The world's first sword 16 | a controversy spanning centuries - "the sword of the sword" what is it?

Text/Zhang Weiping

Yue Wang Gou Jian, as a generation of overlords who rose up in the late Spring and Autumn Period, his sword can really be described as a veritable sword of kings, but why would this invincible king sword be far away from its master and appear in the tomb of Jiangling Chu thousands of miles away?

Why did Gou Jian and Fu Cha, two self-use weapons that were enemies of each other and had successively dominated the king for a time, appear at the same time near the former capital of the Chu State, Ji Nancheng, thousands of miles away?

Archaeologists and historians disagreed.

——The Theory of Spoils of War: The casting technology of the Yue King's sword represents the highest level of Wuyue craftsmen. The more Wu was destroyed, the more Chu was destroyed, and the sword of Wu Yue was taken captive to the Chu kingdom by the king of Chu and even the soldiers who went out on the expedition as a trophy.

Therefore, in the Chu tombs around Jiangling, bronze weapons with inscriptions of Wu Wang and Yue Wang were continuously unearthed, such as the Yue Wang Gou Jian Sword, the Yue Wang's Will to Give The Sword, the Yue Wang Blind Gu Sword, the Yue Wang Zhou Gou Sword and the Wu Wang Lightsaber, the Wu Wang Fu Cha Spear, and so on.

Mr. Lui Wing Fong, an archaeologist in Hong Kong, believes that Shao Shui, the owner of Wangshan No. 1 Tomb, was a great nobleman during the time of King Huai of Chu. Based on the analysis of historical materials such as the "Biography of Gan Maolie" and the "Sayings of Han Feizi Neichu", he believed that King Huai of Chu had sent Shao Shui to the Yue Kingdom to divide the country and induce civil unrest in Yue, and that King Huai of Chu took advantage of the civil unrest in Yue to destroy Yue. Therefore, King Huai of Chu rewarded the captured Yue King Sword to Shao Shui, a great hero who destroyed Yue.

After Shao Shui's death, his descendants buried this famous sword to show his deeds during his lifetime. However, some experts believe that the burial date of this tomb is the early period of King Chu Wei or King Huai of Chu, that is, before the destruction of Chu Yue. Therefore, the speculation that the sword was the spoils of the Chu Dynasty's war against Vietnam lacked basis.

If this Yue King Sword was not a trophy, then how did the Yue Sword flow into the Chu Kingdom?

Experts speculate that there are two other possibilities:

——The princess married: The relationship between Chu yue and Yue was very close before the king of Chu Wei. According to the "Chronicle of Wu Zixu" and the "Past Events of The Nagisa Palace", King Zhao of Chu once married the daughter of King Gou Jian of Yue as a concubine and gave birth to King Hui of Chu. It is likely that King Yue used his precious bronze sword as a dowry for his daughter, causing the Yue sword to flow into the Chu kingdom.

Mr. Chen Zhenyu, a famous archaeologist and former director of the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, believes that the owner of the tomb, Shao Gu, is not Shao Shui, shao Gu should have lived in or earlier the King of Chuwei, and the relationship between Chu and Yue was very close before the King of Chuwei. Therefore, he said: "The Yue King's sword is not a trophy, but a funerary product." Because the sword was an important gift at that time, Gou Jian married her daughter to King Chu Zhao, and she was born to King Hui of Chu, and this sword also flowed into the Chu kingdom as a dowry. He believes that the King of Chu later gave the sword to Shao Gu. After Shao Gu's death, the sword was buried in the tomb.

——Exchange of gifts: At that time, the bronze swords forged by Wuyue and Yue were the first in the world, and the monarchs of other countries were proud to be able to obtain wuyue swords.

There is such a story in the "History of the Wu Taibo Family". It is said that Ji Zha, the fourth son of Shou Meng, the 19th monarch of the State of Wu, was ordered to send envoys to the states of Lu, Qi, Wei, and Jin, and when he passed by the small princely state of Xu Guo, the monarch of xu guo actually stared at Ji Zha's sword without moving his eyes, and asked Ji Zha to untie this sword for him to admire. Ji Zaben was an age-old model of Rende Li Rang, and he gladly obeyed his order. Xu Jun excitedly took the sword, drew it out of its sheath, and played with it for a long time, loving it. Ji Zha understood Xu Jun's thoughts, but Ji Zha still had big powers such as the State of Qi and the State of Jin to visit, and the sword as a symbol of state and identity could not be separated from his body, and it was inconvenient to give the sword to people. He was ready to give the sword to Xu Jun when he returned, who knew that a few years later, when Ji Zha returned from a visit to Xu Guo again, Xu Jun had already died. Ji Zha was very sad, so he drove to Xu Jun's tomb to pay his respects, then took off his sword and hung it on a tree next to the tomb, and left in a daze. In order to commemorate Ji Zha, the descendants built a "hanging sword platform" with a radius of hundreds of meters and a height of more than ten meters next to Xu Jun's tomb.

This story shows that the bronze sword was also one of the important gifts given to each other by the princely states at that time. After the destruction of Wu, Yue and Chu bordered, and the two countries were once allies of each other.

In the interaction between the monarch and the nobility, it is possible to use the sword as a gift for exchange. Mr. Xia Ding, a famous archaeologist and former president of the Chinese Archaeological Society, believes that in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the Jin Dynasty united Wu Kang Chu and Chu Tu Wu, and reported to each other, so Wu Wu entered the Jin Dynasty, and yue artifacts were also unearthed in Chu capital. After the destruction of Wu, the more Chu borders, the more possible exchanges and gifts are possible.

However, Teng Rensheng, an honorary curator and researcher of the Jingzhou Museum who participated in the archaeological excavation of the Yue Wang's Gou JianJian, believes that the claims of dowries and diplomatic gifts circulated in the academic circles are not substantiated. He advocated the idea of the spoils of war, and only war could make these kings' swords fall into the hands of the Chu people.

Of course, since no one has yet found any written information about this Yue Wang sword, each of the above views is a bold speculation based on the analysis of some historical materials. Among them, any kind of speculation may be the real answer to "cross the sword".

The long history makes the above inference slightly pale. Perhaps, the real answer is something that the world can never imagine. But, over time, the truth will one day surface.

Therefore, why the Yue King's sword, the bronze sword worn by the legendary king, was unearthed in the tomb of Jiangling Chu thousands of miles away, is still only an unsolved mystery. Let's look forward to using new archaeological discoveries to solve this age-old mystery.