Since the 1960s, a large number of Warring States period bronzes have been unearthed in Guangxi; these bronzes include war weapons, ceremonial tools and other aspects of social life; experts carefully study them and find that there are commonalities, and there are obvious differences; especially in northeast Guizhou and southwest Guizhou, the "two major schools" are presented, and the warring states bronzes of these two schools are the most representative; experts combine historical data analysis and conclude that there was a fierce cultural dispute at that time; what is going on? Let's take a look!
Since 1965, experts from the Guangxi Institute of Archaeology have successively found tombs from the pre-Qin period in the local area, and a large number of bronzes of great research value have been excavated from the tombs, especially the bronzes excavated from the Warring States tombs have made new breakthroughs in the number; for example, the bronzes excavated from the tombs of the late Shang to Spring and Autumn Period are generally 1, 2 or 12, etc., while the number of bronzes excavated from the Warring States tombs has increased to 86 or 374; and not only the number, but also the types of bronzes in the Warring States period are more complete At the same time, some new bronze types were discovered, such as cups, spoons, long swords, hooks, rings, kwans, scrapers, saws, forks, moments, drills, cones, etc.; "盉" was a vessel used by the ancients for bartending, "belt hook" was the hook of the belt worn by ancient nobles and literati warriors, similar to today's belts; "钏" refers to bracelets; long swords are weapons or tools used in life production.
In terms of cultural appearance, the Warring States period and previous dynasties have clearer characteristics: the bronze shapes cast locally in the Warring States period are more local than those in the first three periods; such as the copper column-shaped vessels excavated from cemeteries such as Pingle Yinshanling in northeast Guangxi, "copper column-shaped vessels" are very common in ancient times and are sacrificial vessel types; the pillar body is painted with auspicious clouds, animal patterns and other patterns; the copper pillars unearthed in Yinshanling are decorated with human heads, animal heads or bird heads, and there are square perforations on the sides or fronts of the lower end of the pillar; this design has never been seen in the Central Plains. It shows that it is a local feature; another example is the headless and uncluttered flat-stemmed copper short sword unearthed in Weipo, Binyang County, Nanning, which is obviously different from the flat-stemmed short sword in the Central Plains and Bashu region.
Experts consulted historical materials and found that during the Warring States period, there were two representative races in Guangxi - the Xi'ou ethnic group and the Luoyue ethnic group; in the pre-Qin era, the Western Ou were mainly distributed in the east of the Liujiang River and the north of the Yujiang River in today's Guangxi, occupying a large area of land around guidong and northeastern Guizhou; according to the Book of Han, "Among the barbarians, there was Xi'ou in the west... The south side is king. Some experts have researched that Xi'ou was a Fang state of the Zhou Dynasty, and the capital was in today's Yulin; Xi'ou was also known as Xiyue, corresponding to the Yue people in guizhong and southwest Gui, called "Luo Yue people"; compared with the Xi'ou people, the Luo Yue people appeared more mysterious.
In the ZuoJiang River and its tributary Mingjiang River basin in Chongzuo City, Guangxi, on the cliffs on the side of the river, 90 meters from the river surface, there are huge bright red murals; it contains about 105 kilometers of the Zuojiang and Mingjiang sections; its area is 6621 square hectares; according to expert research, they are painted by the ancestors of Luo Yue in the Warring States period; to this day, people still do not know how the Luoyue people painted in such a dangerous place, and why these paintings have not faded after two thousand years.
According to expert research, the most important reason why there were "two major factions" bronze culture in Guangxi during the Warring States period may be related to the competition for resources by the Xi'ou and Luoyue people; from the perspective of archaeology and geographical location, Xi'ou is relatively close to the Central Plains, and the Xi'ou people have formed a Xi'ou cultural system with their own characteristics under the impetus of the Central Plains culture; while Luo Yue is closer to Vietnam, creating the Luoyue culture under the influence of the Dian culture; the rulers of the two ethnic groups want to expand and consolidate their own fields. The amount of resources is the guarantee; in this case, war is inevitable, so there is a saying that "the more the customs of the people, the better the attack".
[References: Book of Han, Guangxi Archaeology]