiangling County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. Because the sword body is plated with a layer of chrome-containing metal, it has not been rusted for thousands of years. After non-destructive scientific testing, its main alloy components are copper, tin, lead, iron, sulfur and so on. The sulfur content is high at the pattern, and the copper sulfide can prevent rust.
In December 1965, archaeologists unearthed more than 600 artifacts from a chu tomb in Jiangling, Hubei Province, including this bronze sword. Archaeologists at the scene recalled that a mining team member cut his finger without paying attention when he held a sword, and the blood flowed non-stop. Someone tried its sharp edge again, and with a little force, it cut through the 16 layers of white paper. This sword is 55.7 cm long, 4.6 cm wide, 8.4 cm long and weighs 875 grams, and there are two lines of bird seal inscription near the sword grid: "Yue Wang Jiu Qian (Gou Jian) Zi Cha (Zuo) With Sword" Eight characters, proving that this sword is the legendary Yue Wang Gou Jian sword. The Yue King's sword workmanship is exquisite, showing the excellent skills of the sword caster. This sword is cold and sharp, and after more than 2,400 years, it is still clear and exquisitely decorated.
Since the unearthing of the Yue Wang sword, it has been collected by the Hubei Provincial Museum, and has been exhibited three times in the past few decades, but the Yue Wang Gou Jian sword has been banned from outreach forever due to damage to overseas exhibitions.
The first time took place in June 1973, when the "Exhibition of Cultural Relics Unearthed by the People's Republic of China" was held at the National Museum in Tokyo, Japan, to commemorate the first anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, and the Sword of the King of Yue and the Silver Jade Robe were grandly unveiled. Guo Moruo gladly wrote a poem for the exhibition: "The King of Yue broke the Wu Sword, relying solely on the wrong words of the migrant workers." The silver wisps of jade are now again, and the hearts of the immortal craftsmen are immortal. Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was ecstatic that he could feast his eyes and expressed his heartfelt respect for the special care and kindness of the Chinese government in his congratulatory speech.
The second exhibition was in December 1984 in Hong Kong. At that time, in order to celebrate the signing of the Sino-British Joint Statement on the Hong Kong Issue and the successful settlement of the Hong Kong issue, Yue Wang Gou Jian Jian and the newly unearthed Wu Wang Fu Cha Spear met with Hong Kong and Macao compatriots, overseas Chinese and friends from all over the world in the newly opened Exhibition china Heritage Museum of China Resources Group in Hong Kong. The exhibition is named "Exhibition of the Sword of yue wang and the spear of Wu Wang Fu cha unearthed in Gangneung", and the two exhibits are praised by people from all walks of life in Hong Kong as "rare treasures" and the "double bi" of ancient weapons.
The third exhibition was the "Warring States Chu Cultural Relics Exhibition" held in Singapore in 1993, which is one of the five activities of Sino-Singapore cultural exchanges. Unfortunately, it was in this exhibition that this ancient sword was damaged and was man-made. On August 24, 1994, when the exhibition ended, when the exhibition was dismantled, the Singapore staff was so clumsy that they let a plexiglass handle plate get stuck on the blade of the sword, and after the sword was removed, a new scar of 0.7 cm long and 0.1 cm wide appeared in the blade! It's heart-wrenching. This matter has also set off an uproar in China.
A hubei newspaper published an article entitled "Not a 'national treasure' to go abroad, but a "living treasure" to go abroad." The article pointedly pointed out that the Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword collected by the Hubei Provincial Museum "was unearthed for more than 20 years, crossed the ocean several times, and finally escaped the disaster,...... Tragically damaged" A stone stirred up a thousand layers of waves. Experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage again assessed the damage to the Yue Wang Sword, but the final official conclusion was "minor damage." After this incident, as the priceless treasure of our country, the Yue Wang Sword was permanently banned from participating in exhibitions abroad.
The physical scene gives the impression that it was not cast more than 2400 years ago, but 24 years ago
The yue king's sword was unearthed in the tomb of the nobles of the Chu state in Jiangling, Hubei Province, and there are two main opinions: one is that the dowry says that Gou Jian once married his daughter to king Of Chu Zhao, so it is likely that this sword was given to the chu state as a gift when marrying a daughter, and later, the king of Chu gave it to a certain nobleman, so it became the burial item of the nobleman of the Chu state. Another opinion is the spoils of war, that is, between 309 BC and 306 BC, when the Chu state sent troops to cross the country, the Chu army captured the sword, brought it back to the Chu state, and eventually became a burial object.
This angle is the best way to appreciate the sword, the sword body is not a straight line, but a gradient beautiful curve
The body of the sword is slender, with a mid-ridge, two sharp blades, and the forward curved arc is concave. Two convex hoops on the stem, concentric circles of round jewelry.
What kind of process are these 11 concentric circles cast?
Other forged swords of the same era have rusted
The sword has a history of thousands of years, and the world respects it as the "ancestor of a hundred soldiers". Because of its lightness, charm and swift use, the sword has become the object of pursuit by the princes and emperors of successive dynasties, the scribes and the warriors, and the merchants. But who invented the sword is still an unsolved mystery. According to the description in the "Guan Zi Di Shu Shu Some people also say that the sword appeared in the late Yin and early Zhou, the Yizhou Shu Ke Yin recorded that after the victory in the Battle of Muye, the King of Wu used "Light Lü" to stab the corpse of the King of Lu, this "Light Lü" ancient book interpreted as "sword name", according to the examination "Light Lü" is actually Turkic, and the Zhou people were born in Rong Di, easier to master this weapon than merchants, it is inferred that the sword was introduced to China from West Asia through nomads.
No matter who invented the sword, the sword has a long history and is called "the ancestor of a hundred soldiers" by posterity, which is well-deserved. In the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, most of them were forged in bronze, the quality of the swords was quite good, and the smelting technology gradually improved. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the princely states standardized the law of sword casting, making the sword the most important short weapon and becoming a must-have for all social strata.
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