"Yes, that's it, dig deeper!"

Wu Tianyuan pouted his ass and dug hard, but fortunately, the cement layer on the ground was not thick, and there was mud underneath, and he dug half a meter deep after a while.

"It's almost there, come on!"

The bookshelves next to them shouted trumpets to help Wu Tianyuan cheer up, it turned out that as soon as he entered the door, Wu Tianyuan heard their voices, and when they chatted, they said that there was a treasure underground!

Wu Tianyuan is also a veteran in treasure hunting now, as long as he encounters old objects, he first asks if there is a treasure? The bookshelf here was left by Zhao Ruzhen, so she naturally knows a lot of insiders.

"It's out, it's this box!"

Wu Tianyuan easily got the box out, didn't care about resting, opened it directly and took a look, startled!

"Are you the head of a sheep and the head of a chicken with twelve bronze heads?"

Wu Tianyuan hurriedly took out the two bronze heads first, they were famous things.

The bronze statue of the 12 zodiac animal heads in the Old Summer Palace was originally part of the fountain outside the Haiyan Hall of the Old Summer Palace, and was a red bronze statue in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. In 1860, the British and French forces invaded China, burned the Old Summer Palace, and the bronze statues of animal heads began to be lost overseas, and by 2012, the bronze statues of ox heads, monkey heads, tiger heads, pig heads, and horse heads have been returned to China and collected in the Poly Art Museum.

On April 26, 2013, the French Pinault family announced in Beijing that they would donate the bronze rat and rabbit heads from the 12 major water methods of the Old Summer Palace to the Chinese side free of charge. The rat head and rabbit head donated this time are two of the 12 zodiac bronze statues lost in Beijing's Old Summer Palace.

At present, seven of the 12 animal heads of the 12 zodiac animals in the Old Summer Palace have returned to China, but the whereabouts of the dragon, snake, chicken, dog, and sheep are unknown.

"Suffocate us, it's finally out!"

Wu Tianyuan took the head of the chicken, looked at it carefully for a long time, and said with a smile: "You are the legendary royal faucet?" ”

"Shit, you kid really doesn't know anything! What faucet? That's called a hydraulic clock! At that time, our twelve brothers were arranged in a figure-eight shape, on both sides of the pool in front of the Haiyan Hall in the Old Summer Palace. Every day, we will take turns spraying water in turn, representing different times of the day. By noon, twelve would shoot out at the same time. ”

"Don't you see our workmanship? The head is modeled in a realistic style, the casting is fine, and the subtleties such as folds and fluff on our faces are clear and realistic. The material we chose for casting was the red copper refined by the Qing court at that time, with a deep color on the outside and a fine light on the inside, which was a must-have after a hundred years without corrosion. ”

The two guys estimated that they hadn't seen the light for more than a hundred years, and they were buried in the ground, so it was easy to meet someone who was talking, and they chattered crookedly for a long time.

"Tell me, where are the other brothers?"

Wu Tianyuan is most concerned about this issue, to be honest, he also knows the news of the twelve beast heads that made a lot of noise back then, and he doesn't think so.

In 1985, an American antique dealer stumbled upon a bronze statue of a horse's head in the Old Summer Palace in a private home in California, along with a bronze statue of a bull's head and a tiger's head. The antique dealer bought the three bronze heads for a low price of $1,500 each.

From 1987 to 1989, the three bronze beast heads and monkey heads from the Old Summer Palace appeared at auction in New York and London, and the highest price at that time was a horse head, which was only $250,000.

At the end of April and the beginning of May 2000, at the auctions of Gazhide in Hong Kong and Sufubi in Hong Kong, bronze statues of ox, monkey and tiger heads appeared. At that time, the practice of the two auction companies in auctioning off the lost cultural relics aroused great indignation from all walks of life in Hong Kong, China and the mainland.

In the end, China Baoli Group resolutely participated in the auction, winning the bull's head for HK$7.745 million, the monkey's head for HK$8.185 million, and the tiger's head for HK$15.44475 million.

