In the last years of Daoguang (some say 1843), Dong Chunsheng, a villager in Dongjia Village, Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, dug up a bronze tripod in the ground west of the village. It spread for a while. An antique dealer who got the news immediately rushed to the scene. After he saw the dense ancient characters in the ding, he felt that it was a rare treasure, and without hesitation, he bought it for 300 taels of silver. When the merchant transported Baoding to the south of the village, he was stopped by another villager, Dong Zhiguan. Dong Zhiguan said that the place where this treasure tripod was unearthed was the place where he and Dong Chunsheng's two families intersected, and this tripod should be shared by the two families. The antique dealer paid the silver, but he failed to take Ding away, and was beaten by Dong Zhiguan's father and son, and was angry and sued by the county yamen. The antique dealer bribed the magistrate with a large amount of money, and as a result, Dong Zhiguan was imprisoned. Baoding was transported away by an antique dealer, and a few years later, it was resold to the antique dealer Su Yinian brothers.
The so-called "ding" is a three-legged and two-eared ancient utensils for cooking food. In ancient times, Ding was not just a utensil, but a very sacred utensil. It represents the power and honor of the state. It has a very important position. It is an important ritual on various important occasions.
The general tripod has no words, or only very few words, but this tripod is very different, the inner wall of the tripod is engraved with dense words, these words no one knows. It is also because of the special that as soon as it is unearthed, it is covered with a layer of legend.
Inscription on the tripod
Su Yinian and his brother Su Zhaonian are from Xi'an and run an antique shop in the capital Liuli Factory. When the two got this tripod, they naturally wanted to make a fortune.
Fortunately, they found a good buyer for Mao Gongding, Chen Jieqi, who was not only a collector of gold and stones, but also a university scholar.
Chen Jieqi has been working in the Hanlin Academy since he became a sergeant. He is a very learned official and loves to collect. As soon as he saw Mao Gongding, he couldn't put it down, and he took Mao Gongding into his home for three years. Soon he personally transported Mao Gongding back to his hometown of Weixian County, Shandong Province (now Weifang City), and since then he has stayed away from officialdom and devoted himself to studying.
Chen Jieqi carefully rubbed the inscription of Mao Gongding, carefully studied it, changed the manuscript several times, and interpreted most of the words in the inscription. Taking this as a starting point, later scholars have continued to interpret Mao Gongding's inscription for more than 170 years, and only a few words have not reached a consensus.
In this nearly 500-word inscription, the history of King Xuanwang Zhongxing of the Western Zhou Dynasty is presented to people. Because of this, after Mao Gongding's inscription rubbings and interpretations flowed out of Chen Jieqi's hands, they immediately attracted the attention of the cultural and museum circles.
After Chen Jieqi's research, I knew that this gave Ding Da a history: this Ding was a bronze made by Mao Gong in the late Western Zhou Dynasty. Duke Mao was an important minister of King Xuan of Zhou. According to the generation, Mao Gong is the uncle of King Xuan of Zhou. Soon after King Xuan ascended the throne, Mao Gong came to the capital to meet the Son of Heaven. The uncle and nephew interviewed for a long time, and after returning to the feudal country, Mao Gong was full of ambition and ordered the casting of this bronze tripod, and carved dense inscriptions in the tripod to record the agreement between the new emperor and himself. This is because the inscription (the text engraved on the inside of the ding) is the longest, and it bears the name of "national treasure". Because it was made by Mao Gong, it was named Mao Gongding.
Mao Gongding is a bronze, and its value greatly exceeds that of ordinary bronzes. Not only is it very old, more than 3,000 years old, but more importantly, it has the value of historical documents. Because of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the historical materials handed down from generation to generation were very scarce, and there were only 19 "Book of Zhou" in the main historical document "Shangshu". In contrast, the nearly 500-word Mao Gongding inscription, as first-hand information, truly witnesses the short-lived Xuanwang Zhongxing of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which can be described as the "Western Zhou Dynasty Letter History" that is "worthy of a "Book of Shang". Its historical value is naturally important.
In addition to its historical value, the Mao Gongding inscription is also regarded as the authentic seal inscription of the Zhou Dynasty in terms of calligraphy and a treasure of the golden inscription.
There are also people who don't believe in Mao Gongding, thinking that it is a fake, which is mainly Zhang Zhidong, a big bureaucrat in the late Qing Dynasty, but he is not an expert, since he put this cannon, there are more and more people who study Mao Gongding, and after some debate, Mao Gongding's life experience is becoming clearer and clearer.
In this way, Mao Gongding has been recognized by the world and has become a recognized rare treasure.