Sword of Goujian: The Weapon that Defies Time
Today, we’re going to talk about a remarkable bronze sword that not only echoes the history of China with its story of political turmoil but also speaks to the amazing skill of ancient craftsman as the national treasure still looked brand new after spending two millennia underground.
In the mid-1960s, a severe drought had befallen the Jingzhou region of central China’s Hubei Province for two consecutive years. The local government decided to build an aqueduct to divert water from the Zhang River to irrigate the farmland.
When the aqueduct was extended to seven kilometers northwest of Ji’nancheng, the construction team found that the surface soil looked somewhat loose, as if it had been excavated before. As Ji’nancheng used to be the capital of the Chu State during the Spring and Autumn Period dating back to more than 2,000 years ago, the construction team suspended their work and reported this finding.
The Spring and Autumn Period was a chaotic time between 770 BCE and 476 BCE, when the Eastern Zhou Dynasty took a nosedive and gradually lost control over the feuding vassal states. The powerful vassal states launched wars against one another to expand their territories and establish their dominance as overlords. By the 6th century BCE, a few large vassal states dominated the country, including Chu, as well as Yue and Wu.
With the construction work near Ji’nancheng suspended, it allowed an archaeological survey to be performed, which led to an amazing discovery of more than 50 ancient tombs. In one of these tombs rested the casket of the tomb owner, who was later determined to be a noble of the Chu State. Encased in the casket was a skeleton and a near air-tight wooden box. From inside this box, archaeologists found a bronze sword, perfectly preserved in its scabbard.
The earliest Chinese swords date back to the Western Zhou Dynasty from some 3,000 years ago. Early bronze swords served not only as weapons and symbols of power, but also served a ritualistic role in burials.
As the sword was pulled free from its scabbard, archaeologists were stunned that the blade had remained untarnished, with light gleaming off the surface. This unusual resistance to rust was already beyond imagination, given that the sword had been lying in a damp underground condition for over two millennia. What was even more amazing was that the blade was still razor sharp, drawing blood when an archaeologist tested its edge with his finger. Another test later confirmed that it could easily cut a stack of 20 pieces of paper.
Aside from this rare resistance to deterioration, the sword is also praised for its intricately detailed craftsmanship. As a medium-sized bronze sword, it weighs 875 grams and measures 55.6 centimeters in length, including an 8.4-centimeter hilt. The blade is 4.6 centimeters wide at its base, with a golden hue on the surface and repeating dark rhombic patterns on both sides. In addition, there are delicate embellishments of blue crystals and turquoise, as well as 11 concentric circles designed on the pommel at the end of the hilt.
The discovery of the sword immediately raised a couple of questions: who is its owner and why was it able to weather the millennia and remain untarnished?
The sword itself provided some important clues to the answer of the first question. On one side of the blade, eight characters were engraved in two columns, written in an ancient calligraphic style called the bird-worm script, a variant of the seal script that is not easy to read.
Among the eight characters, six were deciphered on the spot, translated as “the King of Yue made this sword for his personal use”. The remaining two characters that may have been the name of the king were difficult to recognize.
The identity of this king sparked debate among archaeologists and linguists, as there were nine kings who reigned over the Yue State from its establishment in 510 BCE to its demise at the hands of the Chu State in 334 BCE. After more than two months, a consensus was finally formed, that the owner of the sword was Goujian, who ruled the state during 496-465 BCE and was famous for his perseverance in times of hardship.
Although the mystery of the owner had been unraveled, an immediate follow-up question popped up: why did a sword belonging to a King of Yue end up being buried in the tomb of a noble of Chu?
As it turns out, the story of the sword echoes the story of the life of Goujian himself. King Goujian’s reign coincided with what is arguably the last major conflict of its period, the contending for hegemony between Yue and its neighboring Wu State.
