Collecting gold is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation, and we have been taught since childhood that what we pick up from others should be returned immediately, but for a long time, collecting gold is not a civic obligation stipulated by law, but as a social public morality, it does not force people to abide by it.
However, with the improvement of the mainland legal system and the strengthening of citizens' legal awareness, people often have controversies about "collecting gold without ignorance", whether it is necessary to use the law to force citizens to collect gold without ignorance, or to use morality to awaken the sense of justice in people's hearts?
However, the Civil Code of 1986 already stipulates that lost property found by others needs to be returned to the owner. Obviously, the collection of gold has been very implicitly included in the legal regulations, and not returning the lost property is equivalent to violating the law.
Although the state wants to use morality to restrain the behavior of citizens, the phenomenon of collecting gold without the support of the law will not be ideal. Nowadays, many experts and scholars are advocating that the consciousness of collecting gold be rooted in childhood and become a basic quality in everyone's bones, only in this way can this traditional virtue be better carried forward.
Image from the Internet: Drop a place of money
Today we come to see a story of gold collection, the protagonist of the story is a thirteen-year-old teenager, the time is the end of the sixties of the last century, this teenager picked up a very precious cultural relics while playing on the road, he handed in the cultural relics, got a reward of 20 yuan, the story temporarily ended.
But the strange thing is that 45 years after the incident, experts came to the original teenager because of the problem of cultural relics.
The picture comes from the Internet: the teenager picked up the cultural relics data map
1. Empress Yuxi
First of all, let's review in detail how the teenager picked up the cultural relics. One day in September 1968, a teenager named Kong Zhongliang in Shaanxi Province happened to be out of school, and while he was walking and playing, he suddenly found a small stone and wanted to kick the stone all the way home. Unexpectedly, he accidentally kicked crooked, and the small stone was kicked into the field.
Kong Zhongliang rushed over to pick it up, at the same time, he found that there was something on the side of the canal that shone particularly brightly in the sunlight, and his curiosity exploded as he walked forward to look. I didn't expect it to be a white seal with some words and animals engraved on it, but he didn't know any of those words, indicating that it must be something very old. This seal is very smooth, the cold touch is particularly good, Kong Zhongliang touched it and felt very comfortable, so he wiped it clean and stuffed it into the bag.
After returning home, Kong Zhongliang was very excited to take out the seal and show it to his father, and asked him to engrave his name by the way. The father picked up the seal and looked at it, instantly stunned, with decades of experience and experience, the father initially judged that this seal should be an old cultural relic, and the words engraved on it are also ancient.
Image: Screenshot of the words engraved on the seal
Suddenly, one day there was a cultural relics expert in the village, they were looking for cultural relics scattered in the folk on a large scale, the villagers took out the old objects in the family to the experts for identification, Kong Zhongliang's father Kong Xiangfa hurriedly wrapped the seals he found in cloth, and took his son to the Shaanxi Beilin Museum to find experts to identify the authenticity.
Along the way, Kong Xiangfa repeatedly stressed to his son that no matter when he picked up something, he must not take it for himself, but should find a way to return it to its original owner. Objects such as those resembling cultural relics should be immediately handed over to the State.
Kong Zhongliang had completely memorized his father's words in his heart, and he secretly swore that he would insist on the good quality of collecting gold. So the father and son gave the seal to the expert for identification, and the expert knew that it was extraordinary when he looked at the seal, carefully looked at the words on it, and judged that it was a seal, and the word engraved on it was "Queen's Seal".
The material of this jade seal is likely to be mutton fat jade, which can frighten the expert team, and more and more experts have rushed to identify this jade seal for a while.
Image: Screenshot of the Empress Yuxi's profile that was picked up
Second, the origin of the jade seal
After unremitting research and investigation by experts, according to the "Seal of the Empress" engraved on the seal and a tiger, it can be judged that this is the jade seal of the Western Han Dynasty. However, as soon as this news spread, it caused controversy in the historical circles, some scholars believed that this jade seal was not a thing of Lü Hou, and some scholars directly denied that the jade seal was true.
There are mainly the following reasons, first of all, at the beginning of Liu Bang's establishment of the Han Dynasty, the country was not completely stable, the people had not yet escaped from the water and fire of the late Qin period, and the skills in the craftsman industry at that time were not developed during this period, and this "Queen's Seal" was very exquisitely made, which tested the craftsman's technology, compared with the cultural relics unearthed in the early Han Dynasty, it should be almost impossible to carve such a exquisite jade seal in the early Han Dynasty.
In addition, through studying the jade seals of other dynasties, experts found that the craftsmanship and techniques of jade seals made during the Han Wudi period were very similar to this empress jade seal. Moreover, according to the traditional etiquette of the Han Dynasty, the imperial family often used imitation jade during sacrifices, so this jade seal may also be made during the Han Wu Emperor period, imitating the jade seal of Lü Hou during the Han Gaozu period.
Moreover, this jade seal was discovered in the 1960s, when the identification technology and level of experts were also limited, and it was not 100% certain that it was the seal of Lü Hou. But in any case, this jade seal comes from the Western Han Dynasty, which is beyond doubt, and this alone is already a priceless treasure.
Image: Screenshot of expert identification material
Certificates that are 45 years late
Back to the father and son who took the initiative to hand over the cultural relics, they were very happy after learning that the jade seal was genuine, and they were also proud and proud of a good thing they had done. However, the experts were busy studying the jade seal, and Kong Zhongliang and his father felt that it was inconvenient to disturb them, and they planned to quietly go home.
Just as they were leaving the museum, a staff member suddenly chased them out and asked if the father and son had any desired rewards. Kong Zhongliang, who was deeply taught by his father, sincerely told the staff: "It is everyone's responsibility to hand over and protect the country's cultural relics, and we should not take rewards." After listening to Kong Zhongliang's words, the staff was particularly moved, and forced 20 yuan to give Kong Zhongliang's father and son as a travel expense.
At first, the father and son pushed not to do it, but in the end they could not get enough of the staff and had to accept it. In this way, this empress jade seal became the treasure of the museum.
After 45 years, Kong Zhongliang is no longer the playful teenager he once was, he has become a hard-working, honest farmer and living a dull life. One day, as usual, he was working in the fields, when suddenly a group of people came, who said that they were experts in the museum, and this time they came to him and wanted to give him an award.
Image from the network: Kong Zhongliang
Kong Zhongliang was a little confused for a while, and after a while he remembered that he and his father had handed over cultural relics more than forty years ago, and suddenly realized. But this was all decades ago, how can I now remember to give the award.
It turned out that the Han Cultural Protection and Development Foundation in Shenzhou, Shaanxi Province, wanted to hold a commendation meeting, mainly to commend those who had contributed to the protection of cultural relics, and there happened to be a museum staff, which reminded me of the thirteen-year-old boy who took the initiative to hand in cultural relics.
In this way, Kong Zhongliang also became an invited guest of the commendation conference and received an honorary certificate. He never expected to receive such an honor, nor did he expect that more than forty years later he could still be remembered, even if his life was not rich now, he never regretted handing over that valuable treasure, Kong Zhongliang's spirit of collecting gold was worth learning from everyone.