Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1771 Dish Square Lei

"Later, experts from the Hunan Provincial Museum went to Maoshanyu for an investigation and obtained oral accounts from villagers. It was said that Ai Qingyan was still a child of about ten years old at the time. Once, he was carrying a dung rake to his grandmother's house to ask for a coffin. On the way, he accidentally stepped on a pile of soil, and there was a big black lump in the soil, which was still shiny in the mud. Ai Qingyan asked his family to dig it out, and it has since become a strange ancient tripod artifact passed down by word of mouth among the villagers."

"Five years later, Shi Yuzhang, an antique dealer from Yiyang, came here because of its reputation. When he saw the item, he was willing to pay four hundred dollars for it. It was lunch time at that time. Ai Qingyan's eldest brother went home and heard that the strange item was going to be bought by someone, so he took the lid and went to Xinmin School in Qijiahe to ask the principal Zhong Fengyu for an appraisal. He wanted to ask, 'How can such a broken copper be worth so much money?'"

"Principal Zhong is a well-known local intellectual. When he saw the tadpole characters on the lid, he knew that this thing was extraordinary. He kept the lid and immediately expressed his willingness to pay 800 yuan to buy the whole thing." Old Master Wang smiled and said, "Ai Qingyan's eldest brother is young and energetic after all. He was very excited when he heard this. Before he even arrived in the village, he shouted, 'I've made a fortune, I've made a fortune!'"

"He shouted at the other end of the village. Shi Yuzhang knew something was wrong when he heard it. This deal was going to fail! He hurriedly left four hundred dollars behind, not caring that the item was too heavy. He ran out of the village carrying the nearly 100-pound jar and escaped."

"Eh? Then the lid and body of this square jar are separated, right?" asked host Wang.

"Yes, the body and the lid have been separated since then." Old Master Wang said, "And this separation has lasted for nearly a hundred years."

"As a man of culture, Zhong Fengyu knew the importance of this cultural relic and was concerned about it. He used his influence to publish an article in the Ta Kung Pao titled 'Ancient relics of the Shang Dynasty Taimiao discovered in Taoyuan, but unfortunately they were privately bought by others'. He denounced Shi Yuzhang for 'buying it at an estimated price of only 100 yuan in foreign silver in an attempt to curry favor with foreigners and make a profit' and called him 'the public enemy of the country'. He also pleaded with the authorities to check along the way."

"This loss of cultural relics attracted the attention of Zhang Shizhao, then Minister of Education, who asked the Hunan Province to investigate."

"So the Changsha Internal Affairs Department issued an order requiring Yiyang County, where Shi Yuzhang was located, to do its best to investigate the case."

"It's a pity that there were no strict laws to protect cultural relics at that time, which allowed the merchants who colluded with each other to resell antiques to take advantage. In addition, due to the chaos of war, even though the artifact was traced to Yang Kechang's antique shop in Changsha, it was protected by local forces and could not be seized. They only asked Shi Yuzhang to surrender within five days."

"When the Duan Qirui government fell in 1926, the order to 'recover' the Fang Lei became a dead letter."

"At this time, warlords began to fight each other, and the Hunan Army was recovering western Hunan from the Sichuan and Guizhou warlords. The local government was in the hands of Zhou Pan, the leader of the garrison. However, the profiteer Shi Yuzhang still wanted to get the lid, so he asked Zhou Pan, the leader of the Hunan Army, for help."

"Zhou Pan was also a well-known figure back then. Before General Peng's Pingjiang Uprising, Zhou Pan was General Peng's superior. The two had a life-and-death friendship, but later they parted ways because of their different ambitions."

"Zhou Pan stationed his troops at Qijia River in Taoyuan County. Shi Yuzhang sent someone to find Zhou Pan and offered him 50,000 silver dollars, hoping to help buy back the lid of the square jar. He also promised to give him another 30,000 silver dollars as a reward after the deal was done. Zhou Pan felt that this was a very important matter, but he did not agree to it in person."

"After Shi left, Zhou Pan immediately rushed to Changde and reported to the division commander He Yaozu. He Yaozu was eager to get money, so he quickly sent troops to search for Principal Zhong's home, but returned empty-handed."

