Xi'an Xianyang International Airport is located in Dizhang Town, Weicheng District, Xianyang City, northwest of Xi'an City, 47 kilometers away from the center of Xi'an, is the largest air comprehensive transportation hub in northwest China, is also the fifth largest airport in China, and ranks 74th in the world airport rankings.
In 1988, during the construction of Xianyang International Airport, workers dug an ancient tomb under the ground.
This is a very normal situation, to know that Xi'an is the ancient capital of the Thirteen Dynasties, the number of underground tombs is innumerable, and there is a saying that "Xi'an loess buried gold".
A few years ago, when Xi'an built Metro Line 2, it excavated 130 ancient tombs, from the Western Han Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty.
When the Xi'an Institute of Posts and Telecommunications built a new campus in Chang'an District, more than 600 ancient tombs of the Warring States, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties were found underground, so Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications was jokingly called the "Tomb School" by netizens.
One
After the tomb was discovered under the Xianyang International Airport, the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute immediately sent a group of experts led by Sui and Tang Dynasty Director Zhen Anzhi to the scene.
He was the author of monographs such as "Report on archaeological excavations in the early Tang Dynasty, Sheng Tang Dynasty, and Middle and Late Tang Dynasties of China" and "A Review of the Northern Zhou Dynasty Jia Shi Figurines and Jia Ma Jia Shi Riding Figurines", and was a famous cultural relics expert in China at that time.
Soon after arriving at the scene, Jian Anzhi concluded that this was a high-standard ancient tomb of the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, so he immediately reported to the relevant parties and recommended rescue excavations.
Anzhi's vision is very accurate. The owner of this ancient tomb is the mausoleum of the Northern Zhou nobleman He Ruoshi at the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
He Ruoshi (何若氏), courtesy name Jue, was the eldest son of Dugu Luo, a general of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. Dugu Luo's younger sister was the famous Sui Wen Emperor Yang Jian's document Du lone empress. In other words, He Ruoshi was the sister-in-law of Emperor Yang Jian of Sui, and a relative of the emperor.
In the second year of the Sui Kai Emperor, He Ruoshi was given the title of Lady of shuguo. In September of the first year of Wu De's reign, He Ruoshi died at the age of 63, and the history books record that he was buried in the "Jing Clan of Fengxian Township, HongduChuan, Xianyang".
Because the He Ruo family was a relative of the three emperors of the Later Zhou, Sui and Tang dynasties, the burial of the He Ruo family after his death was extremely rich.
The gorgeous and exquisite gold headdress on her head is composed of 109 pieces of connections such as gold palate, golden flower, gold wire, golden flower and jade ornament, precious stones, pearls, etc., which are exquisite in craftsmanship and intricate, and are the most complete set of gold headdresses found in the Tang Dynasty at present.
Such a gorgeous and exquisite gold headdress, experts are also the first time to see. This is enough to prove that after the burial of He Ruoshi, this mausoleum has not been patronized by tomb robbers, which is the biggest good news for archaeology. So experts have also sped up the speed of cleaning up the burial chambers, trying to find bigger surprises.
On December 2, 1988, experts cleaned out a number of precious cultural relics such as golden flower crowns, gold earrings, golden castors, gold noodles, and Eastern Roman gold coins from He Ruoshi's tomb, and basically put together all the jewelry of a noble woman in the Sui and Tang dynasties. The fly in the ointment is that a pair of gold bracelets worn by He Ruoshi's hand have still not been found.
For archaeology, the discovery of a piece of Sui and Tang Dynasty gold jewelry in an ancient tomb is already an exciting discovery.
However, because He Ruoshi's tomb is quite well preserved, experts hope to find a complete set of jewelry sets for noble women in the Sui and Tang Dynasties in this ancient tomb, which can not only greatly double the value of cultural relics, but also greatly help to study the lives of aristocratic women at that time.
In the 20 days since December 3, experts have carefully cleaned the patios, niches and frescoes in the tomb, leaving only the tomb to be uncovered, but the pair of gold bracelets worn by He Ruoshi's hand have still not been found. Experts wondered: Where did the gold bracelet on He Ruoshi's hand go?
Two
On the evening of November 30th, after the archaeological team finished work, they arranged for Wu Pengchang and Luo Yuewa, two migrant workers hired from Tianshui, Gansu Province, to be on duty to take care of the tomb.
In the middle of the night, when Luo Yuewa, who was bored, was casually scraping and playing with a shovel on the earthen wall on the left side of the tomb, she found a gold bracelet.
Luo Yuewa, who was less than twenty years old at the time, did not know what she had dug up, so she called Wu Pengchang to identify it together. Wu Pengchang felt like a bracelet, so he casually stuffed it into his pocket.
