In 2017, the Hangzhou auction was crowded, and many guests were speculating about which collection would be the "trump card" of the auction. As a result, I did not expect to win the title of "ace" in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with a carved character "pan", the transaction price reached 185 million yuan, and the commission price reached 213 million yuan.
The Western Zhou Dynasty, which inherited the mystery of the Shang Dynasty and set a precedent for later generations of etiquette, its cultural relics are often of extraordinary value. This cultural relic, which resembles a "pan", can appear at the Hangzhou auction, and it has to start with a Chinese-American.
In 2010, an exhibition under the name of a private person was held in a foreign country. Coincidentally, this Chinese person was invited by a friend to visit the exhibition, and at a glance he found this "pan" that was originally in the corner of the exhibition, and when he looked closely, the inscription inside the pot was clearly ancient Chinese characters, and it was likely to be the pre-Qin and Han scripts. Seeing that no one was around, he hurriedly found the organizer of the exhibition and bought the cultural relic, that is, the "Xijia Plate", for only a few hundred dollars.
In 2017, this cultural relic appeared in the Xiling Spring Auction in Zhejiang, and the starting price actually started directly from 120 million yuan, saving two buyers in the competition after several competitions. First, someone outside the market quoted 170 million yuan by telephone commission, and then someone in the venue quoted 175 million yuan. A few minutes later, someone outside the venue "raised" 180 million yuan, but a person code-named "Principal Jiang" in the stadium raised a card for 185 million yuan and finally won the treasure.
So, what is so extraordinary about this national treasure that it can be sold at such a "sky-high price"?
Originally, this cultural relic is a Western Zhou heavy vessel Xijia plate that has been handed down for more than 2,000 years, with a height of about 11.7 centimeters and a diameter of 47 centimeters, and the bottom of the plate is engraved with an inscription totaling 133 words, recording the history of the eleventh monarch of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Xuan of Zhou, which is a precious historical material. The reason why it is named Xijia Plate is because its producer is Xi Jia (also known as Yin Jifu), who was a nengchen under King Xuan of Zhou at that time.
According to the "Book of Poetry And Xiao ya", this Yin Jifu was quite talented, and he could be called an all-rounder of literature and martial arts. At that time, the northern foxes (later the Xiongnu) repeatedly went south to invade the territory of Western Zhou. King Xuan of Zhou sent many people to guard the border, but the effect was extremely poor, so he had no choice but to let Yin Jifu take command and go out on the expedition.
Yin Jifu was probably indeed possessed by the God of War, and several times he went north, beating the foxes to the ground and maintaining the stability of the north. Not only that, Yin Jifu was also one of the compilers of the first poetry collection in the mainland, the Book of Poetry, and was called the "Ancestor of Chinese Poetry".
After the casting of the armor plate, it gradually disappeared from history with the turmoil of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the Xijia plate reappeared in the human world. At that time, the scholars of the Southern Song Dynasty were quite yearning for epigraphy, and this piece of armor was collected in the treasury of the Southern Song court. However, with the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty by the Yuan Dynasty, this piece of literature fell to the people.
Later, a Yuan Dynasty official named Li Shunfu saw a small vendor selling something on the street. He walked over to find this exquisite bronze and, under duress, bought the relic for only 5 taels of silver. Outrageously, Li Shunfu's family saw that it resembled a cake bell and actually broke the bottom foot on the plate and used it as a tool for baking cakes.
After that, Li Shunfu probably deliberately let the Yuan Dynasty Prime Minister Xian Yushu find this object and give it to the other party. Later, after the death of Xian Yushu, this cultural relic was circulated among many collectors, and finally completely disappeared from the vision of the Chinese people in the late Qing Dynasty and early Minchu.
It was not until a hundred years later that this cultural relic appeared overseas, and eventually returned to China in the form of auction, falling into the hands of private collectors. And why the mysterious Chinese were able to discern pearls and buy cultural relics worth more than 100 million yuan for only a few hundred dollars has also become a mystery that the archaeological community is talking about.