Autor: 黃甯 (Ning Huang)

这是一场跨越两千年的通信实验。两卷竹简，一卷出土于安徽安大，抄着《诗经》；一卷出土于湖南慈利，写着《吴语》。前者回响诗性的柔情与家国之思，后者传递战国的政语与谋略。它们都在时间的火线上被保存下来，像两封烽火中寄出的信——一封写给国家，一封写给人心。当竹简被重新展开，文字重新呼吸，我们看见楚人的书写，不只是记录，更是一种在战火中仍想彼此抵达的方式。This is a communication experiment spanning two millennia. Two bundles of bamboo slips—one unearthed in Anhui, inscribed with the Book of Songs; the other discovered in Cili, Hunan, bearing the Discourses of Wu. The former echoes with poetic tenderness and reflections on home and state; the latter carries the political and strategic language of the Warring States. Both were preserved on the front line of time—like letters sent through fire: one written to the nation, the other to the human heart. As the bamboo slips are unrolled and the words breathe again, we see the handwriting of the Chu people—not merely as record, but as a way of reaching one another even amid the flames of war.

公元前433年，楚国曾侯乙随葬的240枚竹简—记载车马、甲胄、弓矢与官员职责的精密系统—呈现出战国贵族用文字、编号与命名经营世界的方式。这不是遗物清单，而是一套活着的“王族操作系统”：207匹马的配置、三人一车的模块、楚甲与吴甲的分工、赗赠车马的往来，都在竹简上形成一条清晰的秩序脉络。与墓中震世的编钟青铜相比，这些沉默的竹简展现的是另一种深情——在理性中安放生活，在条理中守护王国。本文带你走入这套系统美学，理解一个战国王族未曾言说的温柔与责任。Dating to 433 BCE, the 240 bamboo slips buried with Marquis Yi of Zeng document not just lists of chariots, armor, and horses—but an entire “royal operating system” built on names, numbers, and protocols. With 207 horses named and assigned, three-man chariot modules configured, Chu and Wu armor categorized, and funerary transport detailed, these slips form a living blueprint of order. In contrast to the tomb’s stunning bronze bells, the bamboo slips whisper a quieter truth: that true nobility lies not only in grandeur, but in the tender logic of caring for a kingdom. This essay explores the system aesthetics behind a Warring States royal’s unspoken devotion.

1994年河南新蔡葛陵楚墓出土楚简一千五百余枚，以楚文字书写卜筮祷辞和谒神祭语，为研究楚国在淮河流域的礼制与信仰提供了珍贵资料。简文记录楚国封君平夜君成的疾病占卜与祈祷，涉及“背膺疾”“逾取禀”等贞问，兼具医卜、军事与祭祀内容。它揭示了楚国贵族在身体、家国与命运之间的纠缠，也呈现出一种以疾病为核心的权力逻辑——身体成为国家的缩影，卜筮成为政治的语言。Unearthed in 1994 from the Chu tomb of Geling in Xincai, Henan Province, more than 1,500 bamboo slips inscribed with Chu script preserve oracular texts and ritual invocations, offering vital evidence of Chu culture in the Huai River region. Among them are records of Lord Pingye’s divinations concerning illness and fate, featuring entries such as “back and chest ailments” and “crossing the border to fetch supplies.” These slips reveal how Chu aristocrats entwined the body with the state and destiny—transforming illness into a political metaphor and divination into the language of power.

《司岁》出自《清华大学藏战国竹简》第十辑，是战国楚系文献中关于时间制度最完整的篇章。它以“岁”为核心，记录岁首行令、祭祀节序与政务节拍，展示楚国如何以天象、节令与行政相互对应，建立自有的时间管理系统。在楚人的思想中，时间不是流逝，而是循环：星辰运转，节气递更，政令复始。这是楚文明的“时间算法”——当时间被立法，文明开始自我运转。Si Sui, included in the tenth volume of the Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Slips, is the most systematic Chu-state text on temporal governance. Centered on the concept of “sui” (the year), it records royal decrees, sacrificial schedules, and administrative rhythms that align politics with the heavens and seasons. For the Chu people, time was not linear but cyclic—the stars moved, the rites returned, and order renewed itself. This was the time algorithm of Chu civilization: once time became law, the world began to operate on its own rhythm.