At the beginning of September 2007, Sufubi Auction Company announced that it would auction the bronze statue of the horse's head in the name of the "Eight-Nation Alliance-Relics of the Old Summer Palace". When the news broke, there was an uproar from all walks of life. The China Special Fund for the Rescue of Lost Overseas Cultural Relics took the lead in issuing a statement "resolutely opposing the public auction of the bronze statue of the horse's head", and proposed that the return of the horse's head should be realized in a public welfare way.

At a critical moment, Dr. Ho Hung Shen, a patriotic entrepreneur from Hong Kong and Macao and a consultant of the National Treasure Project, purchased the bronze statue of the horse's head for HK$69.1 million before the auction on September 20 and announced that it would be donated to the country. The only one that did not involve the auction company and returned in a public welfare way is the bronze statue of the pig's head, but it is also related to He Hongshen. The American collector agreed to transfer the bronze statue of the pig's head to the special fund. In September 2003, He Hongshen donated more than 600 yuan to the special fund to buy back the bronze statue of the pig's head.

In July 2008, the French auction house Gazide issued a communiqué announcing that it would hold the "Yves? Saint-Laurent and Pierre? The Bergé Collection", which includes bronze statues of rat and rabbit heads in China's Old Summer Palace, which were looted by the British and French forces during the war and lost overseas for many years. After this news reached China, it aroused strong reactions.

At 8 p.m. on February 25, 2009, at the auction held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, the number 677 was sold for 9 million euros. The 1,200-seat venue had no signs, and only three phone buyers were bidding. The auctioneer called the telephone agent "Douma".

After bidding of 10 million, 11 million, 12 million, and 13 million, the first mouse was finally sold for 14 million euros. Since then, the rabbit head numbered 678 has been auctioned directly at 10 million yuan, and finally sold for 14 million euros. Buyers also participate in the auction by phone.

In the face of this auction result, the leader of the China Auction Industry Association said in an interview with reporters that from the 1,500 US dollars sold for the bronze statue of the horse's head in 1985 to the 14 million euros for the bronze statue of the rat's head and the rabbit's head this time, the bronze statue of the beast's head in the Old Summer Palace has increased by 12,000 times in 24 years. From the perspective of the pure art auction market, the price today is far greater than the intrinsic value of these two artefacts. Therefore, he called on the people of the country to be vigilant against malicious commercial speculation by taking advantage of our national feelings.

"Huh? Aren't you excited to see a baby like us? ”

Wu Tianyuan heard the question of the sheep head, and said disdainfully: "To put it bluntly, it is just a few faucets, if it is not related to the Old Summer Palace, it is hyped and used by future generations, and you are still in the wind and sun, and you will stay there and stay there!" ”

"You little brat! I really don't understand aesthetics? We are not just faucets, we have a huge secret related to the fortunes of the country! ”

Wu Tianyuan was shocked, but he was very calm on the surface, and continued to say disdainfully: "What bullshit is a huge secret? Just a few of your faucets are still related to the fortunes of the country? Have you ever seen anyone carve a treasure map on their faucet? ”

"Oops! I won't tell you today, you kid looks down on the two of us? Chick, you have a sharp mouth, sue him! ”

"You kid knows a fart!"

The chicken head said angrily: "Do you really think that we are made of red copper? That's an excuse to deceive the world, sue you, we are confused! That is, a meteorite from the sky! ”

"Glow?" Wu Tianyuan asked curiously, "What is it?" ”

"Illiterate! Haven't you read the sixth volume of the Historical Records "The Book of Qin Shi Huang"? ”

"Thirty-six years, Yingfu guarded his heart. There is a falling star in the East County, to the ground is a stone, the head of the Qiantou or carved its stone and said 'the first emperor died and the land was divided'. When the first emperor heard it, he sent the imperial history to inspect it, and he was not convinced, and he took the people living next to the stone to punish him, because he burned his stone. ”

The chicken head suddenly opened the conversation box and began to tell their origins. Originally, "Yingfu" refers to Mars, because Mars is like fire and its whereabouts are unpredictable, so it was called "Yingfu" in ancient times.

