This time, the secret of the jar in Jinnan, Shanxi, my first reaction was to find Lao Xu, if Lao Xu was at a loss, it might really become a mystery for the ages. On the morning of the second day when www.biquge.info I arrived in Beijing, I went to Lao Xu's house, and as expected, the half pocket of broken porcelain fell on the table, and Lao Xu put on his glasses and got in. It was a quiet morning, the cicadas were chirping, and the only thing in the living room of the old Xu family was him flipping broken porcelain and my yawn. Maybe an hour later, or two hours, Lao Xu poked his head out of the pile of porcelain pieces, shook the porcelain pieces in his hand, and asked me, "Xiaojie, where did this thing come from?

I know his habits, when he thinks about something, whoever disturbs him, who he is anxious with, picks up something and throws it over, you can only pray that he doesn't have anything big at hand. I stopped talking and continued to read, but Lao Xu went to the study. After a while, he took out the photocopied manuscript again, rolled it with yellow horns, put it in front of me, tapped his fingers on it twice, did not speak, turned back to the back of the desk, and then picked up the magnifying glass to look at the porcelain pieces.

I picked up the manuscript, and the title of the book was "Three Generations of Mirrors", but it was not signed. The strength of Lao Xu Wen's collection is the ancient mirror, and I also heard him say that he has a mirror book that took ten years to write and has not been published, and it seems that this is it. I picked it up and flipped through it, mainly to write about the origin and development of the ancient mirrors of the Han, Tang and Song dynasties, with rich pictures and texts, and detailed information. In the Song Dynasty, some of them rarely focused on Liaojing. Turning to the chapter of Liaojing, there is a larger rubbing than the illustrations in other chapters, which is a rubbing of the back of the mirror. The pattern on it is the scene of sea holly predation in the spring hunt, I am familiar with the origin of "Spring Water and Autumn Mountain", but the unearthed things, jade more, copper mirrors are rare, it is undoubtedly a typical Liao Dynasty style, but the casting of the pattern is not exquisite, but like carved out, I am very surprised. Behind this page, there is another rubbing of this mirror, but it is not a mirror, but it is still the back of the mirror, and the original pattern has become a yin line. Above the yin line is the icon of the sea eye well that looks like the one on the broken jar. I was very curious, and I couldn't see it when I turned it over and over again, so could the icon of this sea eye well be engraved on the mirror? But the icon engraved on the mirror can it still be a mirror?

Seeing that I was puzzled, Lao Xu smiled." Let's go, I'll show you what I know," he picked me up, went into the study, took down a wooden box from the top of the shelf, took out a white satin cloth bag from the wooden box, and opened it. Inside is a bronze mirror, exactly the same as the Liao mirror I saw on the mirror spectrum. took the bronze mirror from Lao Xu's hand, and looked at it carefully, but there were no icons of those sea eye wells. This made me even more confused, and asked Lao Xu, "Why is there no symbol marked on the mirror?"

Lao Xu turned on the lamp in the study, and on this lamp was a huge bulb, which lit up no less than a spotlight, and compared with the delicate lampholder, it looked very funny. Lao Xu put the bronze mirror behind the lamp, and the wall immediately reflected a circle of dark shadows of the copper mirror, and then, Lao Xu slowly moved the bronze mirror, and the shadow on the wall changed from deep to shallow, from virtual to real, and the faint swirling sea eye well icon cleared up. "Translucent mirror!" I exclaimed, and Lao Xu smiled and nodded.

I used to think it was a legend, but I didn't expect it to be true. The technology of the translucent mirror is said to have existed during the Warring States period, but there is no physical material. The Qin and Han dynasties reached their peak, but suddenly disappeared after the Han Dynasty, "Mengxi Bi Tan" and "Ancient Mirror Records" are clearly recorded, now we can see more than the Han Dynasty through the mirror, no more than 100 in the country, I didn't expect Lao Xu to have a side in his hand. But the mirror in front of me is obviously a Liao mirror, how could there be a translucent mirror cast in the Northern Song Dynasty? And what does the icon of the sea eye well on it mean? My doubts are deeper. Lao Xu handed me the roots of Greater China, lit it himself, and began to slowly talk about the origin of this mirror.

"Do you remember the time I memorized the words when I left in '91?"

"Said you paid a fortune for a fake?"

"It's this mirror, I sold the small courtyard of my ancestors, and in order to buy this mirror, most of the things I collected before and after were also sold, and I still owe a lot of debts...... It's unbearable to look back, but I'll do it again now......" Lao Xu's tone was not shocked, but there was a cold force in the calm.

It was the spring of '91, and a friend of Lao Xu's dinner table brought someone to find him and hold this mirror. The one brought is a native of Anyang, Henan, surnamed Jin, known as Jin Buwan on the rivers and lakes, who has been selling and buying inverted buckets for more than ten years, but he looks poor and jingles. He told Lao Xu that for this mirror, his family wealth was scattered, his father was seriously ill in bed, and there was really no way, so he thought about selling the mirror, but when he came to Beijing, he went to a few antique shops, and they all said that his mirror was an imitation of the Liao mirror of the Republic of China, and it was not worth a few dollars. There is no way, I can only ask a friend to find Lao Xu, and I don't ask Lao Xu to spend money to buy it, I just ask him to say two fair words, so that this mirror can have a way out in the capital.

