This timeless treasure has always been surrounded by mystery. It was once regarded as the treasure of the town by Qin Shi Huang, and then it has been lost and resurfaced several times. Eventually, it sank with the ship in a storm at sea and was left at the bottom of the unfathomable sea. This symbol of power and wealth, once coveted by countless people, has now disappeared into the ocean, which makes people sigh. Where did it come from? Why is it so ill-fated that it always goes round and round? More importantly, where does it sleep now, and is there any chance that it will be rediscovered?
1. The mysterious origin of King Qin's bone mirror
It is said that after Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries, his subordinates fought victories and won the treasures of countless countries. Among them is a strange mirror made of bronze, which the world calls "the bone mirror of the King of Qin".
Legend has it that this mirror is extraordinary, in addition to reflecting the faces of the characters truthfully, it can also see the bone meridians in the human body at a glance. It was created by the top swordsmith of the Qin Kingdom, using a unique copper smelting process, and adding various secret methods and strange methods in the mirror-making process, giving it divine abilities.
At that time, the warlocks firmly believed that this mirror contained the power of yin and yang of nature, and it was a treasure book of the heavens to favor the Qin State. Once it is properly stored in the palace, it can assist the Qin Emperor to rule the world and enjoy the peace of the country and the people forever.
The advent of the Qin King's Bone Mirror undoubtedly brought the power of the Qin Dynasty to an unprecedented peak. Qin Shi Huang held this magic mirror-like treasure in his hand, and his prestige was growing among the government and the opposition, and almost no one could hide the slightest secret in front of him. Because of this, he leaned towards the government and the opposition, showing the domineering posture of the king both internally and externally.
2. It is a difficult journey through the long river of history
Since the advent of the Qin King Bone Mirror, it has been regarded by Qin Shi Huang as an important weapon for the town. At the beginning of the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, there were remnants of forces outside, and there were anti-thief conspiracies hidden inside, and the situation was critical. Qin Shi Huang understood that in order to consolidate the rule of the new dynasty, it was not enough to rely on force alone, but also needed the assistance of magic weapons to suppress yin and yang.
As a result, King Qin's bone mirror showed his skills. It is housed exclusively in the Imperial Palace's Vault and is guarded by the country's highest sorcerers. Whenever the situation in the government and the opposition changed, the King of Qin ordered someone to take out this mirror, and use its divine power to gain insight into the hidden situation and cut off the major trouble.
On one occasion, Qin Shi Huang was assassinated by an Assassin while touring the Northwest Frontier, but fortunately, his guards reacted quickly and captured the Assassin. The King of Qin attached great importance to this matter and immediately ordered him to return to the capital and use a bone mirror to examine the Yin and Yang veins of the Assassins. Sure enough, the bone mirror reflected a dark black gas, lingering in the assassin's marrow.
After the interpretation of the national teacher, this black qi was caused by the mana of the Great Reverse Formation. There is a group of heretics in the Northwest who are plotting a rebellion, and the Assassin is just a pawn of them. When the king of Qin learned of this, he was furious, and immediately mobilized heavy troops, together with various princes, to expedition to the northwest, exterminated the heresy, and relieved the scourge of the Yin and Yang chaos.
Although King Qin's bone mirror is extraordinary, it cannot escape the vicissitudes of life, and it has been lost several times. Soon after the Qin Dynasty took over, Qin II launched a devastating campaign to burn books and pit Confucianism, and many national treasures were also destroyed in this catastrophe. It was not until the establishment of the Han Dynasty that the traces of the bone mirror were rediscovered.
However, at that time, the ossuoscope was broken, and the mirror was full of cracks, and its power was greatly reduced. Later, during the period of Wang Mang's new dynasty, some people repaired it and regained its sharpness. It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, and the eunuchs in the late Eastern Han Dynasty were tyrannical and lost again.
After the change of dynasties, the bone mirror always appeared from time to time, sometimes reduced to the plaything of the powerful, sometimes became the important weapon of the country, and its magical power was admired by the world, but it was also coveted. However, on the whole, the whereabouts of this mirror have always been a fog, and it is only in modern times that it has gradually surfaced.
