The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 128 Oracle Bone News
The most interesting event in the literary world recently is the excavation of oracle bones conducted by Dong Qichang and others in Zhangde Mansion, Henan Province.

Dong Qichang followed Wang Wenlong's instructions and had gone to Henan a few months ago.

At this time, the most highly regarded antiquities research was the Pre-Qin bronzes. The most important person in the study of bronzes was the study of epigraphy. The oracle bone inscriptions directly pushed the writing of epigraphy to the most ancestral period, and naturally became the top person in the study of epigraphy.

It is said that when Dong Qichang arrived in Henan, he first searched around Zhangde Prefecture and soon found oracle bones that were used as medicinal materials on the market. Then he also found some oracle bone remains at the approximate location mentioned by Wang Wenlong.

However, all the oracle bones in the Yin Ruins are buried underground, and they must be excavated by digging the earth. If you want to excavate the oracle bones, you must decide where to excavate the oracle bones. Otherwise, if you really excavate the entire Zhangde Mansion, even if Dong Qichang is rich and powerful, he will not be able to fund it. Come.

For this reason, Dong Qichang and others could only begin to study and summarize the location of groundbreaking.

Interest is the best teacher. Although Dong Qichang may not necessarily have a good character, he sincerely loves cultural relics. In order to discover oracle bones, he actually found a group of Henan natives and learned from them the knowledge of distinguishing soil and stratigraphy.

After several failed attempts, he finally found several places where a large number of oracle bones were hidden, and it only took a few months.

At this time, they had dug out thousands of oracle bones. With such a large collection, Wang Wenlong guessed that they had probably discovered an important location in the Yin Ruins site.

With the emergence of a large number of oracle bones, some rubbings have been circulated back to Sanwu. Now the literati of Sanwu have heard about this important discovery in Henan.

It has been more than half a month since the oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed, and Oracle rubbings and so-called "leaked oracle bones" have begun to be sold in Sanwu's market.

A small part of the oracle bones that leaked out are genuine oracle bone fragments that were sold to Suzhou as medicinal materials, and most of them are fake.

In the Tang and Song dynasties, some people began to study bronze inscriptions, and a market for bronze antiquities had long been formed. In the Ming Dynasty, counterfeit cultural relic dealers had appeared, and there were even a large number of ancient artifact catalogs written by literati: drawings and figures, which introduced the rare antiques circulating on the market. When was it born and how many collectors has it had?

Everything is to ensure the orderly circulation of cultural relics and to avoid fake cultural relics that may affect the study of epigraphy.

The Ming Dynasty did not have as many industrialized strong acids and alkalis as later generations, so it was difficult to make a fake bronze ware and corrode it with red spots and green rust. The counterfeiting of bronze ware was often done by engraving.

Because the more inscriptions on a bronze vessel, the more valuable it is for epigraphic research, so the price of a bronze vessel is often determined by the number of inscriptions on it.

And the counterfeiting methods of cultural relic traffickers came into being - directly engraving inscriptions on the inside of bronze vessels that originally had no inscriptions or adding numbers on the inside of bronze vessels that had inscriptions.

The same method is used to counterfeit cultural relics on oracle bones. Anyway, the money on oracle bones is calculated by the number of words. A few more characters can make a profit of more than ten taels.

The dragon bone medicinal materials on the market are essentially no different from oracle bones. They are also ancient tortoise shells and large bones. Counterfeiters buy the dragon bones directly, and then use a carving knife to engrave them in the same way as oracle bone inscriptions.

For researchers, these forged oracle bones are very hateful.

Oracle-bone inscriptions have just come on the market, and epigraphers are working hard to identify them. At this time, there are not many real oracle-bone inscriptions that people can recognize from thousands of years ago. If they are mixed with the oracle-bone inscriptions that are faked by cultural relic dealers, epigraphers are likely to study them. The half-day symbol is completely made up by cultural relic dealers and will waste a lot of effort.

Dong Qichang, as an antiquarian, is obviously aware of this problem.

How to prevent the use of forged oracle bones in researching knowledge?The most direct method is naturally to protect the oracle bone cultural relics dug directly from the ground.

Especially at this time, there were thousands of oracle bones unearthed from Zhangde Mansion at one time, and there were thousands of inscriptions on individual oracle bones. Dong Qichang might have wanted to acquire rare items at first, but after thousands of oracle bones were unearthed, He realized how precious these oracle bones were.

The oracle bones were unearthed in the Yin Ruins, and their contents must be closely related to local history. Moreover, they were written not far apart from each other, so a large amount of text can be deciphered by corroborating each other.

No need to be reminded by future generations, such a documentary archaeological scene will naturally make the literati at this time develop the concept of cultural relic protection.

Now Dong Qichang has written back to Wuzhong asking for help. He has even written to ask for help from his friends in the past. He has raised manpower and material resources from the government and the private sector to carry out larger-scale excavations. At the same time, he has called on epigraphers to go to Henan to study the excavated oracle bones. .

Dong Qichang, Chen Jiru and a large number of Wushan Society literati were originally going to attend today's literary meeting, but the appearance of oracle bones from Henan attracted them all to Zhangde Mansion.

There is also good news for Wang Wenlong. Dong Qichang also brought his three sons to Henan to devote themselves to the oracle bone business for a long time.

The letter described that Dong Qichang's second son Dong Zuchang, who had no future, was also taken with him to teach him day and night.

Wang Wenlong finally felt relieved. Being in a foreign land, the second head of the Dong family probably had no chance to develop the lawless and stubborn character he had in his previous life.

Even if he develops it, he will not be as wealthy and powerful as in his previous life.

Everyone was talking about it and felt that the excavation of thousands of oracle bones this time was a huge event. I'm afraid it was unprecedented, and there might not be another chance in the future. Dong Qichang also spent all his wealth on this plan.

