The Legend of Ou Yezi and the Great Swords of Ancient China
Every sword tradition has its founding legends. In Japan it is Amakuni and Masamune. In China it is a small group of smiths from the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BC), when the southern states of Wu and Yue were famous across the country for their blades. Their stories were written down centuries later in books such as the Yue Jue Shu (越绝书) and the Wu Yue Chunqiu (吴越春秋), so they mix history and myth. They are still told in Longquan today.
Ou Yezi, the father of Chinese sword making
Ou Yezi (欧冶子) is often called the father of Chinese sword making. According to the old texts, he worked for the King of Yue and made five great swords: Zhanlu (湛卢), Chunjun (纯钧), Shengxie (胜邪), Yuchang (鱼肠) and Juque (巨阙). Yuchang, the "Fish Gut" sword, was said to be small enough to hide inside a cooked fish, and it appears in a famous assassination story.
Later, the legend says, Ou Yezi was asked by the King of Chu to make more swords. He and the smith Gan Jiang travelled until they found a spot with iron-rich sand, cold clear spring water and good whetstones, at the foot of a mountain near today's Longquan. There they made three iron swords: Longyuan (龙渊), Tai'e (泰阿) and Gongbu (工布). The town later took its name from Longyuan, and it became Longquan in the Tang dynasty. Read more in Longquan: The Town That Has Made Swords for 2,500 Years.
Gan Jiang and Mo Ye
The most romantic legend belongs to Gan Jiang (干将) and his wife Mo Ye (莫邪), smiths of the state of Wu. In the best-known version, the King of Wu ordered a pair of swords, but the metal in Gan Jiang's furnace would not melt. Mo Ye cut her hair and nails, or in darker tellings threw herself into the furnace, and the metal finally flowed. The two swords that came out were named after the couple: a "male" sword, Gan Jiang, and a "female" sword, Mo Ye.
The story became one of China's great tales of love, sacrifice and revenge. Moganshan (莫干山), a mountain resort near Hangzhou, is named after the couple, and "Gan Jiang Mo Ye" is still a byword for a perfectly matched pair of blades.
A legend you can see: the Sword of Goujian
Not every famous ancient sword is a myth. In 1965, archaeologists excavating a Chu tomb at Wangshan, near Jiangling in Hubei province, found a bronze sword in a lacquered wooden scabbard. When they drew it, the blade was still bright and sharp. An inscription in bird-script characters reads 越王鸠浅自作用剑, "King of Yue, Jiu Qian, made this sword for his own use". Jiu Qian is understood to be Goujian, the King of Yue who ruled in the fifth century BC.
The Sword of Goujian is around 2,500 years old, about 55 cm long, and decorated with a diamond pattern and inlay. It is now one of the treasures of the Hubei Provincial Museum. It comes from the same world of Wu and Yue sword making that produced the legends of Ou Yezi, which is why many people link it with his name, although no one knows who actually made it.
If you would like a piece of that history for your own collection, we carry a bronze Sword of Goujian replica alongside steel jian made in Longquan.
Why the legends still matter
These stories are more than folklore. They set the standards Chinese smiths still aim for: a blade that is sharp but not brittle, beautiful but made to be used, and made with total commitment by the smith. When a Longquan workshop names a sword "Tai'e" or "Zhanlu" today, it is placing that blade in a line that goes back to Ou Yezi.
Curious how those standards turn into a real sword? Read How a Longquan Sword Is Made, or browse our Tang dao and jian.
