One afternoon in the autumn of 1981, two young men in the shape of peasants came to the Xuzhou Museum together. One of them brought a "treasure" and wanted to find an expert in the museum to identify it.
For Professor Wang, an archaeologist, this kind of thing happens almost every day, and he has long been accustomed to it, and he is not cold, directly asking the two young people to take things out to see.
The two young men removed their canvas satchels from their bodies and took out an object wrapped in layers of newspaper. They uncovered the newspaper layer by layer, revealing two metal statues of Buddha.
Professor Wang put on his gloves and picked up the Buddha statue, looked it up and down, left and right, and suddenly asked the two young people excitedly: Where did this come from? Anything else?
The two young men told their stories under repeated questioning by Professor Wang.
The two young people, one surnamed Li and the other surnamed Zhang, were both villagers in Jiawang Village.
In March last year, the village planned to convert an abandoned fish pond into a septic tank, asking the villagers to clean up the fish pond by one person, and the two of them were responsible for the same area.
While cleaning up a small dirt bag, they found a stone slab underneath, and when they opened the stone slab, it was a small earth pit with two bronze Buddhas in the pit.
Because there were many people working at that time, they did not dare to speak out, so they buried the bronze Buddha and waited until it was dark to take it home.
The two of them divided one statue, and when they went back, they rinsed the Buddha statue clean, and felt that the Buddha statue was quite exquisite, so they placed it in their home and offered it to them, and also put incense on the Buddha statue every day.
A few days ago, there was a ragged child in the village, and Li's family just happened to have some rags to sell, so they called him into the house.
This tattered person inadvertently saw the bronze Buddha enshrined on Li Mou's family strip and asked about the origin of this bronze Buddha.
Li Told him that the Buddha statue from an unknown source could not be casually offered at home, and perhaps it would bring disaster to his family, so it was better to sell it, and how much he could exchange it for two dollars to spend.
Li did not plan to sell at first, but he could not stand the persuasion of this rags, and he increased the price to 100 yuan again and again.
In the 1980s, 100 yuan was not a small amount, equivalent to three months' salary of an ordinary worker. In the countryside, this money is enough for a family to live for half a year.
Li Mou was moved, he did not expect this Buddha statue to be so valuable, so he agreed to sell it to him.
Not only that, Li also said to the person who collected the rags, I also have one in the same village, do you want it?
The ragged one said: Yes, how much is needed. So Li came to Zhang's home with the rags.
Zhang A listens to 100 yuan? Good fellow, I really didn't expect this Buddha statue to be so valuable, and I was immediately moved, and immediately decided to sell the Buddha statue.
Just when he was preparing to hand over the money and deliver the goods with one hand, Zhang's wife stopped the transaction.
His wife's meaning is very simple, a rags, willing to pay such a high price, indicating that this thing must be more valuable, a cent or two of the rags are calculated, how can you do a loss of money?
This sentence woke up Zhang Mou, and his wife was right, and immediately decided not to sell.
Zhang Mou told Li that this Buddha has been offering at home for a year, give some money to sell it, I'm afraid it's not good, or don't sell it, continue to provide it at home.
After all, Li had been dealing with Zhang for many years, and he realized Zhang's meaning, so he returned 100 yuan to the rags and wanted to return the Buddha statue.
After collecting the rags, I was in a hurry, so I increased the price to 200 yuan a statue.
But Zhang and Li said that they would not sell anything, and they decided to find an expert to identify how much the two Buddha statues were worth, so they came to the museum and found Professor Wang.
Professor Wang nodded, and then introduced the two Buddha statues to the two of them.
These two Buddha statues are gilded bronze Buddha statues, according to the text on the back of the Buddha statue, Li Mou was created in 552 AD, the Northern Qi period, more than 1,400 years ago.
This Buddha statue is in the shape of a Buddha and two bodhisattvas, the base is a double lotus, surrounded by a Bodhi tree, behind the Buddha statue is a backlight of three consecutive petals, with 23 words engraved on it, the meaning of the text is that this Buddha statue was made to repay the wish made.
Zhang Mou's Buddha statue was created in 598 AD, belongs to the Sui Dynasty, the shape is slightly smaller, and the shape is similar to the first one. The back of the statue is engraved with 22 characters, meaning that the statue was cast for the prayer of the parents and family.
The two Buddha statues are exquisitely shaped and exquisitely crafted, showing the super high level of Buddha statues in the Northern Qi and Sui Dynasties, which is of great value for studying the history of the spread of Buddhism on the mainland and is an important cultural relic.
Professor Wang told the two young people that the two Buddha statues belonged to cultural relics and should be handed over to the state, and it was illegal to sell cultural relics.
The two young men looked at each other and said that they could not be the master of this matter, and they had to go home and discuss with their families before deciding, and then the two of them returned to The village of Jawang with the Buddha statue.
After they left, Professor Wang made a detailed report on the situation to his superiors, and the next day the archaeological team was stationed in Jiawang Village, but no ancient tombs were found in the place where the gilded bronze Buddha was excavated, nor other cultural relics were excavated.
In order to prevent the loss of the two bronze Buddhas, Professor Wang and other experts repeatedly went to the homes of Li and Zhang to publicize the knowledge and laws of cultural relics protection and persuade them to hand over cultural relics to the state for safekeeping.
After many times of communication, finally after three months, Li and Zhang promised to hand over two bronze Buddhas to the state, and the state also gave them a reward of 1500 yuan each, and the two gilded bronze Buddhas are currently treasured in the Xuzhou Museum.
So what is the value of these two bronze Buddhas?
There is such a set of reference data, in 2015, a gilded bronze Buddha of the same size during the Qing Kangxi period was auctioned for 16.5 million yuan.
The distance between the Kangxi years is only 300 years, and these two bronze Buddhas have a history of more than 1,400 years, and the shape is exquisite, referring to this market price, the value of these two gilded bronze Buddhas is at least hundreds of millions of yuan.
To protect cultural relics is to protect our history and protect our culture. If one day you dug up a treasure from your own vegetable patch, what would you do?