The Yangling Hufu, an exceedingly important and rare gold-inlaid bronze tiger tally, Qin dynasty | 秦　銅錯金陽陵虎符

Collection of Professor D.M.S. Watson (1886–1973), sold in 1965 at the sale below.

Sotheby's London, 19th October 1965, lot 29 (unillustrated).

Collection of Dr Wou Kiuan (1910–1997).

Wou Lien-Pai Museum, 1968–2022, coll. no. H.2.13, sold at the sale below.

Sotheby's New York, 22nd March 2022, lot 47.

Rose Kerr et al., Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum, Hong Kong, 2011, pl. 32.

When an enlightened ruler employs his ministers: ministers must not overreach to claim merit, nor present words that do not match reality.

Han Fei (ca. 280 – 233 BC)

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These words, composed by Prince Fei in the blazes of the Warring States period, stand at the very core of the Legalist philosophy. Neither virtue nor opportunism stands at the foundation of a prosperous state; neither exaggeration nor flattery; rather, at the beating heart of the empire stands one person – the emperor – and his command is final.

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This philosophy of strong governance and absolute authority formed and forms the basis of Chinese governance as we know it today, grounded in the rule of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang (d. 210 BCE). Rising from the rubble of the Warring States, Qin Shihuang, born Ying Zheng, raised a ferocious army, conquered rival states and united China for the first time under his banner and assuming the title of huangdi 皇帝— emperor.

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It was in this context of royal command under the emperor’s watch that the present tally emerged. Cast from bronze in the form of a rampant tiger, inlaid with gold in a delicate seal script, the present tally represents one of the most iconic and important manifestations of Qin imperial power: the power of the emperor distilled in solid metal.

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Two-sided tallies like the present enabled authority to flow between the emperor and his officials. With the same inscription on each corresponding half – one preserved by the emperor and the other by the commander or general – the command of a tiger tally could only be effected when the two sides were combined. While the first known literary reference to tiger-shaped tallies in the Records of the Grand Historian appears to be an example of their misuse by Lord Xinling to relieve the State of Zhao, their design theoretically served as a guarantee of direct imperial control. Only when the two sides of the tally were combined with their corresponding flanges and their inscriptions seen to match, could authority flow from the omnipotent emperor to his loyal subject. Indeed, the very word for ‘correspond’ in modern Chinese fuhe 符合 comes from this uniting (he 合) of tallies (fu 符).

​Today, surviving relics of China’s first emperors are shrouded in mystery and exceedingly rare. To date, only a handful of other tallies from this early period survive and only three convincingly attributed to the Qin dynasty: the Du Tiger Tally 杜虎符, uncovered by Dai Yingxin in 1973 from Shanmenkou Commune in the suburbs of Xi’an, now preserved in the Shaanxi History Museum (fig. 1); The Dongjun Tiger Tally 東郡虎符, acquired in Shaanxi in 1953 by the Zhouzhi County Cultural Relic Institution, of almost identical casting and form to the present, included in Yu tian jiuchang / Everlasting Like the Heavens, Shanghai, 2019, pp 260-261; and the Yangling Tiger Tally 陽陵虎符, formerly in the collection Luo Zhenyu (1866-1940) and now rightly preserved in the National Museum of China, Beijing, illustrated in Zhonghua wenming [Chinese civilisation], Beijing, 2010, pl. 267 (fig. 2). The Yangling Tally, which shares the same twelve-character inscription as the present, provides an invaluable source of academic grounding to the present lot and has been the subject of countless studies. As scholars have pointed out, the Yangling inscription, in invoking the name of the emperor (huangdi) himself, can be dated reliably between the enthronement of Qin Shihuang in 221 BCE and the abdication of his crown prince Ying Ziying around 207 BCE. Also compare the Xinqi Tiger Tally, privately held in Paris, which was traditionally attributed to the Qin but has more recently been reattributed by Han Ziqiang to the Western Han dynasty by virtue of its inscription.

來源

D.M.S. 沃特森教授（1886至1973年）收藏，1965年於下述拍賣易手

倫敦蘇富比1965年10月19日，編號29（沒載圖）

吳權博士（1910至1997年）收藏

吳蓮伯博物院，1968至2022年，編號H2.13，於下述拍賣易手

紐約蘇富比2022年3月22日，編號47

出版

柯玫瑰等，《Chinese Antiquities from the Wou Kiuan Collection. Wou Lien-Pai Museum》，香港，2011年，圖版32

明主之畜臣，臣不得越官而有功，不得陳言而不當

韓非（約公元前280年 – 前233年）

韓非公子於戰國烽火中寫下的這番話，正是法家思想的核心。一個繁榮的國家不立基於德治或投機，亦非誇飾與阿諛；帝國的脈搏，唯繫於皇帝一人，其諭旨即為絕對的權威。

這種強調強勢治理與絕對權威的哲學，構成了我們今日所知中國古代政治制度的基石，並源於中國首位皇帝秦始皇（公元前210年駕崩）的統治。自戰國的廢墟中崛起，本名嬴政的秦始皇建立了一支虎狼之師，掃滅六國，首次將天下統一於其旌旗之下，並自稱「始皇帝」。

正是在皇帝監察與皇權統御的歷史語境下，本件虎符應運而生。虎符以青銅鑄作猛虎之姿，並以錯金工藝嵌飾精美的篆書銘文，堪稱秦代皇權最為經典且重要的具象化身：它是將帝王之威權凝聚於堅實金石之中的絕佳例證。

諸如本虎符之剖半合符，確保了權力在皇帝與地方統帥間的嚴密傳達。左右兩半符鑄有相同的銘文，右半符留存於皇帝手中，左半符則頒發給地方統帥。唯有兩半虎符勘驗相合，方能執行調兵之令。儘管《史記》中關於虎符最早的記載，是信陵君「竊符救趙」這一違規使用的傳奇故事，但虎符的設計在制度上實為皇權直接控制軍隊的憑信。唯有當左右兩半符的榫卯嚴絲合縫地契合，且銘文勘驗無誤時，至高無上的皇權方能傳達至其忠誠的臣子。事實上，現代漢語中的「符合」一詞，正是源於古代「合符」勘驗之意。

時至今日，中國初代帝王的遺物多籠罩於歷史的迷霧之中，且極為罕見。迄今為止，存世的早期虎符寥寥無幾，而學界公認斷代為秦的虎符僅有三件：其一為「杜虎符」，1973年由戴應新於西安市郊發掘（現藏於陝西歷史博物館，圖1）；其二為「東郡虎符」，1953年由周至縣文物管理所徵集，其鑄造工藝與形制與本品極為相似，著錄於《與天久長：周秦漢唐文化與藝術》，上海，2019年，頁260-261；其三為「陽陵虎符」，原為羅振玉（1866-1940）舊藏，現妥善保存於北京中國國家博物館，著錄於《中華文明》，北京，2010年，圖版267（圖2）。

國家博物館所藏之陽陵虎符與本拍品刻有相同的十二字錯金銘文，為本品提供了無可估量的學術依據，並已成為無數考證研究的焦點。正如學者所指出的，陽陵虎符銘文中明確出現了「皇帝」之稱謂，據此可將其鑄造年代準確考訂於公元前221年秦始皇稱帝，至約公元前207年秦王子嬰退位之間。此外，亦可參考一件私人收藏於巴黎的「新郪虎符」，該符傳統上被定為秦代，但近年經學者韓自強考證其銘文，已重新定為西漢時期之物。