The Golden Casket of the Grand Duke

The Golden Casket of the Grand Duke (Taigong Jin Kui) is a pre-Qin text attributed to Lü Wang (Jiang Shang), the Grand Duke of the early Zhou, though the original work is lost and only reconstructed editions survive. According to the "Treatise on Literature" in the Book of Han, it originally belonged to the seventy-one "Sayings" chapters within the 237-chapter Grand Duke corpus and was classified among Daoist works; the Bibliography of the Book of Sui and the Bibliography of the Old Book of Tang, however, list "The Golden Casket of the Grand Duke, in two scrolls" under military texts. The Qing scholar Shen Qinhan held that the "Sayings" were the Grand Duke's Golden Casket; most modern scholars believe the work came from Jixia Academy scholars of late Warring States Qi and presents Huang-Lao and military thought through dialogues between Kings Wen and Wu and the Grand Duke. The content falls roughly into four categories: first, political and military dialogues on governing the state and waging war, such as "Those who plan before acting prosper; those who act before planning perish" and "Heaven favors no one; it is ever with the good," and metaphors comparing plows, hoes, and rain hats to crossbows, spears, and helmets, arguing that the tools of defense and war lie among the common people; second, imperial maxims and warnings, including admonitions attributed to the Yellow Emperor, Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang and the "Bronze Statue Inscription" counsel to "seal the mouth three times," along with inscriptions on caps, shoes, swords, mirrors, carriages, tables, staffs, and doors; third, principles of reward and punishment, such as "Reward one man and a thousand rejoice—reward him" and "Kill one man and a thousand fear—kill him"; fourth, yin-yang divination and myth, such as the Sanmiao sun-fighting, the waters of Mount Cen in the reign of Jie of Xia, and King Wu's encounter with the gods of the four seas on his campaign against Zhou. The original survived into the late Tang, when Yilin excerpted five passages; it faded after the Northern Song. Qing scholars Yan Kejun, Hong Yixuan, and Wang Zongyi all reconstructed fragments, which are scattered through the Taiping Yulan, Yiwen Leiju, Beitang Shuchao, Chuxue Ji, Yilin, Kaiyuan Zhanjing, and annotations to the Wenxuan. The book is an important source for the origins of the "Bronze Statue Inscription" and the fusion of Warring States military learning and yin-yang thought.