The ancient tomb bears witness to history, a legendary tale of the elders of the Four Dynasties.
One morning in July 1952, a group of workers were working near the south gate of the old county town in Xiuning County, Anhui Province. In the evening, the worker Gao Mou dug out a golden piece of gold from under the ground, and the gold piece carving was exquisite and exquisite. Gao and his co-workers continued to dig deeper, and dug out a green brick tomb from a depth of more than 1 meter underground, with two coffins side by side in the tomb, and a large number of gold and silver artifacts were piled up in the tomb.
The ancient tomb dug out gold and silver, I don't know who shouted "grab" suddenly a large number of people poured into the ancient tomb, the crowd scrambled for gold and silver utensils, and soon the ancient tomb was destroyed beyond recognition, and the two intact black lacquer coffins unearthed were also pulled away and demolished as firewood. The next day, some people went to the local cultural management department to report that the ancient tombs dug up near the south gate were robbed, and a large number of cultural relics had been lost, so that the cultural management experts rushed to see.
The situation was urgent, and local cultural management experts immediately rushed to the scene to investigate, and the construction party checked the personnel one by one according to the list and confiscated the lost cultural relics. After repeated persuasion and education, the workers handed over some of the looted cultural relics. However, there are still a large number of cultural relics lost, because there were still many people in the society who participated in the looting at that time, and it is difficult to find out who took the excavated cultural relics. And the coffin, which may have been the gold silk nan wood, may have been burned.
After collection and cleaning, the tomb unearthed a lot of exquisite gold, silver, jade, these cultural relics are very exquisite, there are sunflower marigolds, hexagonal golden cups, agate cups, jade and other cultural relics, as well as a jade belt and a set of royal fairy flower gold belt. These gold and silver utensils, exquisitely constructed and simple and complete, can be called the treasures of gold and silverware.
Cultural management experts have carried out in-depth excavations of the ancient tomb, and the results can be found from the epitaphs thrown in the tomb that this ancient tomb is the joint tomb of Zhu Xiyan and his wife, a waiter of the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, only officials with more than three pins could receive gold belts, as evidenced by the epitaph, zhu Xiyan was a gold and silver artifact unearthed by the servants of the Ministry of Works worthy of his status, especially the gold belt.
The Golden Belt of Zhu Xiyan Royal Immortal Flower is composed of 8 square handcuffs such as a head, a round hammer, and a tail, and the head is irregularly rectangular, with a length of 14 cm, a width of 7.7 cm, a thickness of 0.9 cm, and a weight of 41 grams. The outer border is engraved with a geometric pattern of triangles and dots, and the interior of the frame is 3 embossed tangled lotus patterns. The circular band has holes on one side, the diameter of the pin is 7.5-8.3 cm, the thickness is 2.5 cm, and the weight is 66.8 g; the square brass is 8.8 cm long, 8 cm wide, 2.5 cm thick, and weighs 98.6 g - 103.4 g.
The tail is also known as tart tail, thallium tail or fish tail, the tail end is slightly curved, 16.1 cm long, 9 cm wide, 2.5 cm thick, and weighs 202.8 g. Above the entire gold belt, the front is decorated with relief-style tangle floral patterns, and the number of flowers on it is 3, 5 and 9 golden flowers. This gold belt is made of the more popular gold and silver hammering high convex flower process in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the floral pattern is composed of three parts: flowers, flower branches and flowers and leaves. The flowers of the golden belt are large and full in shape, in an oval shape, and the flower buds, petals, calyxes, etc. are all carved in convex relief, and the flower leaves are pinnate gourd-shaped.
The cultural relics unearthed from the tombs of Mr. and Mrs. Zhu Xiyan are high-quality national treasures, especially this gold belt. According to historical records, Zhu Xiyan was a native of Heshan Lane, North Heshan Lane, Xiuning City, Anhui Province, a jinshi in the first year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1163), and Zhu Xiyan watched for 34 years, going through the four dynasties of Gaozong, Xiaozong, Guangzong, and Ningzong, and was a veritable elder of the four dynasties.
Zhu Xiyan was a servant of the Ministry of Works and a fellow practitioner of the Shilu Academy, and also knew Lin'an Province, the founding man of Fengxiuning County, and three hundred households. Zhu Xiyan was an upright, clear,upright, and just official, and had great political achievements. Historical records record that when Zhu Xiyan was serving as a county official in Yongping County, Jingzhou, Hunan Province, his political achievements and official reputation were very good, and the local people built shrines for him one after another. Zhu Xiyan was twice transferred to Guangxi as a transport judge, and he struck a heavy blow at the smuggling of salt and iron, severely punished corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and won the love of the people.
Zhu Xiyan later served as the prefect of Jingjiang (静江, in present-day Guilin, Guangxi), where he governed the Lingqu canals, dredged waterways, facilitated the transportation and irrigation of the lingqu canals, and benefited the local people. Zhu Xiyan was not only a good official, but also an excellent poet, and his poems have a total of 224 surviving poems, which are included in the Quan Song Ci. In the Dragon Hidden Cave in Guilin today, there are also three poems inscribed by Zhu Xiyan.
Zhu Xiyan's wife Hong Shi was the daughter of Hong Hao, a famous minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, and her father-in-law Hong Hao was an envoy to the Jin Dynasty when he was serving as a Rebbe Shangshu, and was detained in the desert for fifteen years. Zhu Xiyan's brother-in-law Hong Mai was the author of "Rong Zhai Essays", Zhu Xiyan had three sons and one daughter, three sons were all officials worshiped by Shilang, and the daughter was married to Wang Gang, a famous minister of the Southern Song Dynasty. It can be said that Zhu Xiyan's family were all celebrities, all of whom were elites at that time.
In April of the sixth year of the Qingyuan Dynasty (1200 AD), Zhu Xiyan died of illness in office, and his wife Hong shi also died more than 100 days later. On March 22, 1201, in the first year of Jiatai (1201), Zhu Xiyan and his wife were buried on the right side of the ancestral tomb in Fenglin Garden, the south gate of Xiuning County (a field along the east side of the brewery). This ancestral tomb is the graveyard of the Zhu family, located outside the city during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.
Later, in order to prevent the Invasion of wokou, Xiuning County only encircled the tombs into the city when building new walls. With the development of the city, the tomb of Zhu Xiyan and his wife, originally buried in the suburbs, became an ancient tomb near the south gate of the old county town of Xiuning, and was not excavated by workers until more than 700 years later in 1952.
Zhu Xiyan was the elder of the four dynasties, a generation of famous courtiers, and had excellent political achievements and poetry. His life is legendary, the tomb of Zhu Xiyan has been excavated, and a large number of gold and silver artifacts unearthed can be called national treasures. These exquisite funerary utensils of his witnessed the exquisite cultural relics of the Song Dynasty and also witnessed the glory of a generation of famous courtiers. The market value of these unearthed gold and silver artifacts exceeded 100 million.
Since then, the excavation legend of the tomb of Zhu Xiyan, a famous minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, has come to an end.