Sentence | Kibōharu
Edit | Xi Panqing
Preface
The history of China has lasted for 5,000 years, such as today's bright moon is still the bright moon of the year, but today's people can only peek into the corner of the life of the ancients through classic records or cultural relics.
Since decades ago, the concept of "protecting cultural relics" has gradually become the common sense of the Chinese people, and with the development of the times, it has become more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
However, in the thousands of years of Chinese history, there have been some cultural relics that can be called "treasures of the town", but their whereabouts are unknown for various reasons, and there has been no news so far, which may become a mystery that will never reveal the truth.
So what are the treasure-level cultural relics missing, and which of them can be ranked first in your mind?
The jade seal of the country
After Qin Shi Huang swept away the six kingdoms, unified the world, and established the first great unified dynasty in Chinese history, he considered himself "the three emperors of merit and the five emperors of virtue", so he called himself "emperor".
Now that the new dynasty has been established, the seal of the great king that previously belonged to the Qin State can no longer be used, and a new thing that symbolizes imperial power needs to be created to protect the peace of the Qin Dynasty for all generations.
This thing is the legendary "heirloom jade seal", and the person who was ordered to carve this heirloom jade seal was Li Si, the prime minister of the Qin Dynasty at that time.
After receiving the order of Qin Shi Huang, Li Si began to find someone to carve the jade seal, and there have always been two different theories about the materials used in the jade seal.
One is that the jade seal of the country is carved from the "Heshi Bi" of the Zhao Kingdom, and the other is the high-quality Lantian jade.
Since the shape of Heshi bi is not suitable for carving into a boxy jade seal, the argument that Lantian jade was used as a raw material is more convincing.
After the carving of the jade seal of the country is completed, the front is engraved with the small seal of the Qin Dynasty with the eight characters of "Ordered by the Heaven and Longevity Yongchang", symbolizing the supremacy of imperial power.
Since then, this heirloom jade seal has become a symbol of the "orthodoxy" of the Chinese emperor.
Starting from Qin Shi Huang, to Liu Bang, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, Emperor Cao of Wei, Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty, and other emperors of all dynasties, they have all become the owners of this heirloom jade seal.
But after the fall of the Tang Dynasty, between the endless wars of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, this heirloom jade seal traveled to many places, and its final whereabouts are unknown, and no one has found it so far.
It is said that the last person to get the jade seal of the country committed suicide by throwing himself into the river with the jade seal, perhaps this jade seal of the country is still sleeping at the bottom of a certain river, waiting for the day when the light will come.
Huaxia Jiuding
According to historical records, after Dayu took over the throne from Shun, he divided the world into nine states, and then ordered the state pastor in charge of these nine states to hand over the bronze, and recast the bronze into nine Dading, so as to represent the nine states in the world.
Since then, "Jiuding" has become the "artifact" of the three dynasties of the Xia Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty, and it is also a treasure of the country.
After Qin Shi Huang unified the world, all the Jiuding belonged to Qin Shi Huang, and the historical records of Jiuding have not been traced since the Qin Dynasty.
To this day, there is still no conclusion on the whereabouts of Huaxia Jiuding, whether official or non-governmental, but in the end, there are three statements that are more credible.
The first theory is that Jiuding is in the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, as the burial item of Qin Shi Huang, as long as the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is opened, Huaxia Jiuding can see the light of day again.
The second theory is that when Xiang Yu destroyed the Qin Dynasty, it was like a fire that burned down the Afang Palace, and all the Jiuding were destroyed.
There is also a theory that after the Zhou Dynasty and before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, Jiuding's whereabouts have long been unknown.
According to the Book of Han, it is said that King Qin Zhaoxiang found Jiuding in Luoyang and wanted to transport it back to Xianyang, but when passing through Surabaya, he accidentally dropped Jiuding to the bottom of the water.
The Surabaya mentioned here is very likely to be in Shandong in the present-day mainland, but it is doubtful that when returning from Luoyang to Xianyang, how could you pass through Shandong?
Fossilized Peking Man skull
About 100 years ago, in the Zhoukoudian area of Beijing, archaeologists excavated a 600,000-year-old ape-man skull, which is very well preserved.
Since then, the fossilized Peking Man skull has been stored in a U.S.-funded hospital for study by German scientists.
But not long after, the Japanese invasion of China broke out, and in order to protect the safety of the skull fossil, it was proposed to store it in a museum in New York, USA.
So under the protection of the U.S. military, the fossilized skull of Peking Man embarked on a journey from Beijing to New York.
But when they arrived in Qinhuangdao, the U.S. military was suddenly attacked by the Japanese army, and the staff carrying the skull fossils and the skull fossils became trophies of the Japanese army.
Since then, the whereabouts of the Peking Man skull fossil have been unknown, some say that the Japanese army discarded it as an "ordinary stone" and discarded it in the wilderness, while others say that the Japanese authorities hid it.
Yongle Grand Ceremony
After Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, ascended the throne with "Jingnan", in order to highlight the prestige of the Ming Dynasty, he decided to compile a masterpiece that was enough to "benefit all generations", that is, the "Yongle Canon".
The Yongle Canon brings together all the knowledge of the Ming Dynasty, similar to the modern "encyclopedia", including astronomy and geography, feng shui medicine, Tiangong science and technology, etc., which are the masterpieces of ancient Chinese classics.
The number of words in the book is as many as 370 million words, and more than 3,000 people participated in the compilation process.
The "Yongle Canon" completed during the Yongle period was the original, and when the Jiajing Emperor ascended the throne, he was worried that the original would be damaged, so he ordered someone to copy a new copy, that is, the Jiajing version of the "Yongle Canon".
In addition to these two copies, there is no other "Yongle Canon" in the world, and what is now in the world is the one that Emperor Jiajing ordered someone to copy, and a large number of its contents have been lost, and the original has long been missing.
There have always been two theories about the original whereabouts of the "Yongle Grand Canon", one is that after Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, he burned the "Yongle Grand Canon" clean, and the other is that it was originally used as a funeral object for the Yongle Emperor, and it is still in the Ming Emperor's mausoleum.
Orchid Pavilion Preface
For the "Orchid Pavilion Preface", everyone must be familiar with it, after all, there is "Orchid Pavilion Collection Preface" in the Chinese textbook, and "Orchid Pavilion Collection Preface" is the preface of "Orchid Pavilion Preface".
"Orchid Pavilion Preface" was written by Wang Xizhi, a calligrapher of the Eastern Jin Dynasty who enjoyed the reputation of "the first line of books in the world", and was the culmination of Wang Xi's travel book.
However, the "Orchid Pavilion Preface" written by Wang Xizhi has long been lost, and the "Orchid Pavilion Preface" that we can see today are all copies of Wang Xi's later generations of calligraphers.
As for the whereabouts of the original work of "Orchid Pavilion Preface", the academic community also has two different inferences.
First, Tang Taizong Li Shimin liked the authentic work of "Orchid Pavilion Preface" very much, so he ordered people to be buried in the mausoleum together after his death.
The second was also reduced to a funeral object, but the object was not Li Shimin, but the empress Wu Zetian.
epilogue
In addition to the whereabouts of these five cultural relics that can be called "treasures of the town", there are many precious cultural relics in China, which have also been heard from in the change of the times.
Especially after the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and other disasters, countless treasures belonging to China flowed overseas, some of which are missing, and some of which have become exhibits in museums of other countries, and may not be able to return home in this life.
The loss of these precious historical relics has become a pain that will never be erased in the hearts of every Chinese.