An adventure in digging an aqueduct
The three brothers dug a canal and accidentally dug out a rusty broken vase containing 40 pounds of gold.
The unpretentious three brothers handed over all their gold to the state and received a state reward of 10,000 yuan.
When the expert arrived at their house and saw the broken gold, he wondered, "This is more valuable than gold." ”
What the hell is going on here?
Gold and vases dug out of the ground
The three brothers found in the vase are surnamed Wan and live in Nanyao Village, Mudian Township, a certain county in Jiangsu Province.
On February 11, 1982, on a cold winter morning, the Wanjia brothers followed the production team to work in a canal on the edge of the field. They found a large black fish swimming around in the canal. So everyone wanted to catch the fish, but they didn't know how to start. Because the old thirty thousand came a little late, the production team gave him the most difficult part to clean up.
Knowing where he was wrong, he ignored it, took a shovel in his hand, and began to clean up the sludge from the canal. "What are you doing here?" Ask all the questions. "I'm going to find someone to help." "Who's that?" You know what? It's my brother!" Say it all. His two older brothers were not far behind, and when they were done, they came to wani's aid.
At this time, the work was almost done, the boss Wanyi was about to look up, suddenly heard a crisp sound of "clicking" in the muddy water next to him, and the old man shouted: "Big brother, I dug something!" ”
"Whoops, whoops, whoops, whoops, Wan Yixue said, "This is a clay pot found in the village called Lijiashan near our village, and there are some dirt and weeds in it." They put the clay pot on the ground and looked at it: Ah! It turned out to be a bottle! The three brothers continued their digging and soon found a dirty vase about two feet deep.
The silt had not yet been cleared, and the three brothers could already see the gleaming gold in the container.
By this time, the rest of the production team had gathered, some squatting down to take it, and some were already discussing equal division.
The three brothers hurriedly stopped them, and at the same time quickly collected the silt container and the gold inside, and with great effort, finally brought home what they had dug up.
As soon as you get home, if you lock the door first, take out the scale at home, the three elders and four together begin to clean up the mud on the scale, put the weight on the scale, or even 40 jacks!
The three brothers looked at the golden gold and felt a dizziness. They divided the gold into the hands of three men, with the eldest holding one and the second and third elders one each. The boss said, "I want you to split it in half." The second elder said: No, we want to divide equally. At this time, the whole family got together, and the daughter-in-law of the third elder nervously touched the gold and suggested that the three mouths be divided equally, because the thing was found by the third elder, so the vase belonged to the third elder.
But the three brothers brought the gold home, not for personal gain.
They are not very literate, but it is not easy for them to see gold. The gold came from the United States, from Mexico, but also from other countries, and it came from museums and private collections around the world. Gold is shaped into different shapes, some like a golden cake, some like a horseshoe, and some look more complex.
In particular, the first thing that was discovered, which looked like the lid of a vessel, was washed away by the three brothers and found to be a "golden leopard" that was sitting on its hips, staring at them, weighing 9 kilograms alone.
The three brothers didn't want to get in trouble, but feared they were precious artifacts that would wreak havoc on the country, so they brought them all back. They gave them to an old man named Ma in the area, asked him to keep them, and told him to take good care of them. However, Uncle Ma did not think so, he said: I know you are here, just rest assured! Listening to their words, the daughter-in-law of the old third family realized that her words were very inappropriate and immediately felt ashamed.
The people of the three brothers of the Wan family thought of the hot eyes of the villagers around them when they brought their things back, and they knew that they must hand over the gold to someone who could protect them as soon as possible.
The three brothers discussed for a while, and finally decided to put the gold and the container in a box, the boss and his family sat on the box to guard the door, the fourth man took the shovel from the house, and the third man wrapped two pieces of gold in newspaper and took them out of his arms.
By then, people said his family was digging for gold, and wherever he went, he would receive a salute of attention, and people would shout at him to see what it was like. The third was very happy and felt that this was a good opportunity. So he told his father what he thought. After the father listened, he said to the second brother, "You go and ask them to see if it is true!" The second said no! He didn't want to answer, so the men followed him closely.
