The Book of Silk, also known as the Book of Silk, is a document written on silk in ancient China with white silk as the writing material, and its origin can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period.
Although the Book of Books and Bamboo Jane are in the same era, the film and television also can not move to pass on the letters, it seems that China should have a lot of books, but if from the perspective of literature, in fact, there are only two kinds of books unearthed by archaeology so far: one is the Book of Han, mainly the Book of Mawangdui, and the other is found in dunhuang Dunhuang Maquan Bay Han Dynasty Beacon Site, only 30 characters; one is the Warring States Book, the only one is the Chu Book, and the only complete Book, and the pictures and texts are rich. The Mawangdui Book and the Chu Book are the most precious, and can be called the emperors in the Book of Books.
Among them, the Han Shu was found in the No. 3 Han Tomb of Mawangdui in Changsha, with a total of 28 kinds of more than 120,000 words, recording the "Zhou Yi", "Funeral Costume Map", "Spring and Autumn Events", "Nine Main Maps", "Yellow Emperor Book", "Lao Tzu", "City Building Map", "Five Star Zhan" and "Soma Jing"; the Warring States Chu Shu Shu was found in the Changsha Bullet Kuchu Tomb in Hunan Province, recording the earliest creation myth in China, but unfortunately it was snatched away by the Americans.
In 1942, the land of China was still in the flames of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and a tomb of the State of Chu during the Warring States period in Changsha, Hunan Province, was excavated.
For 2300 years, this Chu tomb has not been destroyed, and it has preserved the burial items intact, including a sword, a sheath... There were also fragments of textiles, including a rag full of words. The tomb robber swept away the treasure in the tomb and immediately sold it to the antique dealer, but the tomb robber did not find the value of the textile, so he gave it all as waste to the antique dealer Tang Jianquan.
However, what the tomb robbers did not expect was that a piece of rag in these textiles was the most valuable cultural relic in the entire Chu tomb, and it was also one of the most exciting discoveries in the history of Chinese culture.
After the antique dealer got the rag, he did not feel that it was worth much, but just put it in a bamboo basket, and there were many broken pieces of books underneath, and the books were full of dirt and filth.
At that time, Cai Jixiang, a famous antique dealer and amateur historian in Hunan, accidentally learned about it and quickly bought the books and other cultural relics for 3,000 yuan. Immediately after careful cleaning, the book is unfolded, copied and studied.
However, due to the Japanese invasion of China at that time, burning and looting everywhere, Cai Jixiang and his family joined the tide of escape, and he put the Chu Shushu in an iron pipe for preservation. During the escape, Cai Jixiang and his family encountered the Japanese army. The brutal Japanese army raped Cai Jixiang's wife and daughter, and eventually his wife and daughter committed suicide by jumping into the river, and Cai Jixiang continued to flee with his four sons.
Such a sudden change in life made Cai Jixiang very painful, or in order to forget his sadness, Cai Jixiang put all his energy into the study of Chu Shushu.
In 1944, Cai Jixiang printed the research results of the Shushu into a book, entitled "Examination of the Late Zhou Shu Shu", which disclosed to the outside world for the first time the works of the Changsha Bullet Library Chu Shu, which was also the first time that the Chu Shu shu revealed its true face to the academic community.
The chu shu is 38.5 cm high and 46.2 cm wide, and the center is two paragraphs of text with the writing direction reversed from each other, one paragraph is 13 lines, and the other paragraph is 8 lines, which can be divided into A and B parts, and the whole text has a total of more than 900 words. The content is roughly that when the heavens and the earth had not yet formed and the world was in a state of chaos, there were two gods, Fuxi and Nuwa, who married and gave birth to four sons, and there was no theory that Fuxi Nuwa was a brother and sister. After the four sons became the four gods, they opened up the world, evolved all things, established order on earth, and formulated calendars. In short, the creation myth of Fuxi Nuwa recorded in the Chu Shu book is more elaborate than the Pangu creation myth we are familiar with, and can be described as the earliest creation myth in China, so the preciousness of this book can be imagined. In the 1940s, the Chu Shushu was the only Shushu in China.
Due to the long history of the Chu Shu and its long-term burial in the ground, many of the texts are blurred and need to be photographed with infrared rays to show the text. However, at that time, in the period of the War of Resistance, and the rear did not have this technology, Cai Jixiang could only helpless.
In 1945, japan was defeated and surrendered, in order to read the Chu Shu as completely as possible, Cai Jixiang (pictured above, he and his children) came to Shanghai, found Jin Cai Ji Antique Shop, and asked the owner Jin Congyi to find a photo studio with infrared photography to shoot the book.
At this time, an American acquaintance of Cai Jixiang appeared. This person's name is Ke Qiang (see picture below), and Cai Jixiang knows Changsha and also likes to collect antique cultural relics, but he has quarreled with Cai Jixiang over antiques and has become a person who annoys Cai Jixiang. However, after learning that Cai Jixiang came to Shanghai, Ke Qiang came uninvited for three consecutive days, proposing that he had an infrared camera at home and could take Chu Shushu to his home to shoot. Due to the encouragement of the onlookers, Cai Jixiang was inconvenient to refuse, so he took the book to Ke Qiang's residence, and Ke Qiang fiddled with it for a while, on the pretext that the camera was wrong, and asked Cai Jixiang to keep the book for one more day.
Cai Jixiang was anxious to find out the above text, so he agreed. What he didn't expect was that when he asked for the book and photos the next day, Ke Qiang said that the book had been sent to the United States!
Cai Jixiang was very angry and demanded that Ke Qiang return the book immediately, and Ke Qiang deceived Cai Jixiang and said: After taking the photo, the book can be sent back after about a week.
A week later, Cai Jixiang asked for the book again, and Ke Qiang found an excuse to shirk it. After that, every one or two days, Cai Jixiang would ask Ke Qiang once, and Ke Qiang either said that he had written a letter to inquire, or simply was not at home. Until one day, Ke Qiang's servant told Cai Jixiang that he had flown back to the United States.
Subsequently, Cai Jixiang lived in Shanghai for more than a month, until he had no money to pay the rent, and then had to leave Shanghai to return to Changsha.
At that time, Wu Cunzhu, the son of Wu Ailuo, the manager of Changsha Xiang'e Printing Company, was studying in the United States, and Cai Jixiang wrote to Wu Cunzhu, hoping that he could help to seek revenge on Ke Qiang, but Ke Qiang never mentioned the return of the book, or was vague and unwilling to reply.
At this point, the Chu Shushu, one of China's national treasures, was completely and blatantly snatched away by the American Ke Qiang. At the end of 1979, Cai Jixiang died of illness in Changsha with regret.
Today, the main part of the Chu Shu and a fragment of the book have become the treasure of the Sackler Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., and another fragment is collected in the Hunan Provincial Museum. The Chu Shushu that remained in the United States, although there was the signed evidence left by Ke Qiang for Cai Jixiang at that time, but in 1964, the Chu Shushu was sold by Ke Qiang, and after several changes of hands, it was transferred to the hands of the American art collector Arthur M. Sackler.