In the spring of 1981, Tao Xiuhua, a villager in Laoshan Village, Ganquan Township, Jiangxian County, Jiangsu Province, stumbled upon a yellow cancan seal while turning the soil in the field.
She quietly put it in her pocket and went home to show her husband, Tao Xiuhua's husband had worked as a migrant worker in the archaeological team, and he felt that this seal must be a valuable cultural relic.
The couple took the baby and came to the Nanjing Museum for identification.
Ji Zhongqing, a cultural relics expert, saw the seal and immediately remembered that a year ago, a Han tomb had been excavated near the place where the seal was found.
According to the excavated inscription of the bronze lamp of the goose foot, "The copper goose foot of the Shanyang Residence is a stirrup, and the 28th year of Jianwu is made in the 12th year", it is proved that the owner of the Han tomb is Liu Jing, the king of Guangling in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and this seal is undoubtedly a relic of Liu Jing's lifetime.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty records: "The prince and the princes of the king jinyin, guiniu. ”
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the seals of the princes surnamed Liu were turtle-shaped seals, and the seals of other princes with different surnames were snake-shaped seals.
The "Seal of the King of Guangling" is completely consistent with the records of historical materials.
The seal of Liu Jing's seal is four characters of the seal book, with smooth lines and simple elegance.
The whole body is gold, square, with a turtle-shaped seal button, weighing about 100 grams, and its gold purity is extremely high, which can be called the best in the Seal of the Han Dynasty, and is named "Guangling Wang Seal" by cultural relics experts.
Liu Jing, the master of the "Seal of the King of Guangling", was the ninth son of Liu Xiu, the Guangwu Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and his biological mother was Empress Yin Lihua.
In the fifteenth year of Jianwu (39 AD), he was made the Duke of Shanyang, and in the seventeenth year of Jianwu (41), he was made the Prince of Shanyang.
Liu Jing likes the law, but is impatient and mean.
When Emperor Guangwu died, he impersonated Guo Quan, the uncle of his eldest brother Liu Qiang (Yi Zuojiang), the Prince of Donghai, to write a letter to Liu Qiang, encouraging his eldest brother to rebel against the imperial court, and was denounced by Liu Qiang.
Emperor Liu Zhuang of Hanming, considering that Liu Jing and himself were half-brothers, only sent Liu Jing back to his fiefdom and did not punish him.
A few years later, Xiqiang launched a rebellion.
Liu Jing, who did not want to repent, had the idea of taking advantage of the opportunity to rebel, and as a result, the news leaked and the plan was aborted again.
Emperor Ming of Han renamed his younger brother Liu Jing the Prince of Guangling, and Liu Jing had no intention of restraining himself, and he consulted the person who met him: "I look like the first emperor." The first emperor won the world thirty times, and I am now thirty, but can I raise an army? "----------------------------------------------------------------------
The people who met him went to the official palace to report Liu Jing, and Liu Jing was terrified and had to voluntarily surrender himself.
Emperor Ming of Han still remembered his brotherhood and did not punish Liu Jing, but issued an edict to remove the officials of the Guangling Palace, and other treatment such as fengyi food and rent remained unchanged.
Liu Jing remained a thief and did not change his mind, privately retaining the official positions of "Xiang and Lieutenant" and other princely states.
Later, the shaman was sent to curse the emperor, and was reported by the officials of the department, who asked the emperor to behead him.
Liu Jing knew that he could not hide this time, so he committed suicide in fear of sin.
For the death of his brother, the Hanming Emperor Liu Zhuang was still very sad and gave Liu Jing the title of "Si".
Later, Liu Jing's son Liu Yuanshou was also named the Marquis of Guangling, and Liu Jing's other three sons were given the title of Marquis of Xiang.
Liu Jing, the king of Guangling, left a comical image in history that loved to play conspiracies but was always accused. He did not know that the mission given to him by Heaven was not to rebel, but to pass on this precious cultural relic, the "Seal of the King of Guangling.".
It solved the puzzle for future generations who studied the etiquette system of the Eastern Han Dynasty more than 1900 years later.
The history books record that the kings surnamed Liu in the Han Dynasty used turtle buttons, but posterity has not been able to see them for thousands of years.
Until the appearance of the "Guangling King Seal", what the golden seal of the turtle button looks like, it was revealed to the world.
When the "Seal of the King of Guangling" was discovered, the shock caused in Japan even exceeded that in China.
This seal also confirms the authenticity of a snake button gold seal "King Han weinu" unearthed in shiga Island, Fukuoka Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan, last century.
The "Seal of the King of Guangling" is now in the collection of the Nanjing Museum.