According to the book "Tiangong Kaiwu" written by Song Yingxing, there are about 100 gold-producing areas in China, and it is difficult to list them all. The larger one produced in the mountain stone is called horseshoe gold; the middle one is called olive gold and crotch gold; and the small one is called melon seed gold. The largest produced in the sand is called dog head gold; the smaller one is called bran wheat gold or bran gold. The person who digs the well in the flat land is called noodle sand gold, and the big one is called bean grain gold. But it has to be washed before it is smelted, and finally it becomes a whole piece of gold.
As we all know, gold is one of the important materials for minting gold coins, and many dynasties in history like to use gold to mint money. Even in modern times, many countries in the West have minted gold into gold coins. Therefore, the history of gold minting into money can be said to be very long, in fact, ancient China also had a history of minting gold into gold coins.
In the tombs of many emperors or nobles that have survived in ancient times, a large number of precious cultural relics will be buried, which is really valuable in this era, of course, there will be no lack of gold, and an old farmer dug a well to dig out 120 pounds of "gold cake", experts advised it to hand it in, saying: There is still a difference of 200 tons!
The digging of the well turned out to be a gold digger, and the old farmer found treasure in his vegetable garden
In the late 1990s, Zhang Mou, an old farmer who lived in a small mountain village on the northeastern outskirts of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, was working in his vegetable garden one day with a hoe, and he wanted to dig a well in his vegetable garden. When Lao Zhang had just dug four meters deep from the ground, the hoe in his hand suddenly made a noise, and Zhang Mou heard that he had touched a hard object.
So, Lao Zhang picked up the shovel again and shaved it up where the noise was made, and it didn't take long for him to dig out a pile of yellow round cake-like things. Because of the problem of light, at first Lao Zhang thought it was bronze, so he dug them all out.
In fact, after Lao Zhang dug out these metal lumps, he did not know their value. Subsequently, after Lao Zhang dug up a large pile of "copper cakes" from the ground and cleaned them with clean water, he was shocked to find that the surface of these so-called copper cakes was actually shining with golden brilliance, looking very much like gold.
Therefore, Lao Zhang hurriedly bit down a few times with his teeth, and at the same time burned it with fire, and it turned out that these "copper cakes" were really really real gold! Looking at this piece of gold nugget, Lao Zhang was very happy in his heart, so he quickly hid it.
The gold was learned by the Antiquities Bureau and eventually handed over in its entirety
Afterwards, he counted these gold nuggets one by one and found that there were a total of 108 pieces, with a total weight of more than 120 pounds! Therefore, Zhang Mou wanted to exchange these gold nuggets for a large amount of money.
After that, he told his son about it and asked him to go to the bank and ask how he could cash out the gold. However, this act of his exposed the fact that the gold nugget existed. The staff of the local bank thought it was a cultural relic at first sight, so they quickly reported the situation to the local antiquities bureau.
When the experts came, they made an appraisal on the spot, it turned out that these were very rare gold coins in ancient tombs, and the era of gold coin currency in ancient China was the Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, the gold coin was called "gold cake", and it lived up to its name, and the appearance of this gold coin was like a shortbread - round, protruding in a circle around it, and sinking into the middle.
Later, under the persuasion of the staff, the two handed over all the gold and received 500 yuan and a pennant. After further research by experts, it was also found that these gold artifacts were minted at the end of the Western Han Dynasty and were originally stored in the national treasury.
However, after Wang Mang usurped the throne, in order to revitalize the dynasty's economy, he ordered that all the gold of the people be confiscated from the national treasury, and strictly prohibited the use of gold by the people at will.
120 pounds turned out to be only a dime, and the whereabouts of a large number of gold objects were unknown
Since the establishment of the new dynasty, Wang Mang has been implementing the New Deal and trying to reform. Moreover, in order to stabilize his rule, Wang Mang also ordered that all the private gold be nationalized. Only the ranks of marquis and higher ranks are eligible for gold.
In addition, he also inherited all the gold of the Han Dynasty. In this way, the amount of gold that Wang Mang possessed was very huge!
According to some records, Wang Mang spent 15 years before and after collecting a total of up to 200 tons of gold. But these precious treasures were all lost after the war and have not been found so far!
According to the "Book of Han and the Biography of Wang Mang", "In the province, the gold is one thousand pounds, and there are still sixty shortages." "This is the highest peak of ancient gold accumulation in China, which is found in the literature.
That is to say, the 120 pounds of gold that were handed in earlier were only a dime, and there was a huge amount of gold that had not yet been discovered by posterity. The whereabouts of these gold objects are not clearly recorded in the historical records. In 23 AD, Wang Mang, who had only been emperor for 15 years and established a new dynasty, was killed by the rebel army. It is said that many armies at that time also searched for the whereabouts of this batch of gold, but in the end there was no result.
And this unexpected discovery may be able to obtain information on the whereabouts of other gold. Therefore, experts also asked Lao Zhang if he had found other clues, but Lao Zhang was not aware of other gold. However, the 120 pounds of gold cake handed in by Lao Zhang alone are of high value to the study of the history of the Western Han Dynasty.
brief summary
In fact, in China's thousands of years of feudal history, the precious cultural relics that have been lost can be described as innumerable, and the number of cultural relics unearthed today is really gratifying, but in fact, it only accounts for a relatively small part, and there are more cultural relics that are still buried underground, waiting for future generations to excavate.
References: "Hanshu Wang Mang's Biography", "Tiangong Kaiwu"
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