At dawn the next day, Wu Pengchang handed the gold bracelet to the first archaeological team leader to come to the scene, Zhen Anzhi, and told Xuan Anzhi that this gold bracelet was accidentally discovered by Luo Yuewa last night.
Xuan Anzhi carefully inquired about the discovery of the gold bracelet, and learned that no third person except these two migrant workers knew, so he verbally praised Wu Pengchang and Luo Yuewa, and let them go back to rest.
At the end of 1988, the excavation of He Ruoshi's tomb was completed. From the "Register of Excavated Artifacts" of this ancient tomb, it can be seen that more than 100 pieces of excavated gold, pottery, murals and other cultural relics have been excavated in He Ruoshi's tomb, but this does not include the gold bracelet that two migrant workers accidentally found.
As a senior archaeologist, After getting this bracelet, Xuan Anzhi immediately recognized it as a "Tang Dynasty Four Dragon Double Sheath Gold Bracelet".
This four-dragon double sheath bracelet is a latch type, which is formed by a half-ring of gold two dragons winding, and then connected by a hinge shaft and fixed into a ring. This type of bracelet originated from the North Indian region and has been found in ancient tombs during the previous Southern and Northern Dynasties periods, and its value is clear to Yan Anzhi.
From November 20, 1993 to February 1994, the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology and the General Administration of Hong Kong MunicipalIty co-hosted a cultural relics exhibition in Hong Kong reflecting the life of the Tang Dynasty nobles, "Wuhua Tianbao - The Material Life of the Nobles of the Tang Dynasty".
As one of the organizers, the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute selected a number of cultural relics to participate in the exhibition, including gold noodles, golden castors, gold headdresses, gold earrings and so on excavated from the tomb of He Ruoshi.
However, in this set of gold jewelry, the gold bracelet worn by He Ruoshi is missing, which also makes all visitors feel that they are not in the blue.
In the archaeological community, many cultural relics have been annihilated in the long river of history due to their age, although it is regrettable, but this is also a normal phenomenon. So after the excavation of He Ruoshi's tomb, the gold bracelet she wore disappeared, which did not arouse anyone's suspicions.
Three
Six years later, on January 5, 1994, the criminal police team of the Qindu Branch of the Xianyang City Public Security Bureau received a report. In the report, she said that her husband, Zhao Anzhi, had been robbed by Ba Yanfang, Zhao Quanquan, Ba Yijie and others, and had been robbed of more than 50,000 yuan and four cultural relics collected by Zhen Anzhi.
After receiving the report, the police quickly arrested Ba Yanfang, Zhao Quanquan, Ba Yijie and others. During the interrogation, a shocking secret that had been buried for six years finally surfaced.
As the director of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Office of the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute and a well-known cultural relics expert in China, Xuan Anzhi can be described as a successful career.
After graduating from the Department of History at Northwest University, majoring in archaeology, He was assigned to the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute. Born in the countryside, Zhen Anzhi did not live up to the expectations of the leaders, worked very hard, and the business time was eager to learn, and soon he was outstanding among his peers, gaining the trust and key training of the leaders.
The Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute also took good care of the young talent's life, not only allocating him a house, but also assigning him a work car.
Later, he married a local woman from Xi'an and formed a family. In the eyes of outsiders, this is the inspirational story of a rural youth: career success, family and beauty.
But what is unexpected is that the successful Anzhi also has an unknown "secret".
In 1987, Zhen Anzhi met a woman named Ba Yanfang, and was soon fascinated by Ba Yanfang's beauty, and tried to hook up with Ba Yanfang and became his mistress.
Ba Yanfang was 27 years old at the time and worked in a dance hall. Her greatest wish is to find a rich man in Xi'an to marry and live a superior life. At first, she did not take Zhen Anzhi to heart, thinking that Zhen Anzhi was just a middle-aged uncle with a dead salary and could not give the life she wanted, so she was relatively cold to Zhen Anzhi.
In order to catch up with Ba Yanfang, Xuan Anzhi showed Ba Yanfang one thing at a secret meeting between the two: the "Tang Dynasty Four Dragons Double Sheath Gold Bracelet".
Jian Anzhi told Ba Yanfang that the gold bracelet, which he had secretly hidden during the excavation of an ancient tomb, was a national first-class cultural relic, and was estimated at the price at the time to be worth at least three hundred million.
Ba Yanfang knew that Zhen Anzhi was an expert in cultural relics, and this bracelet was pearlescent and valuable at first glance, which made Ba Yanfang, who was greedy for money, change his mind.
