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In Daijie Village, a remote village behind the hustle and bustle of Shangzhou District, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, it is like a secret treasure house buried under the loess, standing quietly on this vast land, waiting for the world to explore and discover.
Astonishing archaeological research has revealed that the site was once the site of an ancient Neolithic city full of mystery, nestled on the banks of the rippling Danjiang River, as if it had traveled through thousands of years of time and space, and still stands.
In this seemingly ordinary village, there are countless ancient cultural relics and treasures that have been baptized by the vicissitudes of time. The more than 70 families here are like a group of loyal guardians, who not only inherit the hard and simple lifestyle of their ancestors, but also provide a safe haven for these precious cultural relics.
Every year, there are always some wandering antique dealers who come here with the dream of making a fortune and are eager to buy those priceless antiques from the villagers. For them, Daijie Village is like an untapped gold mine, ready to unearth new riches.
However, for the villagers, selling some idle cultural relics is also a way to relieve the financial pressure on their families.
These precious treasures have been passed down from generation to generation, lying quietly under the soil, waiting for the day to come, as if telling a distant history, a glorious past belonging to the ancestors, like an ancient and mysterious mirror, revealing the way to the past.
In the ordinary small village of Daijie Village, there lives an old farmer named Li Chaozhu. He, like other villagers, lived a simple and unpretentious life.
As a hard-working farmer all his life, Li Chaozhu has sweated in the fields since his youth, exchanging his hands for a meager income to make ends meet. However, agricultural income is often difficult to meet daily needs, and harvest years are uncommon, making a stable source of income a luxury.
Poverty was like a big invisible hand, always holding him tightly by the throat, making it impossible for him to breathe.
However, despite the hardships of life, Li Chaozhu is an honest and trustworthy person. He never coveted other people's possessions, and he was content to live his life in peace.
Early one morning in April 2010, Li Chaozhu toiled in his small backyard as usual. With a worn-out shovel in hand, he carefully rummaged through the dirt, hoping to complete the heavy farm work as quickly as possible.
The warm sunlight gently shone on his back, bringing a touch of softness and warmth. However, at this moment, the shovel in Li Chaozhu's hand suddenly slammed into some extremely hard object, and in an instant, a dull loud sound echoed in the air.
"Oh, what the hell is this?" he frowned in confusion, carefully brushing away the dirt around him, trying to find out.
As time passed, a strangely shaped metal object covered in rough scratches gradually revealed its true face. Li Chaozhu stretched out his hand to touch it, only to feel that the surface of this thing was mottled, as if it had gone through a long time of wind and frost.
"What a strange thing, what a mysterious thing is this?" the fire of curiosity burned in his heart, and he did not hesitate to pull the entire metal object out of the soil.
When this mysterious metal object was completely displayed in the sunlight, Li Chaozhu couldn't help but be amazed -- it turned out to be a rare treasure weighing 20 catties! This was undoubtedly a shocking discovery.
The surface of these arrows is mottled, and the green patina has formed a thick layer on its surface. Li Chaozhu carefully picked them up one by one, carefully counted them, and found that the number was as high as more than 30! Judging from the production process of these arrowheads, their history can be traced back to the distant past.
The news that Li Chaozhu accidentally unearthed an "iron lump" and a large number of copper arrowheads in the backyard of his home quickly spread in Daijie Village. As a major discovery of underground cultural relics, this has undoubtedly attracted great attention from the local cultural relics management department.
Soon after, several staff members from the Shangzhou District Cultural Relics Management Office visited the door, and they conducted a meticulous appraisal of the strange artifacts that Li Chaozhu had picked up.
"This artifact is of great archaeological value, as it bears witness to the development of our ancestors' agricultural civilization. "According to the relevant provisions of the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics, all cultural relics unearthed underground, regardless of the old or new age, belong to the state. ”
Hearing this, Li Chaozhu's face suddenly turned pale. As a simple farmer, he is well aware of the importance that the state attaches to the protection of cultural relics. However, when he saw with his own eyes that the precious cultural relics he had excavated were to be handed over to the state free of charge, he would inevitably feel a trace of reluctance and helplessness in his heart.
Faced with the request to hand over the cultural relics, he shook his head firmly and refused.
In view of the predicament faced by the staff of the Cultural Management Office, they did not hesitate to resort to the last "killer move" -- that is, to provide a one-time reward of up to 5,000 yuan! For a family like Li Chaozhu from an ordinary peasant family, this is undoubtedly an eye-catching asset.
These staff members were convinced that using such a generous bonus as bait would definitely touch Li Chaozhu's inner desire. However, paradoxically, surprisingly, Li Chaozhu still held his ground, tough as steel, and showed no signs of giving in.
He made it clear that "these objects were excavated by my own hands, and they should belong to me personally".
In the face of Li Chaozhu's strong protest and insistence, the staff fell into an embarrassing situation and had nothing to do. In the end, they could only respect the old man's decision, scrupulously follow his wishes, did not take any items with them, and left quietly.
Li Chaozhu, on the other hand, carefully collected these precious artifacts without considering selling them or handing them over to the state. In fact, in Daijie Village, residents like Li Chaozhu who value the cultural relics they have in their homes abound.
In this ancient village, which has a history of thousands of years, cultural relics have been deeply integrated into the daily lives of the villagers.
The Zhang family has a time-honored clay jar with intricate floral motifs, the Li family has a bronze mirror with traces of age, said to have been excavated from an ancient tomb, and the Wang family's rough small bowl, although it is difficult to determine its exact date due to its age, still cannot hide its unique use.
These seemingly ordinary old daily necessities may be insignificant in the eyes of outsiders, but for local villagers, they are treasures of family inheritance and precious heritage passed down from generation to generation.
Each item embodies the hard work and wisdom of the ancestors, and also carries a long and far-reaching historical memory.
It is precisely because of the extreme value of this "family treasure" that the villagers always take good care of the cultural relics at home and will never easily reveal half a word to others. Even when they are occasionally discovered by outsiders, they often remain silent and never mention it.
They are afraid that these treasures will be targeted by foreign antiquities dealers, and they will end up in a foreign land.
A family was once exposed for their possession of priceless Song Dynasty blue and white porcelain vases, only to be deceived by a group of antiquities dealers for a long time, and finally forced to sell the vase at a low price.
From that moment on, the residents of Daijie Village became more cautious about the cultural relics they had in their homes as if they were their lives! If one day, when the news of the rare cultural relics in their homes was revealed, they would often resolutely deny them or subtly divert their attention.
There are even some scheming people who deliberately make precious cultural relics filthy, dilapidated and stale in order to conceal their true value, and they have an almost obsessive attachment to these external treasures, and even the authority of the country's laws cannot shake their firm protection of "family treasures".