《容成氏》为《上博楚简》第二辑中的重要文献，以楚人书写的上古帝王谱系、九州地理与政治传承记载，重构了另一套文明起源叙事逻辑。本文结合简文逐章解析其时间顺序、空间结构、政治程序与生态观念，指出楚文明所体现出的“元宇宙系统”：从容成氏到天地人，皆为一套可运行、可持续的文明设定格式。“Rong Cheng Shi” is one of the most significant texts in the second volume of the Shanghai Museum’s Chu Bamboo Slips collection. Written in the Chu script, it records an alternative genealogy of ancient rulers, a reimagined geography of the Nine Provinces, and a non-hereditary model of political succession. This article offers a section-by-section analysis of the bamboo slips, exploring their temporal sequence, spatial logic, political procedures, and ecological philosophy. The result is a reconstruction of a complete civilizational framework—what we may call a Chu-style “metaverse system”—in which time, space, governance, and cosmology are all coherently encoded as a sustainable, executable format of civilization, from Rong Cheng Shi to Heaven, Earth, and Human.”

上海博物馆藏战国楚竹书于1994年由香港文物市场购入，并经香港收藏人士捐赠入藏，全批约一千七百枚、三万五千余字。竹简以楚系文字书写，内容涵盖儒家、道家、兵家等八十余种先秦古籍。其中的《柬大王泊旱》记录了一位楚王在旱灾与不确定中思考治理的篇章。内容涉及卜筮、水利、政务与德性反思，展现出战国晚期理性与礼制并行的治国智慧。它们不是权力的遗物，而是文明在危机中学习如何抉择与秩序共存的文本。The Shanghai Museum’s collection of Warring States Chu bamboo slips, acquired in 1994 from the Hong Kong antiquities market and later donated by local collectors, contains about 1,700 slips with more than 35,000 characters. Written in the Chu script, they include over eighty pre-Qin texts from the Confucian, Daoist, and military traditions. Among them, King Jian’s Drought Crisis records a Chu ruler’s reflections on governance amid drought and uncertainty—covering divination, hydraulics, statecraft, and moral reasoning. These slips embody the coexistence of reason and ritual in the late Warring States, not relics of power but living documents of how a civilization learned to balance choice and order in times of crisis.

湖北荆门沙洋，一座无战争痕迹的墓室中，出土六百五十余枚竹简。 没有征伐的篇章，只有一位将军的身后记录：祭祷、问病、物品账目——皆以墨书朱印，静静封存。他是楚国大司马悼滑。这些竹简所写的，不是战功，而是一个人在职责、病痛与告别中的生命痕迹。它们不是遗物，而是秩序与人生交织过的证据。In a quiet tomb in Shayang, Jingmen, Hubei, over 650 bamboo slips were unearthed—no tales of war, but the final records of a high-ranking general: ritual petitions, medical inquiries, and personal inventories, inked and sealed in red. His name was Da Sima Dao Hua. These slips speak not of conquest, but of one man’s final journey through duty, illness, and departure. They are not relics, but the trace of how order and life once intertwined.

从香港文物市场辗转归来的竹简，到今日清华大学修复保存的《清华简》，一座被遗忘的上古档案室重新开启。它们不是沉默的遗物，而是活着的记录——在竹上改写了楚人眼中的周史，也为楚国正名。在这间“上古档案室”里，历史被一片片拼回，记忆也在手指的触碰中复原。From the fragments once circulated through the Hong Kong antiquities market to the restored bamboo slips now preserved at Tsinghua University, the Tsinghua Chu Slips reopen an ancient archive once thought lost. They are not silent relics but living records—rewriting how the Chu people viewed the Zhou world and themselves. In the “Ancient Archive Room,” history is pieced together strip by strip, revealing a civilization’s effort to reclaim its name and its memory.

在楚地的泥土里，出土了一座没有屋顶的书店。墓主是一位爱读书的楚国士人，他把八百余枚竹简当作书架，将《太一生水》《五行》《老子》并列陈放。这里写着宇宙的生成，也描着修身的路径；水与德行、太一与仁义，在竹间交织成两千年前的思想森林。《郭店楚简》让思想重新生长，像春水，从竹简的纹理里缓缓流出。From the soil of ancient Chu emerged a bookstore without a roof. Its owner, a learned shi of the Chu state, arranged over 800 bamboo slips like shelves—placing Taiyi Sheng Shui, Wuxing, and Laozi side by side. Here the creation of the cosmos meets the practice of self-cultivation; water and virtue, the cosmos and humanity, intertwine into a forest of thought still alive after two millennia. The Guodian slips let philosophy breathe again—like spring water flowing through the grain of bamboo.

出土于湖北荆门包山的楚简，既是法的刻痕，也是魂的笔记。白日的楚人用律法维持秩序，夜晚的楚人以卜筮祈求庇佑；理性与神秘在同一根竹上并行，如两条永不交错的铁轨，在时间深处映照出一个文明对秩序的双重信仰。Unearthed at Baoshan in Jingmen, Hubei, the Chu bamboo slips record both the marks of law and the notes of the soul. By day, the people of Chu upheld order through legal codes; by night, they sought protection through divination. Rationality and mystery run side by side on the same bamboo line—two tracks that never cross, yet together reflect a civilization’s enduring faith in order across time.