Bitter people, the sky does not bear, lying down to taste the guts, three thousand Yue Jia can swallow Wu. Yue Wang Gou Jian is a famous figure in the history of our country, and the story of his lying down and tasting his guts has been passed down through the ages and has long been included in textbooks. The Yue King's Sword is the Yue King's personal sword. This sword has been baptized for thousands of years, and when it was unearthed, the surface of the sword was not stained with rust, what is the reason?
(Yue Wang Gou Jian Historical Portrait)
According to relevant information, this Yue Wang sword was successfully excavated in 1965 in the Wangshan Chu Tomb Group in Jiangling County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, and is a bronze sword belonging to the Spring and Autumn Period. It is said that this sword is engraved with the word Tong, which means the sword of the Yue King. Later, this sword was also known as the "first sword in the world". This ancient sword is 55.7 cm high, 47.2 cm long, 4.6 cm wide, 8.4 cm long and weighs 857.4 grams.
(Yue Wang Sword)
The reason why it has endured for thousands of years without rust is because of the special composition of the Yue Wang Sword, which was mentioned earlier that this sword is a bronze sword, that is to say, his main ingredient is copper. Among the chemical elements, we all know that copper is one of the least reactive metal elements, and under daily conditions it does not oxidize like iron and aluminum. If there is no special situation, it will always maintain its original state, will not rust, and more importantly, the sword of the Yue King's Gou Jian contains more copper, which makes the toughness of the sword good and not easy to break, and the blade part of the sword has a higher tin content, which increases the hardness of the frontal sword, and also makes the sword extremely sharp, that is to say, in the ancient times more than 2000 years ago, China has initially mastered the composite process of metal casting, which is really amazing.
(Yue Wang Sword Partial)
The second reason why the Yue Wang Sword does not rust is because it is stored in a better sealed environment. Yue Wang sword is buried in a very deep place underground, before the excavation was placed in a closed burial chamber, the tomb is surrounded by a delicate texture of cypress mud, the overall is relatively compact, so that this tomb almost became a confined space, basically cut off the exchange of gas with the outside world, good air, no air entry, this is probably the external factor of the Yue Wang Sword 2000 years of rust.
(Yue Wang Sword Display)
There is another reason, according to the staff of the excavation at the site, the burial chamber of the Yue Wang Sword, which was once soaked by groundwater for a long time, was almost completely isolated from the air, and friends who have studied chemistry should know that rust has two necessary conditions, water and oxygen, both of which are indispensable. In the case of complete isolation from oxygen, the metal is extremely active and cannot participate in the reaction, and copper is a very inactive metal, and in this closed environment, there is no condition for rusting.
The above three statements are relatively reliable statements about the two thousand years of stainless steel of the Yue King Sword. All in all, it was fascinating to be able to forge a sword in that era, which had not rusted for more than two years. Of course, what fascinates us is the moving historical story behind this sword.