The township government is holding a meeting and there are a lot of people sitting there. Suddenly, a peasant named "Lao San" stood up and shouted, "I have come to participate in the election of the township people's congress deputies!" "There was a burst of applause in the venue." What kind of cadre is the third elder? As soon as he saw the secretary on the podium, he ran to the secretary until he openly tucked the gold in his hand, and he relaxed and found himself sweating.
He had thought that with the intervention of the government, the three brothers would do so, but this was only the beginning.
Vases are valuable
With the help of the town secretary, the two pieces of gold carried by wanjia Laosan were identified by the county bank, and the authentic pure gold was 99.9%.
The bank governor who participated in the appraisal asked curiously where the gold came from, and when he learned that the gold was still 40 pounds in the Wan family, he was shocked and fidgeted.
Police vehicles full of government workers and government workers were sent to safely remove gold from Wan's home for identification. However, during the drive, unexpected things happened: the car fell into the pond, and the people in the car were drowned, and only Wanbao was safe; while the residents of Wanbao Town were all killed in a fire. When they arrived at Wanjia, the front door of The Wan's house was crowded by nearby villagers, who climbed onto the pigsty and haystacks.
When I asked, I found that not only the villagers, but also people from nearby villages had also come to participate. They said they were going to dig up a piece of gold in the village. But who knows how big this piece of gold really is? Some people say that this piece of gold can sell for thousands of yuan; others say that it can be worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands! They all wanted to see the gold, and if it weren't for the Wanjia brothers desperately trying to protect them, plus the police came with guns and ammunition, they didn't know what would have happened.
Archaeologists were already excited to hear about the horseshoe and the toe-like discovery. But instead of discovering it, they brought it home and gave it to Grandpa and Grandma. Grandpa told them, "I found this in the wild. When they arrived at Wan's house, they learned from the three brothers the history of discovering gold and the existence of this dirty vase.
The three brothers brought the copper pot over, and when the experts saw it, they found that it was a bronze vessel, 24 centimeters high and 12.8 centimeters in diameter, and the pattern on the shoulder straps of four standing beast-shaped vertical vertical ring ears was a mismatched gold cloud pattern.
This bronze container looks ordinary at first glance, but the overall appearance is magnificent and magnificent, the decoration is complex, and it has a rustic and atmospheric aesthetic
At first, the Wanjia brothers thought it was an ordinary container of gold and didn't pay much attention to it. However, by chance, they discovered that there were many hidden secrets behind it — a mysterious and ancient bronze cellar containing hundreds of exquisite bronzes. To their surprise, when the experts saw this inconspicuous bronze, they were even more excited and shocked than the gold they had just seen, and repeatedly said: "This is priceless!"
Originally, the bronze ware was also engraved with an inscription, and the pot with the inscription volume indicates that the pot was a product of the Yan in the Warring States period, and the pot circle full of 29 characters was the language of the Qi state at that time. After the excavation of this artifact, it has attracted the attention of many people, some people think that this is a bronze ware from the late Western Zhou Dynasty, some people think it is an artifact from the early Warring States period, and some people say that it was cast by the Chu State in the Spring and Autumn Period. There is still no conclusion. This immediately reminded archaeologists of the Chen Zhang square pot taken from China during the Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of China.
The copper pot of Chen Zhang's square pot is now in the American Museum, and after comparison, experts can be sure that the two bronze pots have the same text, which is a record of the Qi War.
The Wanjia brothers had not yet read this book, and they did not know what was so special about this pot. So he asked a man named Wanquan, "How did this pot come about?" Wan Quan replied, "It was fired from the time of King Qi Wei." Subsequently, the experts patiently explained the battle process of qi guo and yan.
national treasure?
Legend has it that in 314 BC, in the State of Qi, the famous Tian Ji once again came to power. In order to expand his power, he came up with an idea of "borrowing corpses to return the soul": let Qi Huangong go to destroy Yan, and then kill Yan Wangjian. It backfired. In this case, the State of Qi launched a war against the State of Yan and captured the capital of the State of Yan in one fell swoop.
