The CCTV news app and the National Museum of China jointly launch the program “Calendar of Cultural Expo” for popularization of cultural expo. Each day, detailed information about a cultural relic will be shared. On June 16, the Sword of Goujian was displayed on CCTV. However, the reason why it was unearthed in Jingzhou is still under debate among scholars.

In the winter of 1965, a bronze sword from the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods was unearthed from Wangshan Tomb 1 in Jiangling, Hubei. Near the cross-guard, there were two lines of inscriptions in bird-worm seal script, “Sword of King Hongqian of Yue.” Through textual analysis, the owner of the sword was confirmed to be King Goujian of Yue as 鸠浅 (Jiuqian) is a pseudonym for 勾践 (Goujian).

The owner of Wangshan Tomb No. 1 is Dao Gu, a nobleman of Chu in the middle of the Warring States period, but the State of Yue was located in today’s Zhejiang. Therefore, the reason why it was unearthed in Chu, a state thousands of miles away from the State of Yue, and even became a funeral object for the nobles of Chu remains an ongoing debate among scholars. One speculation is that it was the dowry of Goujian’s daughter brought with her to Chu, and later buried with the tomb owner Dao Gu. Another speculation is that it was a booty that Chu plundered from Yue.

When the Sword of Goujian was unearthed, the excavation team handled it with meticulous care. However, their fingers still got wounded by the sword and kept bleeding. Some people attempted to cut across 16 layers of paper with the blade, and all these layers were lacerated when they tried a bit harder. The Great Revival of Yue was a story that has passed down through the ages and become known to every household. This sword is like its owner who teared down his enemy shortly after hiding away and honing himself for a long time. The day when the sheath is removed is the day of revival. Even more coincidentally, there was another national cultural relic unearthed in Jingzhou: The Spear of King Fuchai of Wu. The distance between weapons owned by these two foes was only 2.5km. Today, the Sword of Goujian and the Spear of Fuchai are both placed at the Hubei Provincial Museum. The century-old dispute between Wu and Yue, and the feud between Goujian and Fuchai have long become the story called “The Great Revival of Yue.”