In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, after a group of overseas students returned to China, they suddenly found that the ossuoscope had appeared in the Indian subcontinent. After investigation, it turned out that during the Kangxi period, a group of Muslim merchants spread it to the Arabian Peninsula and then to India.
A hundred years later, a group of British archaeologists stumbled upon two ancient bronze mirrors when they unearthed the remains of an ancient Hindu shrine in the hilly terrain of northern India. Through research, it was confirmed that one of them was indeed the legendary Qin King's bone mirror.
This was undoubtedly a major archaeological discovery that shocked the world. Subsequently, the bone mirror returned to China and toured around the country, attracting countless people to visit and admire. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and during World War II, the whereabouts of the bone mirror were once again unknown, leaving only a blank historical site.
3. How Treasures Sink into the Ocean
After the end of World War II, King Qin's bone mirror once again surfaced on the stage of history. In 1949, a wealthy Southeast Asian businessman auctioned this ancient mirror at an antique auction in Hong Kong.
The wealthy merchant was overjoyed to receive the treasure, and he had planned to keep it in his private treasure. Unexpectedly, fate was merciless, and when he was about to return to China, he was suddenly hit by a violent tropical storm.
It was autumn, and the entire South China Sea was hit by typhoons. The scale and intensity of the typhoon this time really surprised everyone. The storm was like a pour, and the huge waves swept in like a mountain and a sea, and the luxury cruise ship taken by the wealthy businessman could not resist the fierce attack of the wind and waves.
In the end, the ship was not strong enough to protect against the wind and suffered near-total damage. The hull of the ship was ruptured, the cabins were flooded, and the crew and passengers were forced to abandon the ship to escape, and the whole process was thrilling and miserable.
The ship was wrecked and people were seriously injured
That night, the merciless wind and waves swept through everything like the claws of a sea monster. The people on board seemed so small in the face of such ferocious forces of nature. The waves swept mercilessly across the deck, knocking all crew and passengers overboard.
When the morning light reflected the ocean again, the once glorious cruise ship had completely sunk, leaving only a mess of wreckage and scattered floating debris floating on the sea. And the precious belongings that the ship once carried, including the peerless Qin King's bone mirror, have also slept forever at the bottomless bottom of the sea.
The catastrophe took a heavy toll on human life. In addition to the crew, the wealthy merchant and his party did not survive. Finding the remains of the dead is like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the search and rescue efforts are progressing with difficulty. In the end, only a few bodies were found, and the fate of the rest of the personnel was uncertain, so they could only be judged to be missing.
And the mysterious wealthy merchant who held the bone mirror of King Qin finally disappeared into the vast sea forever. His identity has always been a mystery, and the outside world only knows that he is a wealthy Southeast Asian man with a penchant for antiques.
More about his background, such as name, family, source of wealth, etc., has been a mysterious void. Even the country from which he came is an unsolved mystery. Since all the crew members and entourage involved were killed, there is no one to testify.
This catastrophe is tantamount to a huge suspense, and the bone mirror about the rich merchant and his King of Qin is destined to become an eternal mystery. People can only never know, what kind of mood did he have, insisting on this important treasure of the country as a private treasure? Why did you decide to ship it overseas?
All these doubts will never be solved, and they can only be buried deep by the sea. The only thing that is certain is that the important weapon of the country, which had risen and fallen several times, has now suffered the merciless tricks of fate once again and sank into the fog at the bottom of the sea.
4. The adventure story behind the treasure hunt
Decades have passed since that tragedy. The world has almost forgotten the existence of the Qin King's bone mirror, and regarded it as a nightmare that sleeps forever in the ocean. However, there are always some stubborn explorers who have an infinite yearning for the whereabouts of this legendary treasure.
At the end of the 80s, a mysterious expedition team secretly traveled to the South China Sea, and their target was the wreck of the shipwreck that once carried a bone mirror. The team consisted of a group of retired soldiers and maritime archaeologists, and was funded by a wealthy Tianjin businessman.
Although on the surface they claim to be just ordinary undersea expeditions, judging from the advanced equipment and financial strength they are equipped with, their background seems to be far from being as simple as ordinary expedition teams.
