"Han Feizi": "There are no thieves in the country, and the Tao does not pick up the leftovers." If there are no thieves in a country, and people walk on the road and do not pick up what others have lost, then the social atmosphere in this country must be very good. In the 60s of the last century in China, because of the lack of materials, many people sold the cultural relics that were lost in the folk and should belong to the state to make money. But there is a person who is not tempted by money, insists on picking up cultural relics in the "garbage heap", and in 20 years, he handed over 3200 cultural relics he picked up to the state free of charge.
Lei Yuqi, born in 1928 in Pingyao, Shanxi, was the deputy manager of Taiyuan Copper Company, because of work reasons to deal with some broken copper and rotten iron, he saw countless scrap copper, but never thought that these things to be disposed of may be cultural relics, until he saw an article in the "Xinmin Evening News", the article said that a smelter in Shanghai found cultural relics in the scrap copper, which made him think that the scrap copper in front of him may have cultural relics.
In order to solve the puzzle in his heart, Lei Yuqi first accumulated some cultural relics knowledge in case he could use it, and it didn't take long for him to use it. Once, Lei Yuqi picked up a small "shovel" in the scrap copper, which did not look like a modern man-made thing on the outside, and the next day he handed the small "shovel" to Wu Liancheng, an expert at the Shanxi Provincial Museum, to see, and Wu Liancheng was surprised to see it and shouted "This is a good thing."
Later, Lei Yuqi learned in the newspaper that the small "shovel" he picked up was actually a shovel-shaped currency in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which has a history of 3,000 years from now, and there are only 5 countries, which are now national first-class cultural relics.
With the last successful experience, Lei Yuqi should have been happy, but he was depressed, he wondered if he would melt down a lot of cultural relics because of his ignorance before? At the same time, he knew that the strength of one person was too small, and the strength of the team was strong, so in 1964, he specially set up a group to select cultural relics and served as the leader of the group himself.
There are 7 or 8 members in the group, but there are countless scrap copper to be treated, and they must check the scrap copper in the shortest possible time, because if they are not inspected in time, the scrap copper will be melted off, in case there are cultural relics inside. Lei Yuqi's behavior looks like a monster in the eyes of some others, and they think that they are actually doing it for profit, so some people have reported that his "hands and feet are not clean." As the old saying goes: "The cleaner cleans himself, the turbid one self-turbid", After 3 months of investigation, Lei Yuqi was not found to have any unclean hands and feet, and after restoring his innocence, Lei Yuqi immediately threw himself into the task of searching for cultural relics.
The wronged Lei Yuqi is not not wronged, but when he thinks that cultural relics are non-renewable, and the obligation of citizens is to protect these cultural relics, he gritted his teeth and persevered, and this insistence is 20 years. In the past 20 years, he has searched a total of hundreds of thousands of tons of scrap copper, and found cultural relics such as 2-meter-high Buddha statues, coins and arrows several centimeters long, and more than 50 tons of cultural relics and coins from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties alone, including 5 first-class cultural relics, more than 200 second-class cultural relics, and more than 3,000 third-class cultural relics, which have been sent to the museum for collection.
In 1985, the state rewarded Lei Yuqi for his merits and gave him 4,000 yuan and a black-and-white TV set, but Lei Yuqi donated the 4,000 yuan to the copper factory kindergarten and put the black-and-white TV set in the factory for everyone to watch. After retirement, Lei Yuqi also played with collecting, but he could not see a valuable collection at home, he said: "The selected cultural relics are the state, I can't take a single one" In 2009, Lei Yuqi died at the age of 81. Although others have gone, his selfless spirit of protecting the national cultural relics will last forever.