This 3,000-year-old treasure trough, which was once used as a manger to feed horses, is listed as a treasure of the town hall by the National Museum

In the summer of 1864, after defeating the Taiping Army, Liu Mingchuan, the general of the Huai Army, lived in the Palace of the Protector of Changzhou City, and suddenly heard a strange tapping sound at midnight.

Liu Chuanming was then the governor of zhizhi, followed Li Hongzhang to vigorously suppress the Taiping Army, and fought all the way to Changzhou, Jiangsu, where the leader of the Taiping Army was Chen Kunshu, the protector of the taiping army, who was tall and fierce, brave and good at war, and was known as Chen Lion in the Taiping army, so Liu Chuanming's troops attacked Changzhou for more than half a year before taking it down.

After the capture of Changzhou City, Liu Mingchuan finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then lived in the Palace of the Protector, one night, Liu Mingchuan picked the lamp to read at night, very late and did not rest, just when he felt a little sleepy and ready to turn off the lights to sleep, suddenly heard a strange tapping sound into the ear, in the silent night, this sound appeared to be extremely penetrating.

Liu Mingchuan suddenly felt very curious, so he came to the courtyard with a lamp and candle, and it turned out that the sound came from behind the house, so he walked quickly to the backyard, only to see a row of horse sheds appear in front of him, and when he listened again, he found that the sound came from the horse shed, so he went straight into the horse shed to look for it carefully.

After some searching, Liu Mingchuan was pleasantly surprised to find that the original strange sound was made by the iron ring on the head of the horse cage touching the manger, he quickly crouched down to take a closer look, only to see that the manger was huge, faintly emitting a deep glow under the illumination of the light, and gently buckled it with his hand, instantly emitting a light and distant pleasant sound, which seemed extremely unusual.

Liu Mingchuan was overjoyed, he knew that this manger was by no means an ordinary manger, it was likely to be an extremely rare treasure trough, observing for a long time, Liu Ming saw that the night was very deep, so he took the candle lamp back to the bedroom to rest. Early the next morning, Liu Mingchuan got up early, quickly ordered his men to move the manger out, and then called clean water to clean all the inside and outside, this time it was more clear, only to see that the outer walls of the manger were all covered with exquisite ornaments, two animal head rings on each side, and a long inscription was neatly engraved at the bottom of the groove.

At this moment, Liu Mingchuan was even more convinced that it was a treasure, and he had inadvertently obtained such a large treasure, Liu Mingchuan did not mention how excited he was, he was afraid that this thing would fall into the hands of others here, so he simply sent a team of people and horses to escort this manger all the way back to his hometown, secretly hiding it in Liu Laoxu Village, Hefei, Anhui Province.

It turned out that this manger was indeed unusual, it was a treasure from the kingdom of Yu more than 3,000 years ago, when the king of Zhou ordered Zibai of the kingdom of Yu to go out to fight against the enemy, and as a result, Zibai of Yu jibai made many military achievements, and finally won a great victory, the king of Zhou was very happy, and he put on a feast for him to celebrate, and rewarded many things, and later Yu Jizibai in order to commemorate this award, ordered skilled craftsmen to cast this Western Zhou Yu Jizi white plate with bronze.

The white plate is 137.2 cm long, 86.5 cm wide, 39.5 cm high, weighs 215.3 kg, with a peculiar shape, a rectangle of four legs, a silken pattern on the lower circumference of the mouth rim, and a wavy pattern on the abdomen. There is an inscription of 111 characters at the bottom of the plate, the overall handwriting is dignified and neat, the language is refined, it is a calligrapher's legal book in the Golden Text, and it is a masterpiece of the Western Zhou Jin Script.

After thousands of years of dynastic changes, the whereabouts of the White Disk of Yu Jizi were once unknown, and in the light years of the Qing Dynasty, suddenly someone dug up this object under Baoji in Shaanxi, and later it was obtained by Xu Xie, who was then the county commander of Mei County, and after Xu Xie stepped down, he brought the White Disk of Yu Jizi back to his hometown in Changzhou, and as a result, during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Chen Kunshu, the protector of The Town Guarding Changzhou, took this treasure disk for himself. After that, it fell into the hands of Liu Mingchuan.

After Liu Ming passed on this treasure, not only did not bring good luck to his family, but also made his family panic for four generations, because the warlords, Japanese Kou, Kuomintang officials, etc., when they learned that the Liu family had a treasure disk, they ran to ask for it, which brought great trouble to their family.

It was not until after the founding of New China that Liu Mingchuan's fourth-generation grandson Liu Su once dug out the white plate of Yu Jizi from the ground and dedicated it to the state. The cultural relics are now in the collection of the National Museum, which is the treasure of the town hall and belongs to the first batch of cultural relics that are forbidden to go abroad (border) for exhibition, which shows how precious this treasure plate is.