Once they arrived at their target area, they embarked on a long and arduous treasure hunt. First of all, it is necessary to consult a large number of historical materials and try to narrow down the scope of the target area. Secondly, it is necessary to rent advanced underwater detection equipment to conduct a detailed scan of the seabed terrain in the area and strive to find any suspicious targets.
The preliminary investigation alone took nearly a year, which shows that the road to treasure hunting is not achieved overnight. Finally, in the spring of the following year, they found what appeared to be a wreck at a distance of about 200 nautical miles from the coordinates of the previous wreck.
In order to confirm the exact location and burial depth of the target, the team had to dive dozens of times in a row, repeatedly surveying and salvaging. During this period, divers not only have to endure drastic changes in seabed pressure, but also encounter sudden dense fog and undercurrents, which are full of dangers.
Finally, after nearly half a year of continuous diving operations, the expedition team found a huge wreck at a depth of 20 meters at the bottom of the sea. Judging by the shape and location of some of the wreckage, it seems that this is exactly the remains of the luxury cruise ship they were looking for!
The team members were so excited that they immediately set about using underwater robots to conduct detailed surveys. Sure enough, in the wreckage of the ship's cabin, a large number of valuable belongings were found at a glance.
The treasures recovered include antique furniture, precious porcelain, gold jewellery and more. And the most exciting thing is that in the depths of a wreckage, a huge bronze mirror was indeed found! Its curly grass mirror edge and exquisite relief pattern are exactly the same as the description of the Qin king's bone mirror in ancient records.
In the face of this valuable discovery, all the team members rejoiced. They let out a long breath, and they were finally able to see the light of day again! However, when they tried to salvage the mirror from the water, they found that it had become so tightly integrated with the hull that it could not be easily removed. It looks like the hard work is going to continue.
5. The tortuous journey of returning from the bone mirror
Although the exact whereabouts of the bone mirror have been discovered, it is not easy to salvage this important national treasure in its entirety. The first is the fact that it is so seamlessly integrated with the wreckage that it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to separate it.
The team began experimenting with the use of special drills and hydraulic jacks to disassemble the skull. However, after a hundred years of immersion, the wreckage of the ship has already become extremely hard and difficult to move an inch. Every inch of cutting progress takes days of effort, and the cut pieces are often scattered by the currents.
On the other hand, the underwater environment is harsh, and sunlight and air are extremely scarce, so the team members have to rotate dives frequently to avoid the danger of over-oxygenation of the lungs. Even for the maintenance of diving equipment and salvage equipment, it is necessary to repeatedly climb and dive, wasting a lot of valuable time and energy.
Just when everyone thought it would be extremely difficult, an even bigger natural enemy suddenly came! A menacing seasonal tropical storm has struck, causing significant disruption to underwater operations. Violent waves and huge pressure changes nearly swept them away, and the team had to interrupt the salvage plan to deal with the storm and rain.
The storm lasted for a full week, during which time the team almost lost the courage to start salvage work again. However, with the encouragement and support of the wealthy businessman, they rekindled the flame of hope and persevered to continue their business.
Fast forward another year, and when the second seasonal storm hits, the ossomastic mirror is still buried deep in the small, dark wreckage. However, this time, the team members have been fully prepared and have a precautionary strategy to survive the disaster.
In this way, for three long years, this stubborn expedition team was like a fighter against fate, not giving up every opportunity and hope. Little by little, he groped and honed, and finally at the last moment, he successfully rescued King Qin's bone mirror from the wreckage of the shipwreck and saw the light of day.
A grand press conference brought the difficult "treasure hunt" to an end. The treasure that was once thought to have been left in the ocean was re-revealed to the world, and everyone was amazed.
The archaeological experts and cultural relics appraisers present repeatedly identified the bone mirror, confirming that it was indeed a heavy weapon of the town and country in the ancient period of the Celestial Empire, and had extremely important historical and cultural value.
Therefore, under the common attention of all walks of life, the bone mirror of King Qin was finally designated as a national first-class cultural relic, and officially returned to his homeland. It will not only be permanently treasured in the National Museum, but is also expected to further unravel the mysteries of antiquity for the world based on the graphic records on it.
At this point, this journey of ups and downs is truly over. It has once again surfaced from the abyss of history and opened a new chapter. And that singing and crying expedition team will also be recorded in history and become an eternal legend.