In the Liaoning Provincial Museum, there is a cultural relic called "Yan Wang Zhige", which is a weapon in the palace of the Yan King during the Warring States period, and is a weapon given to his generals by the thirty-ninth monarch of the Yan Kingdom. Bronzes more than 2,000 years ago can be preserved so well, in the history of cultural relics in the mainland are relatively rare, speaking of the origin of this bronze Ge, there is a tortuous story: farmers planted the land to plan out it and sold it as scrap iron to the purchase station of the supply and marketing cooperative, the experts who went to the countryside to investigate and rushed to the procurement station to identify it after hearing the news, identifying it as just a fake, and later this piece was sent to the Jinzhou steel mill, and at the moment before it was put into the steelmaking furnace, the cultural relics experts found it.
A piece of scrap iron
In 1967, a farmer in Dongguanying Commune, Beipiao City, Liaoning Province, was waving a hoe in the field to plan the ground, and when the hoe went down, he shaved out a strange-looking "scrap iron" from the ground, and he picked up the "scrap iron" and swept it with his hands, and found that its weight was very heavy. After looking over and over several times, the peasant did not see what this "scrap iron" was all about and what it was used for, so he threw the "scrap iron" to the ground and continued to work.
After finishing his work, he saw the "scrap iron" again when he walked on the ground, and he felt that the "scrap iron" was very heavy, and he might be able to exchange money for some salt when he sold it to the procurement station, so he picked up the "scrap iron" from the ground and brought it home.
On the way home, a villager saw him carrying a strange thing and asked him, "What did you pick up?" He said: "Go down to the ground and cut out a piece of scrap iron, I don't know what it is." The villager took a look at him and said, "This thing is like an ancient Go, a weapon." The peasant did not think so, and for him, whether it was a weapon or a weapon, it had nothing to do with him.
After some time, when the farmer was idle, the farmer sent the "scrap iron" to the purchase station of the supply and marketing cooperative, along with other scrap copper scrap at home, sold the scrap iron, and exchanged it for some change.
fake
Coincidentally, within a few days, the experts of the Beipiao Cultural Relics Bureau went to the countryside to conduct research, and on this day they happened to come to the village where the farmer of Dongguanying Commune was located. Experts in the village to ask who has old objects, or what cultural relics have been dug out of the field, a villager told the experts that a few days ago a farmer in the same village dug up a piece of go, like an ancient weapon.
The experts were very interested after hearing this, so they found the villager according to the villager's guidance, and learned that the villager had sold the piece as scrap iron to the supply and marketing cooperative's procurement station, and the experts rushed to the supply and marketing cooperative's procurement station without stopping.
After arriving at the purchase station, the experts managed to find the piece from the scrap iron pile. Experts found that the piece was not covered with green patina like the excavated bronzes, and the reverse surface was clean, like a new thing. The expert examined it more closely and found that there was still a line of inscription on Ge's body, but the words on that line of inscription could not be understood by several experts. Several experts studied the piece for half a day, and finally came to the conclusion that this bronze goe was a modern imitation and a fake. So, the experts threw the bronze back into the scrap heap.
Recovered
A few months later, the scrap iron was pulled to the Jinzhou smelter to be smelted into molten iron. Because the 1960s coincided with a big movement, many people did not dare to keep old objects at home, in order to avoid old objects causing trouble for themselves, many people would sell some cultural relics as scrap copper scrap to the scrap collection station.
In those days, experts from the Antiquities Bureau would often go to scrap collection stations or steel mills to search for artifacts. On this day, when the scrap iron was ready to enter the furnace, an expert from the Jinzhou Cultural Relics Bureau happened to come to the smelter, perhaps there was an arrangement in the darkness, this expert saw the piece in the scrap copper pile at a glance, he walked over and picked up the ge carefully. Seeing the primitive ge and the illegible inscription on it, his intuition told him that it should be a valuable artifact. Therefore, he brought the bronze ge back to the Jinzhou Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau.
According to the experts of the Jinzhou Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, the bronze Ge retrieved from the waste pile is likely to be a cultural relics of the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, but these experts do not understand what the inscription on the bronze table is and what the text represents.
In order to find out the origin of this bronze Ge and the meaning of the inscription on the top of the Ge body, the Cultural Relics Bureau specially sent experts to Beijing to find Mr. Guo Moruo, the most knowledgeable expert in Chinese literature and history, and asked him to help identify it. According to Guo Lao's appraisal, the inscription on this bronze ge is "Emperor Yu of the Imperial Horse", which is a cultural relic of the Warring States period and is related to the King of Yan.
Yan Wang Gongge
So, what is the origin of this bronze go?
With a total length of 27 centimeters, a height of 13 centimeters, a length of 18 centimeters, and an inner length of 9 centimeters, this bronze gordon is much larger than the bronze gordola we have seen in other museums. The middle ridge of this bronze Ge is slightly raised, there are ditches on both sides of the middle ridge, the Hu blade is curved and unusually sharp, and the inner corner is cast with a tiger-shaped pattern, and a seven-character inscription is cast on the Gohu: "The King of Qi is the Imperial Sima of the Imperial Horse."
The seven-character inscription "The King of Hao's Office as the Imperial Sima " clearly explains the origin of this bronze ge. The "Imperial Sima of Yan" was the military attaché of the Yan Dynasty who was in charge of training the Yan King's pawns; and the combined meaning was that this bronze ge was a weapon given by the Yan Zhao King Ji to the military officer who was in charge of the Yan King's pawn.
Born in 335 BC, King Zhao of Yan, whose real name was Ji Zhi, was the thirty-ninth monarch of the State of Yan during the Warring States period. During the Warring States period, in order to enhance mutual trust, the princely states often sent the king's son as a hostage to other countries, and Ji Zhi was once a hostage of the Yan state in Korea. In 318 BC, Ji Zhi's father, King Huan of Yan, ceded the throne to Xiang Guo's son, which caused dissatisfaction among the prince's peaceful ministers. In 314 BC, the Son Rebellion occurred in the State of Yan, the prince of the State of Yan was killed, and King Wuling of Zhao sent heavy troops to escort Ji Zhi back to the throne, known in history as King Zhao of Yan.
King Ji of Yanzhao reigned for 33 years, and during his reign he recruited talents and soldiers, which made the economy of the Yan kingdom take off. At the same time, he also attacked the city strategically, broke the Eastern Hu and Goryeo provinces, and united with the five kingdoms to attack Qi, occupying more than seventy cities and pools in the State of Qi, making the State of Yan rank among the Seven Heroes of the Warring States.
Yan Wang Gongge is a weapon cast during the strongest period of the Yan Kingdom, although this weapon has been baptized for more than 2,000 years, it is still bright as new, showing people the developed productivity level and exquisite manufacturing technology of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States and the Yan Kingdom, and is a precious physical material for experts to study the history of the Warring States. Later, this Yanwang Gongge was collected by the Liaoning Provincial Museum and is a "heavyweight" cultural relic of the museum.