However, ancient Mars is considered to be a symbol of war and death in both the East and the West; "Heart" refers to the red first-class bright star in the constellation Scorpio -- Antares, because it is as red as blood and fire, so China calls it "fire."

Scorpio is a zodiac sign, and in traditional Chinese astronomy, it belongs to the Antares of the 28 Nakshatras, which have three stars, representing the emperor and the prince, the most important members of the royal family.

And Mars always moves near the ecliptic, and the rare celestial phenomenon of Mars staying in Scorpio is considered the most ominous in Chinese astrology, symbolizing the death of the emperor and the resignation of the prime minister. The ominous Mars lingers in Antares, and the two stars reflect each other, competing for "red" and beauty. This is called "Luminous Confusion and Guarding the Heart".

After the death of Qin Shi Huang in the second year, according to historical research, this meteorite was not burned at the beginning, but burned only a small amount of metal substance, which could not be burned, so Qin Shi Huang took it away.

As a result, Qin Shi Huang died the following year, and the stone was considered a bad thing and was placed on top of Qin Shi Huang's head as Qin Shi Huang laid to rest in the ground. Then the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang was stolen and excavated by Xiang Yu, and this thing was taken away by Xiang Yu, and then Xiang Yu killed himself in Wujiang, and this thing was missing.

Liu Bowen, the legendary Cheng dù in Chinese history, is second only to Zhuge Liang's military advisor. This person is proficient in Qimen Dunjia, the five elements of heaven and earth, and is also a famous feng shui physiognomy master in history, Liu Bowen returned to his hometown in his later years to find a piece of feng shui treasure to move his ancestral tomb, he used the "Hexagram Yin and Yang Sutra" to find a piece of royal land called "Ming Yang", Feng Shui is excellent.

Unexpectedly, Hu Weiyong, the political enemy of the dynasty, also learned about feng shui, and after learning about it, he secretly accused Liu Bowen of being greedy for the place where the king's qi gathered, and had the ambition to subvert the court. Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and wanted to kill Liu Bowen to prevent future troubles. After Liu Bowen heard the news, he was so frightened that he went to Nanjing to apologize in person, and did not dare to return to Qingtian, so the matter of moving the ancestral grave was also shelved. Soon Liu Bowen was poisoned to death by Hu Weiyong, and even Liu Bowen's bones were secretly buried by him in a place where it was yin and cold, but Hu Weiyong stole the land of "Mingyang".

After a hundred years, "Mingyang" was stolen and excavated, and it was secretly rumored that although a strange stone had a royal spirit, it was fierce and evil. In the eighth year of Wanli, "the plague of Datong was a great work, nine diseases in ten rooms, and the infected people died one after another, and several families, once infected with this epidemic, one out of ten or two even closed the door."

In the same year, there were records of major epidemics in Taigu County, Xinzhou, Kelan Prefecture and Baode Prefecture in Taiyuan Prefecture. The following year, the epidemic spread to Liaozhou and then to Lu'an, and the epidemic further expanded. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the folk plague continued, starting from the sixth year of Chongzhen, the plague in North China began a new round of epidemic.

The outbreak site was still Shanxi, and in the autumn of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the plague spread south to Lu'an Province. Then in the first year of Shunzhi, that is, the year after the Qing soldiers entered the customs, the great plague stopped. It is rumored that when the Qing Dynasty Division, a national division found a fierce stone, the emperor's qi surging but to the yin to the evil, can not be refined, can not be destroyed, and finally refining and separating and adding copper to cast the 12 zodiac bronze beast heads to suppress its evil spirit. Later, it was transferred to the Old Summer Palace, and was looted by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1860.

"So you two are evil things?"

When Wu Tianyuan heard this, he quickly put down the chicken head and stayed away!