Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1757 Gu Kaizhi

There were many picture albums at home, and there was also a lot of information about the "Valiant Women Scroll". Zhou Zhi soon found it and said, "Here it is!"

There are postscripts on the "Royal Women Scroll" by Wang Zhu, Song Qing, Ye Longli and Wang Duo. Wang Zhu was a painter of the Xin'an School and was active in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas. His postscript is very important because it mentions that the "Royal Women Scroll" has 15 sections and should involve 49 people, including 24 men, 21 women and 4 boys. However, due to historical reasons, only 10 sections and 28 characters were left when it came into his hands.

This is another very important clue, indicating that this scroll was divided into two parts before Wang Zhu collected it, that is, at least in the late Ming Dynasty.

One painting went to the Wang family and the other went to the Wang family. The Wang family's painting was quickly passed down through the generations and flowed into the palace, becoming one of the three famous works of Gu Kaizhi, "The Scroll of Virtuous Women".

The remaining painting was not taken seriously in the Wang family, probably because the Wang family had too many treasures, so Wang Shizhen and his brothers and nephews randomly stamped it.

Afterwards, it flowed into the palace, but not even the most ordinary secretary file was written on it, and it was almost treated as garbage. Then, for some unknown reason, it flowed out of the palace, came to Li Erkang, and finally came into Zhou Zhi's hands.

  The three of them looked at each other in bewilderment. No matter from which angle this fragment of the scroll was analyzed, it was the same scroll as the "Virtuous and Wise Women" in the Forbidden City. However, the two paintings had been stored in the palace for hundreds of years, and no one had connected them together!

If the earliest Wang Shizhen or Wang Zhu knew that the other party had a similar painting, or if someone in the Qing Palace discovered it later, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty would never have attached such importance to Gu Kaizhi's paintings!

  Gao Shiqi, the only person who knew that both of them existed at the same time, did not make the secret public for some unknown reason and let the subsequent volumes be shelved!

"What do you think he was thinking at that time?" Fourth Aunt looked at the ancient scroll on the table and really couldn't understand Gao Shiqi's thinking.

"I guess Wang Shizhen had never seen the previous scroll and lost his reference, so he had some doubts about this painting." The fourth cousin pondered for a while and made the most likely inference: "And his doubts may have misled Gao Shiqi's judgment. With Gao's personality, he would send fake things to the palace, so it eventually became a collection of the inner court."

"But the people in the inner court were not stupid. Old Gao wrote so ambiguously, and with the prejudices of many previous appraisers, they probably regarded it as a fake. As a result, no one in the inner court paid much attention to the painting, and it was soon shelved. Not to mention the Shiqu Baoji, even the inner court archives probably didn't bother to record it, so it had the opportunity to be leaked."

"Let's study it further." Fourth Aunt said cautiously, "Let's not jump to conclusions easily. Let's fix the painting first."

"Well, fortunately, this painting was made using the Song Dynasty silk wax method, using only glue and no alum, so the painting core is relatively well preserved," Zhou Zhi could not help but feel fortunate: "The damage caused by poor storage during this period is relatively easy to repair."

While the three of them were judging the authenticity of the paintings, they were also studying the painting style, theme, and diagnosing painting problems. Now they have a pretty good idea of ​​what is going on.

Gu Kaizhi's paintings generally focus on the eyes and expressions, while the details are reflected in the lines and renderings.

The lines are called "hairline drawing" and the rendering is called "convex and concave method". One draws the outline and the other creates a three-dimensional effect, making the characters on the scroll come alive.

Of course, there are many characteristics that belong solely to "The Scroll of Heroic Women", such as the use of "red eyebrows" for female characters, that is, using red to highlight the eyebrows.

This is Zhao Feiyan's "new makeup", which was brought into the painting by Gu Kaizhi. Secondly, although there are many stories about the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the characters in it are all dressed in Han Dynasty clothing, whether it is the carriage, the seat, the screen, the men's Liangguan, the long sword, the women's hanging bun, and the deep clothing, all of which are from the Han Dynasty. This point is completely consistent in the expression of the front and back volumes.

In fact, by comparing to this point, it can be basically concluded that the second scroll of "Biographies of Virtuous and Wise Women" in Zhou Zhi's hand is a Song Dynasty copy of the same as the first scroll.

Among the four stories in the scroll, except for the story of General Zhao Kuo's mother which is well-known to everyone, the rest are only known to people who are familiar with the stories of the Spring and Autumn Period.

Lu Zang Sunmu records the story of the mother of Zang Wenzhong, a doctor of the State of Lu. Before he was sent to Qi as an envoy, she analyzed the domestic and international political situation for him and asked him to prevent crises. Later, when he encountered a crisis, Wenzhong wrote back a secret letter which no one could decipher. It was Wenzhong's mother who interpreted the content again, saying that her son had been placed under house arrest by Qi and that Qi was preparing to send troops to attack Lu, so he needed to be prepared. Finally, seeing that Lu was prepared, Qi had no choice but to abandon the war plan and send Zang Wenzhong back.

The record of Lu Gong Cheng Si is that the sister of Lu Gong Cheng Zi Pi cried bitterly when a clan member died. Zi Pi persuaded her, "Don't cry, don't cry, I will marry you off right away." After the mourning period, Zi Pi never mentioned this again. Later, the King of Lu wanted to make Zi Pi the prime minister. Zi Pi asked his sister, "Can I do this?" His sister said, "I can't do it. You talked about marriage before the funeral, which shows that you don't know etiquette. You didn't mention it after the period, which shows that you don't understand human affairs. I'm not scolding you for not marrying me. It's because you really don't know etiquette at home and don't understand human affairs outside. If you are the prime minister of a country like this, according to the public, it will be either a natural disaster or a human disaster. You must not be the prime minister." Zi Pi didn't listen and still became the prime minister of Lu. As a result, he was executed in less than a year.

Wei Quwo Fu was the mother of Wei Guo's official Ru'er. Qin established Wei Gongzi Zheng as the crown prince of Wei. King Ai of Wei sent an envoy to find a concubine for the crown prince. He found the girl very beautiful and wanted to marry her himself. After hearing about it, Fu came to persuade him, saying that in the Warring States period, the strong are the heroes and the righteous are the outstanding. Now Wei is not strong, and the king is not righteous. It is caught between Qin and Chu. It will not be able to hold the country. Only by adhering to the three major principles of the world, namely the relationship between the monarch and the minister, the father and the son, and the husband and wife, can there be hope.

The King of Wei also listened to the advice, married a concubine to the Crown Prince, and worked hard for the country. The powerful Qi, Chu and Qin did not dare to start a war against Wei at that time.

Including the story of Zhao Kuo's mother, there are a total of four women in this scroll, four men who converse with them, three maids, and five guards, a total of sixteen people.

Of the five missing persons, the story of Mi Kanggong and his mother is completely missing, as well as the left half of "Lu Qishi Nu" and the right half of "Jin Fan's Mother".

Zhou Zhi estimated that the remaining part would never be recovered.

Although the scroll has not been 100% confirmed to be authentic, the three people in the room all understand its value.

The first one is so surprising, and the remaining three are even more exciting.

A scroll that can be carried in the same luggage as twelve Ming and Qing dynasty cups is truly extraordinary.

The remaining three scrolls were opened, and each one was more miraculous than the last. Although the surfaces were badly stained, the contents could still be discerned.

  They are "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" by Lu Tanwei, "Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva" by Cao Buxing, and "Emperor Wu of Han Shooting a Dragon" by Zhang Sengyou!

"Are you crazy?!" Even the fourth cousin was shocked: "This is a series! The Four Sons of the Tang Dynasty!"