The Weapons of Kings: A New Perspective on Southern Sword Legends in Early China‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Legends about swords developed in early China are derived virtually exclusively from the kingdoms of Wu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], in present-day southern Jiangsu province, and Yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], in what is now northern Zhejiang province. Swords held a special place in the culture of these two ancient kingdoms, which in the late Spring and Autumn period (771-475 B.C.E.) and early Warring States era (475-221 B.C.E.) stood at the southernmost edge of the Chinese world. Both Wu and Yue were famous among their contemporaries for the fine quality of the blades that they produced, but it was not until much later, during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 C.E.), that their sword legends were first systematically collected and were included in two texts: the Yuejue shu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Historical Texts from the Kingdom of Yue) and the Wu Yue chunqiu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Spring and Autumn Annals of the Kingdoms of Wu and Yue). (1) These tales became an important part of Chinese mythology, and introduced such characters as the legendary swordsmiths Gan Jiang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and Mo Ye [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to new audiences in stories that would be popular for millennia. (2) Thus, from the Eastern Han dynasty onwards, these sword legends were no longer an expression of the culture of the ancient kingdoms of Wu and Yue, but became part of a Chinese tradition. Many of the conventions used in describing weapons in wuxia [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] literature, right up to the present day, can be traced back directly to the tales first recorded in these ancient texts. (3)