She thought: If one day Anzhi can divorce his wife, marry her into the house, and then sell this bracelet, won't he become a billionaire? In this way, Ba Yanfang threw herself into the arms of Anzhi.
Four
Over time, Ba Yanfang found that Zhen Anzhi's attitude towards her was to play with her, and there was no intention of divorcing and marrying her again. After a long time, Ba Yanfang stopped drying.
Just at this moment, a young social man named Zhao Quan took a fancy to Ba Yanfang and launched a crazy pursuit of her.
Compared with The Middle-Aged Uncle of Xuan Anzhi, Zhao Quan had to look more patient. Although this person did not learn any skills and did not have any legitimate occupation, he had a good skin bag, plus he could speak the Tao, especially to coax girls, so he quickly captured Ba Yanfang's heart.
After getting along for a while, Ba Yanfang and Zhao Quanquan reached the stage of talking about marriage. At this time, Ba Yanfang did not hide from Zhen Anzhi and proposed to break up with Zhen Anzhi.
On the evening of January 4, 1994, Ba Yanfang invited Anzhi to his home and demanded that He anzhi compensate for his "youth loss fee" in recent years.
Jian Anzhi disagreed, the two had an argument, and Ba Yanfang made a phone call and called out to her fiancé Zhao Quanquan and cousin Ba Yijie.
Zhao Quanquan rushed to Ba Yanfang's residence, without saying a word, punching and kicking at Jian Anzhi, and asked Jian Anzhi to take out 200,000 yuan, which is a compensation for Ba Yanfang in recent years.
When Jian Anzhi said that he had so much money, Ba Yanfang named him and asked Him to take the gold bracelet to himself as compensation, otherwise he would go to Xuan Anzhi's unit to report him, saying that he had stolen the country's cultural relics, not only to make him discredited, but also to put him in prison.
Naturally, He knew the consequences. So he returned home with Zhao Quanquan and Ba Yanfang and handed the gold bracelet to Ba Yanfang. Ba Yanfang was not satisfied, and took a 15,000 yuan passbook from Zhen Anzhi's family, as well as a bronze mirror and a small jade pig collected by Zhen Anzhi.
A few days later, When his wife wanted to use the money and found that the passbook was missing, She told her the truth of the matter and asked her not to report the case, but did not tell her the origin of the gold bracelet. The next day, The more Ahn-chi's wife thought about it, the angrier she became, so she reported the case to the police without her knowledge.
After receiving the report, the Xi'an police quickly arrested Ba Yanfang, Zhao Quanquan and other three people. The "Tang Dynasty Four Dragons Double Sheath Golden Bracelet" appeared in front of the investigators.
Five
On December 8, 1996, the Xianyang Municipal Procuratorate prosecuted Jian Anzhi for taking advantage of his position to confiscate a state-level cultural relic.
In court, Mr. Anzhi argued that he had no subjective intention of concealing the gold bracelet because the excavation report of the tomb of He Ruoshi had not been completed until the time of the crime, and he had re-registered the gold bracelet in the "Register of Excavated Artifacts" of the tomb of He Ruoshi, and now the registration form was in the drawer of his office.
What is surprising is that the Xianyang Intermediate People's Court believes that after the incident, the public security organs did have a registration of this gold bracelet in the "Registration Form for Excavated Artifacts" found in The Office Information Cabinet of Xian Anzhi, thus believing that the Xianyang City Procuratorate accused Xian Anzhi of having insufficient evidence to claim this four-dragon play pearl pure gold double sheath bracelet as his own, and declared That Zhen Anzhi innocent.
This judgment has caused a violent reaction in society, and almost everyone believes that the court's judgment is wrong.
Subsequently, the Xianyang Municipal Procuratorate filed a protest with the Shaanxi Provincial High Court, and the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute also submitted a request to the Standing Committee of the Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress, requesting the People's Congress to exercise its supervisory powers and order the relevant departments to pursue the criminal responsibility of Zhen Anzhi in accordance with the law.
The case sparked a big discussion in the legal profession that year. Most legal experts believe that In his archaeological work, He Anzhi violated regulations and concealed and did not report cultural relics at the national level, resulting in cultural relics being out of supervision for 6 years, subjectively intending to embezzle, and objectively completing the act of illegal appropriation.
The Xianyang Intermediate Court acquitted him on the basis of a "Registration Form for Excavated Artifacts" alone, which was not convincing. For 6 years, the gold bracelet has been secretly hidden in the home of Xian Anzhi, which is a fact, and it is also completely proved that Zhen Anzhi has the intention of embezzling the gold bracelet, and it is not appropriate for Xianyang City to declare his innocence.
