Author: Smoke is cold as rain
Cultural relics are relics or relics left by human beings in social activities, and future generations can learn what happened thousands of years ago in the land where they live today through the cultural relics that are preserved now, perceive the past, better understand themselves, and is a very important cultural heritage.
However, as a true carrier of the long historical years, the preservation and inheritance of cultural relics is not an easy task.
Due to the changes of the times and various reasons, there are many cultural relics that have not been properly preserved.
There are also some cultural relics that have been handed down in various bizarre identities, such as the only one in the world, the White Disk of the Season, which is the treasure of the National Museum, and even the first cultural relics that were included in the mainland's forbidden to go abroad (border) exhibitions, which were preserved as feeding mangers.
The only three remaining pieces of Jingdezhen kiln sprinkled with blue glazed bowls in the capital museum were used to feed chickens before their value was discovered, which is really laughable.
Similar to the fate of these national treasures, there is a cultural relic that is used as a "washboard" in Wenling, Zhejiang, although it is not a particularly rare national treasure, but for the locals, this cultural relic is also a precious proof of local history and culture.
There is a small mountain village called Sanfang Village in Wenling Township, Zhejiang Province, and when the local government was about to fill in the pond outside the village, a villager noticed that there were some handwriting on a large stone slab next to the pond.
He thought that this stone slab might have some origin, so he brought it back to the village, which attracted many villagers to come and watch curiously.
Just as everyone was speculating about the origin of the stone slab, an old man from the village who heard the news recognized the stone slab.
It was carried down from a nearby hill in the 1950s to build a water conservancy project in the village, but because it was found to have some writing on it, it is considered to be a tombstone of an ancient tomb under unknown circumstances.
The villagers felt that the tombstones were not very auspicious, so they placed large stone slabs on the edge of the pond not far from the village.
The carved handwriting on the stone slab gives the surface a groove, like a handy "washboard", and over time, the villagers who come to the pond to wash their clothes do not shy away from its coming, and have been using it to rub their clothes for forty or fifty years.
The fate of this large stone slab is quite bumpy, after being moved down from the mountain, it has been used as a washboard for many years, and this time because the pond was filled, it once again attracted the attention of everyone.
However, because the villagers did not realize the value of this stone slab, this time the large stone slab still failed to end its many years of "wandering" career.
Because of its boxy appearance and no damage, it was removed from the pond and used as a paving stone.
In this way, the "washboard" has become a "paving stone" to continue to serve the villagers.
It wasn't until an inscribed stone tablet in the next village was discovered and identified by experts as a cultural relic, that the villagers of Sanfang Village remembered this equally old stone slab, and perhaps also a valuable cultural relic.
With the word "washboard", it was unexpectedly found to be a holy monument
After they found someone to dig out the large stone slab, they carefully identified the handwriting on it.
Although many of them have been worn out or unrecognizable, after careful inspection, everyone saw the big characters of "Fengtian Carrier", and also saw the fall of "Guangxu", and this stone slab is indeed an antiquity.
So Lin Juming, who was the village director at the time, quickly contacted the town government and invited experts from the Wenling City Cultural Security Center to personally identify.
After careful investigation, experts identified it as a sacred decree issued during the Guangxu years, the content of which was that the Guangxu Emperor praised a royal cook named Lin Xiu in Wenling and awarded the holy will as a reward.
In ancient China, the Holy Will was a tool used by ancient Chinese emperors to give orders or speak, and was a symbol of imperial power.
In order to show the dignity of the imperial power and to prevent it from being easily forged, the production of the Holy Will is very elaborate.
The Sacred Will itself is a brocade product made of fine silk, and depending on the level of the recipient, the shaft handle of the Sacred Will will also have strict differences.
During the Qing Dynasty, the first product was issued as a jade shaft, the second product was a black rhino horn shaft, the third product was a gold shaft, and the fourth and fifth products were black bull horn shafts.
Most of the holy wills of officials above the five pins are five colors, and the following five pins are pure white aya, and the patterns are mostly auspicious clouds and cranes.
In order not to be easy to forge, in addition to the production materials, they are exquisite in terms of patterns and layouts.
Taking the Qing Dynasty Holy Will as an example, there are silver dragons flying at both ends as anti-counterfeiting, and the silk cloth itself must be printed with a xiangyun pattern, and the first word at the beginning must be on the auspicious cloud in the upper right corner.
It was only during the Guangxu period, due to the decline of the imperial government, that the holy will that should have been a gorgeous brocade was replaced by a rough linen cloth.
It is also because of the material problem of the Holy Will, it is not easy to preserve itself, so with the passage of time, many Holy Wills are difficult to trace.
Therefore, it is speculated that the stone stele of Sanfang Village was exactly the person who received the will at that time in order to show respect for the emperor and better preserve the glory, and arranged for someone to carve the holy will on the stone stele, so it has been preserved to this day.
