CJK Unified Ideograph-94B2

It is the metal half of an army's signal system.

The Shijing military poem Cai Qi already puts a 钲 player beside drummers. Old commentary says the drum moves troops while 钲 settles or halts them. Reports place bronze examples in the Shang period and later Warring States Ba-Shu contexts. This evidence points to an evolving instrument class, not one inventor.

Later ritual and dance records bring these metal signals into court performance. Later texts group 钲 with 铎, 镯, and 铙, whose names sometimes overlap. In 钲鼓 the pair can mean military command itself, so translating it only as gong loses the order.