But Wang Wenlong knew what these thousand oracle bones were. In his memory, the first large-scale excavation of oracle bones in his previous life unearthed more than 5 oracle bones.If Dong Qichang still wants to dig more, I'm afraid it won't be enough to invest all his wealth in it.

And Dong Qichang must really do this.

At this time, literati had a natural enthusiasm for the study of ancient characters, because this was part of the continuation of the unique learning for the saints.

Dong Qichang, Chen Jiru and others have begun to study the contents of oracle bone inscriptions. From only one or two hundred characters that can be identified, they have found the names of the Shang Dynasty kings that are corroborated with historical records. Together with the location of the Yin Ruins, it can basically be proved. This is the site of the capital of the Yin and Shang Dynasties.

The topography of Yinxu is well documented. After Pan Geng moved the capital, it experienced the Zhou Dynasty's destruction of the Shang Dynasty and Wu Geng's rebellion. The late history of this place is the era of the rise of the Zhou Dynasty.

The first saints recommended by Confucianism are Yao, Shun, and Yu, King Wen, and Duke Zhou. The second-rate saints are Confucius, Mencius, and others. Anyone who knows a little bit about history knows that this place is likely to directly dig up documents recording the historical deeds of King Wen and Duke Zhou!

This is no different from digging out a living god from the soil. Who among the Confucian scholars in the world dares not to respect it?

Everyone's words were trembling with excitement when they read the letter Dong Qichang sent back, not to mention that Dong Qichang, who was on the spot, would have no complaints even if he abandoned his family and career and devoted all his wealth to the excavation work.

The level of epigraphy of Dong Qichang and others is really impressive. They have even discovered that the oracle bones from the Yin Ruins were probably used for divination in the Shang Dynasty, which corresponds to the ancient tortoise divination records.

Guan Zhidao finished reading the letter and said: "Is there anyone here who is proficient in Yi studies? Why don't we go to Zhangde Mansion together!"

Since it is an oracle bone used for divination, people naturally immediately think of finding a scholar who is proficient in Yi Xue.

There are quite a few applicants, and several scholars who just heard the news today are already tempted.

Xi Mengxian, a literary scholar on the side, said: "If it happened during the Shang Dynasty, the Book of Changes had not yet been published, and those who studied the Book of Changes would already be juniors when faced with these oracle bones."

But Ling Mengchu shook his head and said: "Since there are divination words, there must be divination methods. Maybe there is another set of knowledge besides the Yi Jing."

Ling Mengchu was famous for his novel "The Surprise" in later generations. Many people only thought that he was a novelist, but they did not know that he also came from an official family.

Ling Mengchu's grandfather was a member of the Nanjing Criminal Department, and his father was a judge in Daming Prefecture. He was also a famous calligrapher - the word "calligrapher" basically represented the wealthy at this time.

Xu Xueju used the Yamen Bookshop to print books for himself, while the calligrapher opened a bookshop at home just for fun, not to make money, but just for fun. Before Wang Wenlong invented wax printing, a set of engraving plates in this era cost 400 taels. Silver, how rich do you have to be to take this thing as a hobby?
Ling Mengchu grew up in such a family, and writing novels was actually just one of his hobbies. He also conducted quite in-depth research on historical miscellaneous subjects.

Although everyone in this era studied the Four Books and Five Classics, if they were not from a book collecting family, they would rarely study history so clearly. After listening to Ling Mengchu's words, some people thought it made sense: "Yes, there were fortune-telling methods in the Zhou Dynasty."

But some people objected and said: "In the early Zhou Dynasty, King Wen had not yet appeared, and King Wen did not perform gossip. There was not even a word of hexagram in the world, so where could the method of fortune-telling come from?"

Guan Zhidao thought for a while, then suddenly looked at Wang Wenlong and said, "Jianyang is the best at miscellaneous studies. Do you have any insights?"

Everyone looked at Wang Wenlong after hearing this. "History of Portugal" and "Tianyan Lun" made Wang Wenlong famous. "History of Portugal" contains a lot of political, military and economic content, and "Tianyan Lun" contains a lot of I Ching. The combination of thought and thought makes Wang Wenlong's image very similar to that of an ancient counselor.

At this time, everyone thought that Wang Wenlong must be a smart man like Xu Wenchang, and he must have studied politics, economy, military, and even divination and fortune-telling.

Wang Wenlong didn't understand "The Book of Changes", but he really had a bunch of research materials from Xunxue Primary School in his mind.

Wang Wenlong smiled and said: "The Shang Dynasty had Yixue but not the Zhouyi."

Guan Zhidao frowned when he heard this: "How do you say this?"

Wang Wenlong smiled and said: "In the ancient times Fuxi left the image of heaven and earth, in the middle ages King Wen performed the "Book of Changes", in modern times Confucius and other saints studied the "Book of Changes" and became the "Book of Changes", and the scriptures were combined into the "Book of Changes" .This is the development process of "The Book of Changes"."

"The "Book of Han" contains: "The Book of Changes" 'Three Saints are more powerful, and the Three Ancients are more powerful than others'. This is what it says.

"It can be seen that although King Wen of the Shang Dynasty had not yet performed the "Book of Changes", the corresponding hexagrams had been handed down, and there were corresponding divination methods, but a mature classic had not yet been produced."

The above exquisite discussion comes from the previous CCTV program "China in the Classics", a variety show line.

Don't look down on variety shows. After all, they also have a team of experts, and the speed of information dissemination is too slow at this time. Many people really don't know this content in "Han Shu".

Wang Wenlong explained a little with lines from a variety show, and many people were instantly enlightened.

(End of this chapter)