This stone stele is 80 cm long, 70 cm wide and 5 cm thick, with inscriptions on one side and reliefs of 'lion sword' on the other side, after experts rubbed out the inscription.
After research by Jiang Wenhui, a researcher of literature and history at the Party and Government Office of the Zhenheng Town Government, it was found that its content was "a typical 'edict inscription', commonly known as 'Enronglu'.
"Enronglu", usually because of some outstanding performance of a person, was praised by the emperor or local officials, in order to disclose this merit, will write a letter of thanks or congratulatory telegram to the person's family to express praise for himself.
This kind of content usually has a conventional writing format, which is what we commonly call the cliché, "there is no need for the emperor to personally write, just need to modify the name and title inside, the other words are universal, after writing, the emperor Zhu Pen issued, the letter of commendation was sent out," Jiang Wenhui said.
In this kind of holy decree, in addition to praising himself, he also praises his family, to the effect that he is grateful for their good teaching.
This was a high honor for the family at that time, showing the noble status of the family, and usually the holy will would be enshrined, which was the proof of the glory of the ancestors.
The content of this stone stele in Sanfang Village shows that this sacred decree praises a royal cook named Lin Xiu, as well as his grandfather Lin Pu and his grandmother Chen Shi.
According to the contents of the inscription, this Lin Xiu was not an ordinary imperial cook, but a senior chef of the Guanglu Temple Department, the state logistics department at that time, who was not responsible for daily meals, but was a chef who only shot at important occasions in the imperial dining room at that time, such as state banquets, official dinners, and palace sacrifices.
Since this kind of praise-natured holy decree is usually full of official clichés of praise, the specifics of what lin xiu did to get such a commendation are not detailed from the inscription, and it can only be speculated that this lin xiu's banquet was well completed and praised.
This stone stele has been identified as genuine by experts, and from the content point of view, the chef-turned-Lin Xiuguan is from Wupin, but there are some things on this stone stele that do not conform to the convention.
In ancient times, the auspicious patterns corresponding to different official ranks were different, from high to low, they were crane and lion brocade, unicorn and red tail tiger brocade, Ruihe brocade, Seocho brocade, and sunflower brocade.
The lions that appear on the stone tablets should generally be erpin members, which is a transgression of great disrespect.
However, combined with the date of the inscription 'Guangxu Twenty-fourth Year pick up the sixth day of the first month of January', this question is also reasonable.
The payment was made on December 18, 1898, three months after the coup d'état.
At that time, the Guangxu Emperor had actually been imprisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi, and the imperial court was already in chaos, and such a holy decree was only issued by Empress Dowager Cixi, who was listening to the government at that time, in order to whitewash the peaceful atmosphere of the imperial court, with the purpose of stabilizing the situation and buying people's hearts.
However, for Wenling, which was far away from the capital city, this holy will still had considerable weight.
When the recipients let people carve the holy will, they did not know whether it was to deliberately show off, or did not understand the rules that the pattern could not be used casually, in order to highlight that there were people in their homes who were officials in the capital, they let people carve a lion pattern on the stone tablet that did not belong to Lin Xiu, a wupin official.
He probably thought that the stele would bring a hint of deterrence to this remote mountain village, and such an act was understandable at the time.
Regrettably, from Wenling City to Zhenheng Town and Sanfang Village, there is no relevant record of Lin Xiu as a person.
Although the Surname of Lin is a large household in Sanfang Village, and there are still many villagers surnamed Lin, no one of the genealogy or the older generation has ever mentioned this person, so the origin of the stone stele and Lin Xiuqi's affairs are unknown.
From the perspective of the value of the Holy Will, from the perspective of the Holy Will itself, it varies according to its age and content, ranging from a few thousand yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan.
The older the holy will, the higher the value, and the greater the historical event involved in the content of the holy will, the higher its value.
The sacred will of this stone stele found in Sanfang Village is no longer the original purpose, and the cultural relics value from the content itself to the age is not very high, but this is the first stone stele sacred will in wenling area, which is still of great significance to local historical research.
And for Sanfang Village, although lin xiu has not been verified, this stone stele was indeed unearthed in Sanfang Village, indicating that there have been more outstanding people in local history, which is also an inspiration for future generations.
The local Wenling Museum has been built, the museum displays a lot of cultural relics and materials reflecting the history of Wenling, the museum hopes to collect more scattered cultural relics returned to the municipal museum for permanent collection, preservation and display.
After learning of the sacred will of this stone stele in Sanfang Village, he said that he wanted to collect this stone stele into the museum, but at present, the villagers of Sanfang Village temporarily left it in the village, hoping to let the villagers, especially the descendants of lin surname, come to see it, so as to play a role in motivating future generations.