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.
这是一部“看不见原书”的书：它曾以二卷之数著录于《隋志》《旧唐志》，晚唐《意林》尚能摘其五条，北宋以后却彻底失传，今天读者手中的每一个字，都是从《太平御览》《艺文类聚》《北堂书钞》《文选》注等类书古注中一句句钩沉出来的。正因如此，它的阅读体验相当特别——不是读一部完整的兵书，而是看清代辑佚学者如何用几十种文献的引文拼回一部两千年前的典籍。 内容上，它比《六韬》更“杂”：既有“先谋后事者昌”的谋略格言，也有把农具比作兵器的民间战争观；既有黄帝《金人铭》的慎言哲思，也有冠履剑镜上的自我告诫；还夹杂着三苗日斗、武王伐纣遇四海之神的占候与传说。对研究先秦兵学、黄老思想、谶纬数术以及《金人铭》真伪问题的读者来说，这是一份绕不开的原典材料。 需要提醒的是：本书无今人通俗注译本通行，辑本文字零散、出处夹注繁多，初读容易不得要领。建议与《六韬》对读，并配合辑佚来源一并理解。
Lü Wang is the author of Taigong Jinquen (The Golden Casket of Taigong). Neither his nationality nor his dates of birth and death are clearly recorded in publicly available sources, and the information currently held is quite limited: only one work is listed under his name, namely Taigong Jinquen. The book is commonly classified under philosophy and religion, and Eastern philosophy, suggesting that its content leans toward thought, principle, and the art of governing and self-cultivation rather than narrative literature or purely technical manuals. Judging from the title and classification, the work carries a strong classical flavor of political and philosophical discussion, with concise language that conveys ideas through maxims, analogies, and dialogue, addressing such themes as the exercise of power, relations between ruler and minister, and personal cultivation. Because public sources are limited, Lü Wang's life, intellectual lineage, and the circumstances of composition are difficult to examine in detail; readers may instead focus on the text of Taigong Jinquen itself, its lines of thought, and its reception and influence in later Eastern philosophical discussion, understanding its argumentative approach and expressive style through close reading of the original.
