The mystery of the sword of King Goujian of Yue The reason for the thousand year old stainless steel

Mondo Culture Updated on 2024-02-01

The mystery of the sword of King Goujian of Yue The reason for the thousand-year-old stainless steel and unearthed in the Chu State

In the winter of 1965, Hubei Province decided to build an aqueduct project in the Zhanghe Reservoir in Jingzhou (now part of Jingmen City) to divert water from the Zhanghe River to irrigate farmland in some areas. Before the construction of the aqueduct, the local antiquities department conducted an archaeological survey, and found buried artifacts and more than 50 burial mounds in the area where the second main road passed.

This later Chu Wangshan tomb group is located in the Wangshan Temple in Tengdian Village, Chuandian Town, Jingzhou County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, now Jingmen Town, Jingzhou City, the intersection of Jingzhou and Jingmen Towns, about 7 kilometers away from Jingmen Town in the north and Chu Ji Nancheng in the southeast of Shayang County, and the entire tomb group covers an area of 64. 000 square meters, a bronze sword was unearthed from the No. 1 Chu tomb of Wangshan in Jiangling.

The sword is inserted in a black lacquered wooden sheath and placed on the left side of the tomb robber, the skeleton of the tomb robber is placed on a bamboo mat at the bottom of the inner coffin, the bamboo mat is carved with floral patterns, a small number of weapons and clothing are placed in the coffin, a large wrong version of gold, silver and iron belt hooks are placed on the left side of the skeleton, a hosta and a jade ring are placed above and below the skeleton, and a lacquered wooden bow and four copper arrowheads are placed on the right side of the coffin.

Map of the tombs of Wangshan Chu.

When the staff used this copper sword the next morning, they found that the sword was very exquisitely made, the lower part of the hilt was turned outward to form a disc, the 11 circles were concentric circles, the lower part of the hilt was thinner, the hilt was connected to the sword body, the front was decorated with blue glaze, and the back was inlaid with turquoise, which was manifested as a delicate geometric pattern, the whole body was covered with black diamond patterns, the blade was thin and sharp, the sword body was wide, and the sword length was 557 cm, the hilt is 84 cm, width 45 cm, the sword weighs 875 grams.

Eight characters of the bird seal were found on the sword, and the on-site archaeologists identified six of them through observation: Yue Wang 20 self-standing sword.

The famous historian Fang Zhuangyou sent the sword inscription to Guo Moruo, Xia Ding, Su Bingqi, Tang Lan, Yu Xingwu, Wang Zhenduo, Chen Mengjiao and other famous local archaeologists to copy, rubbing, and take pictures, and asked historians and paleographers to identify, a few months later, the famous paleographer Tang Lan said that two of the words were"Initial shallowness"。That is, the fake word of Goujian, this sword should be Goujian, the king of Yue.

Tai knife. According to the research of most domestic scholars and the identification results of Tang Lan, the inscription"The sword of the king of Yue Kumarosh is applied"The eight characters have been officially identified, and the sword is also known as the Yue Wang Goujian Sword, but there are two questions: First, how can there be a Yue Wang Goujian Sword in the tomb of the Chu State? Second, why is the sword of King Goujian stainless for thousands of years?

To solve these mysteries, we must first find out who the owner of the tomb of the unearthed Yue King Goujian Sword is. According to the records in the "Epitaph of Chu Jian", we learned that the owner of the tomb was a person named Zhaoju, which was not recorded in the history books.

Some people believe that Zhaolu is the historical Zhaolu, he once led the Chu army to attack the Yue country, and stayed in the Yue country for five years, that is, from 310 BC to 306 BC, this is the period of civil strife in Yue, Zhaolu captured most of the territory of the Yue country, and the Yue country has disappeared since then, if Zhaoju is a Zhaolu person, then the Goujian sword of the tomb of the king of Yue is very understandable, but there is no conclusive evidence that Zhaoju is a Zhaolu person, but both are the surname Zhao on the descendants of the king of Chu.

Writing of the sword body.

Chen Zhenyu, a famous archaeologist and archaeological experts who participated in the excavation team of the Chu tomb in Wangshan, proved that Zhaoju was not Zhaoju from four aspects, and Zeng Xiantong, an expert in paleography, concluded that the time of the tomb of Zhaoju in Chu Jian was 285 BC, according to the cangjian salt of the epitaph, it is speculated that the time of Zhaoju's death was between 307 and 299 BC, a difference of more than ten or twenty years. In 285 B.C., according to the simple silk unearthed from the Yanchang tomb, the time of Zhaolu's death was between 307 and 299 B.C., a difference of about ten to twenty years. The difference between the two is about ten to twenty years, so Zhaoju is not Zhaolu, and the sword is not the trophy of Chu.

The Book of Yue Jue - The Thirteenth Sword of the Biography of Yue Jue: This sword is eternal, Red Coral Mountain, Broken Tin; Ruoye Creek, the copper of the dry; The rain swept the floor, and the lightning struck the treasures; Jiaolong holds plutonium, and the emperor carries coal; Half look down, under the heavenly spirit. Ou Yezi is the spirit of the sky, and his skills are all three major crimes, and two small crimes: one is called Zhanlu, the second is called Chunjun, the third is called Shengjie (Pan Ying, also known as Qiao Cao), the fourth is called fishing intestines (Pangang, also known as Song Wen), and the fifth is called Daque.