The Qi general Chen Zhang at that time took the national treasure of the Yan state from Yandu, that is, two bronze containers. In later historical developments, these bronzes were rediscovered and exploited. The most important of these is the "Qi Five Baht Coin", which was unearthed in Linzi, Shandong province in the late Spring and Autumn Period, which is a special currency. It is engraved with text. They are exquisitely crafted and represent the highest level of craftsmanship in the pre-Qin period.
At that time, this container did not have a name, and the posterity was called "Chen Zhang square pot", and the round pot was called "Chen Zhang round pot", and these two containers were combined with the national treasures of Yan Country.
Unfortunately, thousands of years later, round pots once again appeared worldwide, but the pairing of square pots with round pots eventually appeared in a foreign country.
The people of that era liked to engrave inscriptions on the surrounding ships to reflect important historical events, so the inscriptions handed down from that era had an indescribable historical value in addition to their own, which was incomparable to that of gold.
The Wanjia brothers finally understood how priceless they had inadvertently discovered, and they did not hesitate to give it away, which made them even more grateful.
After examining Chen Zhang's round pot, archaeologists still had some doubts. How was this quaint pottery discovered and discovered? Is it an ordinary clay pot? With these questions in mind, we came to the Yin Ruins Museum in Anyang, Henan. Since it looks like a matching artifact pot, the site of the artifact is located and investigated under the guidance of the Wanjia Brothers on the ground.
After a period of excavation, archaeologists did achieve some results. The most important of these is the further knowledge and understanding of a special phenomenon that appeared in the excavated bronzes, the "plum pattern". But is this "plum pattern" a decorative pattern? The answer doesn't seem clear. They found copper pot brackets on the floor of Chen Zhang's round pot, and then found plum ornaments that had fallen from the pot due to their age, but that was all.
Experts speculate that this Chen Zhang round pot appeared in Xuyi, it is possible that the Yan State later united with other countries to counterattack, the jar fell into the hands of the people of the Chu State, filled with gold, buried in the ground in the form of a cellar, until it was dug out by the Wanjia brothers shovel.
The Chen Zhang brothers donated Chen Zhang's clay pots and gold to the Nanjing Museum, and the state gave the Chen Zhang brothers 10,000 yuan as a reward. The incident caused a great reaction in Nanjing, because it was the first person in Jiangsu Province to publish this discovery. Chen Lao'er was a very literate young man, and the news he got from his father soon reached his home. At that time, this was a lot of money, the eldest and the fourth each took 2500 yuan, and the remaining 5000 yuan was given to the real discoverer- the discoverer old third.
They used the money to build a new house and improve their lives, but many locals were jealous of them, knocking on their doors and demanding that they hand over gold or bonuses. In this process, they have encountered many difficulties, and they have also thought about the fate of their own families. But in the end, it was accepted by the local people and the local government, and received a certain degree of compensation. What's going on? Fortunately, with the help of the government, their plan did not succeed.
The living conditions of the third brother improved, but the situation in the village became very bad, and there were people everywhere who envied them, making the life of the third brother very difficult, and their whole family was isolated in the village.
Image source: Wan Yicai
The eldest son, Wan Yicai, recalled that the village was still co-produced and paid, but in order to retaliate against them, the jealous people deliberately did not take away the food they grew, so that Wan Yicai's work could not continue, and he had to resign from his original position in the team.
This is not all, these people have no money, everywhere are saying bad things about the Wanjia brothers, saying that the copper pot they dug out is also the local aura, which makes the whole family ignore, the old three families and then the fourth moved away, only the old man takes care of the old man, silently endure everything.
The new house, which was originally built with bonuses, is now dilapidated, but the largest royal family remains loyal to its roots, and no matter how tired he is, he will not disturb the government.
To this day, Chen Zhang's round pot is still the place where Xuyi was found in the Nanjing Museum, and Xuyi set up a model sculpture of Chen Zhang's round pot, silently telling the world that this is the memory of "the land of national treasures".