jinglu sword

jinglu dao (jìng lù dāo) 径路刀 [pinyin], ching-lu tao 徑路刀 [Wade-Giles], ging3 lou6 dou1 [Cantonese]; keiro tō [J.]. [phoneticization of Turkic kingrak, kilij, kilidji, etc., a term which in later periods tended to conote a curved sword.^*1]

Type of sword reportedly used by the Huns (xiongnu 匈奴), according to one of the four canonical Chinese history texts.^*2.

According to another canonical historical text^*3, we read that the Wu Wang 武王 or King Wu of the emergent Zhou dynasty personally struck down Zhou Wang 纣王 or King Zhou, a ruler often insulted as the "benighted king" in the romances, and who was the last sovereign of the Shang.
In this slaying, Wu is said to have used as weapon the qing jian 轻剑 ch'ing chien 輕劍 "lightweight sword" or rather qing lü 轻吕 ch'ing-lu 輕呂, which is merely a variant denotation for jinglu^*4.

A conflicting account of the king's demise is given in the historico-mythological fiction, The Investiture of the Gods Fengshen yanyi 《封神演义》, chapter 97 (version by Xu Zhonglin 许钟琳 completed around 1566) where the old king Zhou destroys himself by torching the palace, after which the King Wu has himself crowned.

Archeologists categorize the jinglu sword as a subtype of the ⇒akinakes

sword of the Asiatic continent.

* ¹ Note that modern Chinese pronunciation has become rather dissimilar to kilij, the Japanese pronunciation being somewhat closer.

* ² Book of Han "Chapter: On the Huns" 《汉书·匈奴传》《漢書·匈奴傳》, begun by Ban Biao 班彪 (3~54 AD)

* ³ Ži”n‘JwŽj‹Lx(‘O145 ~86”N) "Book of the Zhou Dyansty" in the Records of the Great Historian of Sima Qian Shiji 《史记》〈周本纪〉《史記》〈周本紀〉

* ⁴ Note again that while these two words qing lü and jinglu are no longer perfect homophones in modern pronunciation, there is no reason to doubt they were once pronounced the same.

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jinglu sword [weap:dagger] [China]

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