This story sounds like a routine, but it's not good to lose face with friends, so I found it all the way away. Lao Xu took the mirror and took a closer look, and the feeling at first glance was indeed fake. Liaojin bronze mirrors are all born from the Song mirror, different from the Han and Tang dynasties, the mirror body is thicker, the edge is protruding, and the outer ring decoration is relatively simple. However, although the pattern of this mirror is a typical Liao Dynasty style, the mirror body is very thin, about two-thirds of the general Liao mirror, which is more like the regulation of the Han mirror. In addition, in order to facilitate the casting of finer ornamentation, the proportion of tin and lead in the Han mirror is higher, and the color is more green and clumsy, while the Song Liao bronze mirror pursues the reflection effect of the mirror, and the proportion of natural copper is high, and the color is yellow and white. And this mirror, regulation, metal ratio is a Han mirror, ornamentation is a Liao mirror, such an obvious contradiction, the antique shop identified as the Republic of China antique, there is nothing wrong, to be precise, it is still a mistake. Lao Xu told Jin Buhuan his judgment directly, and persuaded him by the way, in the antique circle, who can not look back? Don't sell the mirror, go home early to take care of your father, if you really don't have the money to go back, I will help you with the travel expenses.

Jin Buhuan was stunned for a long time, shook his head, sighed, and muttered, "I can't imagine that a character like Xu Ye is only famous, but he can't recognize the weight of the ages." "Xu Ye was in high spirits at that time, when his eyes were above the top, how could he bear this choking, and he actually made a bet of 100,000 yuan with Jin Buhuan, if it was false, Jin Buhuan smashed the mirror on the spot, if it was true, Xu Ye gave money on the spot. At this time, Jin Buhuan took out a flashlight from his bag, pointed the mirror against the wall, screwed it on, and looked at the mirror, and the patterns on the mirror circle and many swirling icons were suddenly reflected on the wall. "Translucent mirror!" exclaimed Lao Xu. Jin Buhuan nodded and said, "Master Xu, you can give this 100,000 yuan or not, I just ask you to correct the name of this mirror and help find a buyer." “

I can fully understand Xu Ye's shock at that time, a treasure that only exists in legends appeared in front of you, two thousand years of wisdom, long-lost skills, and unbelievable reasons, all of which make it impossible for you to let it slip away, even if you gamble all your net worth including your life. So Lao Xu opened his mouth to ask the price, so Jin Buhuan quoted a price of two million. This amount of money was definitely astronomical in that era, Lao Xu hesitated for a moment, but still put forward a condition, after all, it was a huge amount of money, and Jin Buhuan wanted to tell him the origin of this mirror. In Lao Xu's view, the history of the casting technology of the translucent mirror has been lost in the late Han Dynasty, and all the mirrors found at that time were Han mirrors, and the whole of China did not exceed 100 faces. There is no doubt that the translucent mirror in front of you is undoubted, but the ornamentation is the Liao Dynasty, so there is only one possibility, and the translucent mirror has not been lost, at least until the Northern Song Dynasty. This is undoubtedly a major academic discovery, far from being measured by money. If the mirror was made by a tomb robber, then the study of the unearthed tomb is the direct basis for the dating of the mirror, and it is more important to re-enter the tomb and find other evidence than to study the mirror itself.

As Lao Xu expected, Jin Buhuan was tempted by money, and told the truth, this mirror was indeed obtained by the inverted bucket, but what was stolen was not a tomb, but a yin house. Jin Buhuan said that there is a small village in the northwest of Anyang, Henan Province, and there was a severe drought one year, and the deep wells in the village were all dry, but at night, the villagers heard the sound of singing at the bottom of the well, as well as gongs and drums, and felt that it was haunted, so they did not dare to approach. There were a few brave descendants in the village, who went down from the deep well during the day to find out, and found that there was a tunnel at the bottom of the well, extending in all directions, covering the entire underground of the village. But four went down, and only one came back, and the one who came back seemed to be twenty years old in one day, and his mind was not very clear. The people in the village thought that the tunnel under the well was the entrance to the underworld, and the evil spirit was too heavy, so they sealed the ancient well. Jin Buhuan's house is 100 miles away from this village, and when he went home for the New Year, he heard this strange story passed down by word of mouth, and began to think about it, he felt that the tunnel under the well was likely to be a tomb road, and there was a big tomb under the village.

Jin Buhuan bought the village party secretary, and in the name of building a small brick cellar, he spent 100,000 yuan to buy the old mansion where the ancient well was located, and began to prepare equipment and manpower. But Jin Buhuan also encountered a big problem, that is, no one dared to go down, most of his original buddies were people around Anyang, and they had heard of the danger underground. Jin Buwan had no choice, on the one hand, he spent more money to hire people from other places, and on the other hand, he promised his buddy a settlement allowance of 150,000 yuan. After a few days of delay, eight people were gathered and went down the well. But what Jin Buhuan encountered in the well, he didn't want to recall, only told Lao Xu that nine deaths and one life, eight out of two, only made out this mirror and a few terracotta figurines, but had to pay another million for the settlement fee, seeing that the family of the deceased blocked the door, Jin Buhuan was in a hurry to get the mirror to Beijing to make a move.

Hearing this, I couldn't help but have a question, and asked Lao Xu, how did Jin Buhuan know that this was a translucent mirror? Lao Xu smiled and said that if Jin Buhuan hadn't unintentionally used a flashlight to look at the mirror and cast the swirl pattern on it, the two of them probably wouldn't have been able to get out of that tunnel, and it would have been fate.

"So you sold the house collection, borrowed foreign debts, and bought this mirror?" I finally cleared the context of the mirror, who knew that Lao Xu shook his head and continued, "How can it be so simple, at that time, I could still make up two million, and I borrowed money everywhere because of the future." “