What is even more infuriating is that after the Xianyang Intermediate Court issued a verdict of innocence, Zhen Anzhi actually demanded that the archaeological institute restore its reputation and compensate for its losses, and even made a big fuss about the archaeological institute several times.
In March 1999, Han Wei, a deputy to the National People's Congress and a well-known archaeologist, jointly challenged the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the SPC with some other representatives from the cultural relics protection circles at the Second Session of the Ninth National People's Congress, requesting a comprehensive review of the case and the recovery of the adverse impact.
In an interview with a CCTV reporter, Han Wei asked sadly: If acts like Zhen Anzhi are innocent, what is the security of cultural relics at the archaeological excavation site to ensure?
Under the supervision of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court, in June 2000, the Xianyang Intermediate People's Court retried the case and finally sentenced Anzhi to 11 years in prison for embezzlement.
He then appealed, claiming that he had no intention of possessing the gold bracelet and that he had brought it home for research, not embezzlement. This unreasonable appeal was quickly rejected by the provincial high court.
In November 2010, Anzhi, who had been commuted for eight months in prison, walked out of the prison gates and disappeared into the sea of people. Since his wife and Zhen Anzhi were divorced when he was serving his sentence, the author searched through the information and did not find where he was living now and how he was living.
One thing is for sure, as a middle-aged expert, Xuan Anzhi should have had a great future. It was greed and lust that harmed him.
According to his age, if he is still alive, he will only be in his 70s this year. I don't know if he has regrets in his heart now?
Six
In fact, such a thing as "guarding and stealing" like Xuan Anzhi is not unique in the cultural relics industry.
The disappearance of cultural relics in the Xinjiang Museum that shocked the cultural relics industry at that time led to the loss of 9 national first-class cultural relics, and the suspect was Huang Xiaojiang, former deputy director of the Archaeology Department of the Xinjiang Museum and associate researcher.
Huang Xiaojiang has participated in archaeological excavations in Xinjiang many times and is an expert on Han tombs at the Xinjiang Museum. From December 1983 to December 1984, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Xinjiang Museum organized an archaeological excavation team to excavate the Ancient Tomb of Pulagu in Luopu Mountain, Hotan, and Huang Xiaojiang was the main person in charge, and the excavated cultural relics from the two excavations were kept and studied by him.
Because of this, one is called Alimu. The cultural relics dealer who bought and mati set his sights on Huang Xiaojiang.
Alimu. In the name of learning archaeological knowledge from his teachers, Maimaiti frequently went in and out of Huang Xiaojiang, was very generous to Huang Xiaojiang, and won Huang Xiaojiang's trust.
Later, Alimu. Maimaiti has repeatedly "borrowed" 22 precious cultural relics kept by Huang Xiaojiang, and resold 9 of them, including 9 national first-class cultural relics and 1 national second-class cultural relics, with a total of 180,000 yuan of stolen money.
Poor Huang Xiaojiang was still doing Alimu until the time of the crime. The dream of returning cultural relics. In the end, Huang Xiaojiang was sentenced to 3 years in prison for the loss of precious cultural relics.
In 2015, the Public Security Bureau of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, cracked the largest cultural relics case since the founding of New China, arresting 175 suspects.
This extraordinarily large tomb robbery gang mainly excavated Neolithic Hongshan cultural relics and Liaojin era coins, and among their gang members, included "experts" from an archaeological research institute in Liaoning, as well as several backbones of the business of the Ao Han Banner Museum in Chifeng City.
These people give the tomb robber gang "palm eyes and pulse" and sit on the ground to collect the stolen goods, forming a chain of illegal cultural relics transactions.
After the incident, the police recovered 263 cultural relics of various types, including 64 first-class cultural relics, 33 second-class cultural relics, and 78 third-class cultural relics.
Archaeological excavations are the act of the State, and the excavated cultural relics are state-owned and cannot be appropriated by anyone. If it is not managed according to law, the safety of national cultural relics cannot be guaranteed.
Following the Case of Yan Anzhi, on November 4, 2017, the 30th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress adopted a decision amending the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics. The first paragraph of Article 74 stipulates that if it is found that cultural relics are hidden and not reported or refuse to be handed over, the legal responsibility of the responsible person will be investigated in accordance with law.
Various countries in the world have legislation on the protection of cultural relics, and the laws in many countries are very detailed and strict.
China is a big country of cultural relics, and it should also be ahead of the world in terms of legislation on the management of cultural relics in archaeological excavations. Only in this way can we prevent the emergence of "giant rats" like Jian Anzhi who are "guarding and stealing from themselves", so that the excellent historical and cultural heritage of the Chinese nation can be passed on from generation to generation.