The Zheng, commonly known as Guzheng, is a plucked string instrument that is part of the zither family, related to the Japanese koto, the Vietnamese dan tranh and the Korean kayagum.  

Zheng (Guzheng) is built with a special wooden sound body with strings arched across movable bridges along the length of the instrument for the purpose of tuning. In the early times the Zheng had 5 strings; and it developed into having 12 to 13 strings in the Tang Dynasty and consecutively 16 strings in the Song and Ming Dynasties. The present day Zheng usually has 21-25 strings.

The Guzheng has been a popular instrument since ancient times and is considered as one of the main chamber as well as solo instruments of Chinese traditional music. 

The pitch of a given string is determined by the position of the bridge therefore, Guzheng can, in principle be tuned to any desired scales. Traditionally, pentatonic scale is used. The instrumentalist plucks the strings with the right hand and touches the strings with the left hand to produce the desired pitch and create subtle tones and ornaments. Full scale can also be obtained by skillfully applying pressure on certain strings from the other side of the bridge with the left hand.

Guzheng player attaches a little plectrum on each finger using a special tape. For traditional repertoires, the instrumentalist mostly uses three fingers of the right hand for plucking whereas the left hand presses the string from the other side of the bridge to create special tonalities and ornaments. For some contemporary repertoires, both hands are needed to produce complicated harmonies using four fingers of each hand, which means that even the fingers of the left hand need to be equipped with plectrums.