At some point, Yue was defeated by Wu. Goujian was captured and made to serve Fuchai, King of Wu, as a servant. Three years later, he was released for his obedience and allowed to return to his native state. After resuming his reign, Goujian began to plan his revenge. He appointed worthy advisors such as Fan Li and Wen Zhong to help him strengthen his state and build up its military forces.
As a king, Goujian never relished in kingly luxury. Instead, he slept on cold brushwood every night and tasted bitter bile every morning, to remind himself of the humiliations of serving Fuchai. The Chinese idiom woxin changdan 卧薪尝胆, literally sleeping on brushwood and tasting bile, expresses appreciation for his perseverance and forbearance. After 10 years of economic and political reform, Goujian eventually led his army to destroy Wu State and forced Fuchai to commit suicide.
In addition to woxin changdan, Goujian also inspired another idiom – niaojin gongcang, tusi goupeng 鸟尽弓藏，兔死狗烹, literally if the birds are gone, bows will be cast aside; if the hares have been killed, hunting dogs will be stewed and eaten. It comes to be used as a metaphor to describe how trusted aides will be eliminated once they have served their purpose.
Goujian offered to appoint Wen Zhong as prime minister and Fan Li as general for their contribution to the destruction of Wu. Wen Zhong accepted the appointment, but Fan Li declined and even requested to resign from his original post.
Folklore has it that after retiring from office, Fan Li sent a letter to Wen Zhong, advising:
The king is a narrow-minded person, who would allow us to share hardships with him, but not power and honor. You’d better leave soon, as the bows will be put away if the hunter does not have birds to shoot and hunting dogs will be stewed and eaten if the hunter has already killed the hare. Now that Wu has been destroyed, we are not needed anymore.
Wen Zhong was confident in the king’s trust and did not take Fan Li’s suggestion. However, in the end, he too was forced to commit suicide by Goujian.
Coming back to the question of why the sword of a king of Yue ended up being buried in the tomb of a noble of Chu, some archaeologists believe the sword was a dowry when Goujian married one of his daughters to the king of Chu as a marriage alliance against Wu. Others believe the sword was a trophy confiscated with the demise of Yue in the hands of Chu, which was later awarded to the tomb owner for his assistance in the war.
To unravel the mystery of why the Sword of Goujian was able to remain sharp and show no signs of tarnish, scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai applied modern techniques to analyze the chemical composition of the sword.
It turns out, the body of the blade is mainly made of copper, making it more pliant and less likely to break, while the edges have more tin content, making them harder and sharper. Moreover, the addition of sulfur is revealed to be what gives the sword its rustproof quality, as sulfur decreases the chance of tarnish for the patterns. It’s likely that the sword’s unique chemical composition, coupled with the almost air-tight scabbard, gave it a better chance of surviving the vicissitudes of time.
But what remains a mystery is how the swordsmiths from more than 2,000 years ago were able to manage such perfectly balanced proportioning that is hardly achievable even with the aid of modern techniques.
While the Sword of Goujian bore witness to the consummation of bronze metallurgy and casting, it also sang the swan song of bronze words, which were soon to be replaced by iron weapons, because iron weapons were sharper, harder, and cheaper, although more prone to rust.
To this day, the Sword of Goujian has been presented overseas three times.
In June 1973, it was unveiled at the Exhibition of Excavated Cultural Objects from the People’s Republic of China, which was held at the Tokyo National Museum in Japan to commemorate the first anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan.
The second exhibition was in December 1984 in Hong Kong. At that time, it was displayed to celebrate the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Hong Kong Question.
In 1993, the Sword of Goujian was part of an exhibition in Singapore. The staff responsible for removing it accidentally banged it against the hard surface of the museum cabinet, forcing open a small crack in the blade that remains to this day.
To avoid similar incidents, in 2002 the National Cultural Heritage Administration promulgated the List of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Outbound Exhibition. The list was released in three batches, protecting the Sword of Goujian from overseas exhibition, together with another 194 ancient artifacts. The sword now rests in the Hubei Provincial Museum and is considered one of the most precious artifacts in its collection.
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Song Yimin, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.