"The military mobilized so many troops that Principal Zhong was worried that he would be guilty of possessing a treasure, so he had to take the initiative to find Zhou Pan and said that he would donate the lid of the square jar to the country, but asked for funding for education. Zhou Pan immediately paid Principal Zhong 5,000 silver dollars and a promissory note of 5,000 yuan, but took the lid of the square jar for himself."

"This money did play a big role at the time. Zhong Fengyu used it to establish education, and Xinmin School became the best school in the surrounding counties at the time. It still remains so today."

"Zhou Pan, who occupied the jar lid, was promoted to division commander in the Northern Expedition. He later fled to the southwest and became deputy commander of the 14th Corps. He was captured in Kunming in . The jar lid finally returned to the people and was handed over to the Hunan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee by the government in . In , the Cultural Relics Management Committee merged with the Hunan Provincial Museum, and the jar lid has been kept in the Hunan Provincial Museum ever since." "It is better to be a dog in peacetime than a man in troubled times. China was in turmoil in those years, and even cultural relics had a tragic fate." Host Wang said with emotion.

“But compared to the jar body, the fate of the jar lid can be said to be lucky.” Old Master Wang began to shake his head as he spoke.

"Yes, after Shi Yuzhang took the jar away and it ended up in Yang Kechang's antique shop, what happened to it afterwards?"

"To talk about this, we have to talk about Gao Zhixi, the then director of the Hunan Provincial Museum and an expert on bronze ware." Mr. Wang said: "Because the reason was not explained when it was handed over in 1952, for a long time, the Hunan Provincial Museum experts did not know the origin of the Fang Lei lid. They only knew that there was a lid, but not the body."

"It was by chance that Gao Zhixi found Zhou Pan's 'supplementary confession' in the archives and learned about Fang Lei Gai's life experience."

"Because this is an important cultural relic, Gao Zhixi began to inquire about the whereabouts of the vessel from various sources. Finally, he found a photo of the Dish-shaped Lei in an overseas book, "History of Chinese Art" written by a French scholar in 1928. It turned out that the Lei had been dispersed from Changsha to overseas long before that!"

"Gao Zhixi continued to search for information about the body of the square jar. He finally found that after Huang Jun's "Illustrations of Bronze Artifacts Seen in Zungu Zhai" was published in 1936 and Rong Geng's "General Study of Shang and Zhou Yi Artifacts" was published in 1940, there was no more news about the body of the jar."

1 "In , Gao Zhixi summarized his research on the Dish-shaped Lei and published the materials on the lid of the Lei when he edited the "Hunan Province Cultural Relics Catalogue". He also described the size of the Dish-shaped Lei in detail. Because it is the largest known Lei in my country, he named it the 'King of Lei'."

"In 1989, Gao Zhixi wrote an article in the China Cultural Relics Newspaper describing the tortuous and legendary story of the separation of the head and body of the Dish-shaped Lei. This attracted a certain amount of attention from the industry."

"If you keep thinking about it, there will be a response. One day two years ago, Xiong Chuanxin, then director of the Hunan Provincial Museum, received a call from Ma Chengyuan, director of the Shanghai Museum. Ma Chengyuan claimed on the phone with absolute certainty that the body of the square jar had been found and was in the hands of the Japanese collector Xin Tiandongyi!"

"It was also a coincidence that Ma Chengyuan was invited to attend a cultural and museum conference in an island country. After the meeting, he did not follow everyone to appreciate the cherry blossoms, but instead went to visit his old friend Nitta Dongyi."

"Xin Tian Dongyi, whose original name was Peng Kaidong, was born in the Japanese-occupied Taiwan. Later, he changed his name and went to Japan to develop his career. He can speak authentic Minnan dialect and not very standard Mandarin."

"His career was going quite well in the island country, and collecting has always been his personal hobby and a way for him to miss his hometown."

"After a serious illness in 1952, Xin Tian focused on collecting Buddha statues. Therefore, when Lao Ma went to visit him, Xin Tian did not display the bronzes in his collection in a prominent position in his villa."

"But Lao Ma's eyes immediately focused on a majestic and beautiful bronze vessel that seemed familiar. He immediately determined that the bronze vessel in front of him should be one and the same as the lid in the HUN Provincial Museum."

"So amazing?" Host Wang couldn't help but wonder: "Just take a look?"