In recent years, people's enthusiasm for the pursuit of ancient cultural relics has been high, whether it is excavated from ancient tombs or handed down from ordinary people's homes, but whenever there is a "new product", it will attract everyone's attention and hot discussion. For these antiques that carry historical memory, the relevant cultural relics departments also attach great importance to them, and generally treasures with great research value, cultural relics experts will also strive to build collections.
At the end of the 1980s, an old farmer in Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province, took out a rusty knife, claiming that it was a treasure knife left by Li Zicheng, the "king of chuang", and wanted to donate it to the county's cultural management committee. However, the experts refused his request, why?
According to him, the old farmer's name was Wang Xinji, and according to him, the sword in the family was left behind when the king passed through this place, and had been enshrined in the Guandi Temple before, and the whole village had guarded it together for three hundred years. It was not until the turmoil at the end of the Qing Dynasty that Wang Xinji's ancestors took out the sword and hid it in their homes in order to prevent someone from stealing. After many years of wandering, he took out the sword again, hoping to hand it over to the relevant departments for collection.
Is what Wang Xinji said true? According to historical records, in the ten years of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, the king of Chongzhen, did pass through Hua County, when he had just been defeated and was hunted down and killed by the Ming army, with only a few hundred people around him. In order to have a chance to regain his strength, he turned back to Xi'an, planning to recuperate for a while and then fight with the Ming army. However, he did not think that when people were unlucky, drinking cold water also stuffed their teeth, Li Zicheng had not yet returned to Xi'an, he was blocked by the Ming army in the middle of the road, and he ran all the way to Hua County and was rescued by the locals.
After a few days of repairs, Li Zicheng set off again, and in order to thank the people of Hua County for taking care of them in the past few days, he left the saber he carried with him and enshrined it in the Guandi Temple. This history is also recorded in the Huaxian County Chronicle, and it is true that it was not made up.
Since there is such a thing, why does the HuaXian Cultural Management Committee not accept it? It turned out that although it was a fact that the king had left a knife, no one could prove that the knife that Wang Xinji had written was the knife contained in the historical records.
According to Wang Xinji, his ancestors hid the sword in their home in order to avoid the robbery of bandits, rebels, and invaders. In order to protect this precious cultural relic, their family has suffered a lot, some families cannot return, some cannot speak, and some people have even been shot to protect the "king knife".
Later, in order to make it once and for all, the Wang family sawed the knife into three sections, wrapped it in oil paper and buried it in the ground, planning to dig it out after the war had passed. But unfortunately, due to improper preservation, after being buried underground for many years, the knife was almost rusted into scrap iron, and the original appearance could not be seen at all.
After the country was stable, Wang Xinji consulted with his family and wanted to sacrifice the sword. After appraisal, experts believe that this knife was indeed cast in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and there is also a dragon head shape on the knife, which is likely to be the king sabre, but whether it is true or not, it must be further identified. The most important thing is that due to poor protection, the knife has been seriously decayed, can only be regarded as a "general cultural relics", it is recommended to collect it yourself.