The Bronze Sword of Goujian, King of Yue State 越王勾踐劍

The Sword of Goujian is the most famous Chinese antique sword (劍 Jian).Dating back to the years 496 - 465 BC, it represents metallurgical craftsmanship, military knowledge and artistic taste of the ancient Chinese. Peter A. Lorge in his book "Chinese Martial Arts - From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century" wrote: "The level of workmanship on Chinese bronze swords from this period could be stunning. One of the most famous swords was made for Jiu Qian, the king of Yue, also known as Goujian. Not only was it finely decorated, with designs on the blade, inlaid blue glass on the hilt, and an inlaid gold inscription but it was also treated with sulfide to prevent corrosion. Other fine blades of a similar nature have also been found, though these weapons are the finest of their kind. Most warriors would have fought with much plainer swords. These were personal weapons for close combat and of little use from a chariot." Before the late Spring and Autumn period main weapons for hand-to-hand combat were polearms especially the Dagger-Axe (戈 Ge).In the end of this period, when this sword was made, more and more higher rank soldiers (aristocrats only) started to use swords instead of short-shafted Dagger-Axes (there were short versions like tomahawks or hatchets and longer ones like spears) for close range combat.One of the reason for that was sword allows for much greater number of techniques than short Dagger-Axe.Warriors were learning how to be a point fighters.This trend perhaps began in the southern states and spread to China's Central Plains during the Warring States period.Southern states Yue and Wu made the best bronze swords. Southern China has different geographical terrain than Northern China - more rivers, mountains which forced not only different transportation method but also fighting strategy.Southern states were more infantry and close quarters fighting based.So, warriors used short weapons in hand-to-hand combat more, while in the north polearms were more suitable. Second reason for increasing popularity of the sword is its effectiveness as personal weapon of self-defence.Before the sword era people carried a dagger everywhere.When sword appeared aristocrats were able to carry a sword which is a far more effective weapon, because its reach, than a dagger.A sheathed sword is very portable.We should know that the Jian (double-edged straight sword) was a weapon of upper class only and quickly became a symbol of status. At 2:42 I wrote that they didn't have a technology to make longer blades in that time.This isn't fully true.Chinese knew steel at that time but it implementation was very rare.As Peter A. Lorge says "Steel swords also appeared toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period. Steel, an alloy of iron and carbon, was produced in China by the sixth century BCE (steel is harder than wrought iron and less brittle than cast iron). It was not until the middle and late Warring States period, however, that iron and steel implements, including armor and weapons, were produced in useful amounts. Bronze weapons still predominated, vastly outnumbering the iron weapons found in tombs, but the advantages of iron were apparent. Iron swords were longer than bronze swords, averaging 80--100 cm, with the shortest equal in length to the longest bronze swords.Iron weapons are lighter and stronger than bronze weapons, though more subject to corrosion." At 3:18 I show close up view of the sword's guard .The sword on the picture isn't the Sword of Goujian.It's a very similar, almost identical sword to Goujian's sword. At 4:59 the picture shows legendary smith and Sword of Goujian maker Ou Yezi. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ou_Yezi The last picture at 5:23 shows two bronze swords and one two-handed iron sword. Most photos came from the internet.Type in Google Images: "sword of Goujian".Some pictures are screenshots from an excellent CCTV documentary about the sword.It's probably the only one full documentary about the topic in English.You can watch it on YT:    • The Sword of King of Yue [CCTV Docume...   Wikipedia site of Sword of Goujian: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian This is my main source of information about the sword.You can find a table with detail chemical composition there. About Goujian, King of Yue en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Goujian_of_Yue About Chinese swords see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_swords About bronze swords in general: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_sword Two excellent documentaries on Chinese weaponry which also describe and show the sword by CCTV:    • 【Documentary HQ】 History of Ancient C...      • 【New Frontier HQ】 Chinese Kungfu (01)...   My playlist with videos on the sword in Chinese    • The Sword of Gou Jian, the King of Yu...   Music I used: Taro Iwashiro "Red Cliff" OST tracks: 01.The Beginning 13.Blood Color

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