According to the record of "Yue Jue Book", Goujian, the king of Yue, has five swords, and the sword names are: Zhanlu, Chunjun, Shengqi, Yugao, and Juque. It is not clear which one the sword of the Wangshan Chu Tomb Group is the first soil, and it can only be compared with the higher sword, the higher the sword is so short that it can be hidden in the belly of the fish, which is equivalent to a pair of pincers, and is famous for successfully assassinating the king of Wu, while the other four swords are rarely recorded.

The Four Swords of the Golden Gate. Only the swordsman Ou Yezi, his son Mo Xie and his son-in-law are masters of swordsmanship, but these five swords of Zhan Lu are the most famous and sharp, Ou Yezi asked Zhan Lu to use these five swords for three years, and Zhan Lu can use the sword of avoiding stones.

In ancient times, the sword was not a ** of war, but a symbol of status. Goujian, the king of Yue, first got the sword, and later passed the sword to his son Goujian. There was a difference of 179 years from Gou Jian's birth to 285 BC, until the fall of the Yue Kingdom, and the sword did not fall into the hands of others, who still buried it in the ground.

There is also a theory that King Zhao of Chu married the daughter of King Goujian of Yue, and this sword of King Goujian of Yue was once buried together in the State of Chu, so King Zhao of Chu was rewarded, and King Zhao of Chu was later rewarded to Zhaoju, and Zhaoju was buried with him, but again, there is no clear chain of evidence, it can only be hypothetical, and we can say that it is possible.

Detail of the hilt of the sword of King Goujian.

After research, the tomb owner Zhao Ju died less than 30 years old, Chu Jian's epitaph records that Zhao Ju is the ancestor of the victims, the three ancestors are the king of Dui, the holy king, the king of mourning, after research, the three kings who became the king of Chu Jian, the king of Chu Yin, and the king of Chu Yass must be the descendants of Zhao Ju King Chu Yas, originally Zhao, Zhao Shao, Shao also known as IELTS as the surname, the king of Chu, derived from the surname.

Zhao Ju was not yet 30 years old when he died, and the king of Chu awarded the Goujian sword of the king of Yue to the clan who died early, as a sign of merit during his lifetime, this is how the king of Chu got the Goujian sword, there are only two possibilities, one is the trophy, and the other is the daughter of the king of Yue to marry.

Let me ask again, why is this sword so sharp, and why has it not rusted for more than two thousand years?

Bronze will rust, I can't say that copper will not rust, bronze is green, now unearthed a lot of bronzes are patina, but the Yue Wang Goujian sword is well preserved, after more than 2000 years, it is still intact as new, mainly for the following two reasons:

The ornamentation of the sword. 1.The seal is in good condition.

The sword was unearthed in the inner chamber of the tomb of the emperor and is still preserved in a lacquered wooden cover. Outside the inner chamber is the coffin chamber, the coffin is surrounded by white plaster, the coffin is used to seal the room under the hand-washed white plaster, the top of the pit is filled with rammed earth, the whole burial chamber is actually sealed.

Due to the long-term immersion of groundwater indoors, the indoor air is further reduced, and the presence of water forms a relatively confined space. The groundwater was tested to be neutral, the entire tomb was buried a few meters underground, the compacted soil layer was covered with several layers of soil, the burial chamber was not uncovered, and the entire burial chamber formed a good seal, guaranteeing that the bronze sword was practically isolated from the air and therefore would not rust.

2. The casting process is good.

It is said that the sword of King Goujian of Yue is quite sharp, and it can cut through 20 sheets of ordinary printing paper at a time. According to the laboratory, the Yue Wang Goujian sword contains 80% copper, 16-17% tin, a small amount of aluminum, lead and trace nickel, and a layer of sulfide on the surface of the sword body, and the most important thing is that the casting process of this sword is a finishing process, heating the metal paste on the sword body, and coating a layer of bronze on the surface, so as to form an alloyed tissue process.

Sulfide on the surface of the blade.

This technique is now known as tin-rich fine-grained surface technology. This engineered alloy structure forms a protective film on the surface of copper and tin that prevents rust, the so-called green film, which is the result of a chemical reaction of the copper material with oxygen, carbon dioxide and water in the air.

This layer of alloy on the surface of the sword prevents the copper from coming into contact with the air; This effect can be achieved with modern technology, but how the swordsmith did it during the Spring and Autumn period 2,500 years ago remains a mystery to this day.

According to the scientific testing method, the sword body of the Yue Wang Goujian sword is a diamond-shaped pattern, soaked in water for a long time, the copper on the surface of the sword body is black due to the corrosion of lead and the slight acidic loss of water, and has a small amount of iron, silicon oxide, in addition to black tin oxide and presents a faint black, the initial color of the sword body must be the yellow-white of the copper-tin alloy, and it can only become black in a special embedded environment.

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