In Chinese history, Hindustan refers to the Mughal Empire, which was founded between 1526 and 1858.

The country's territory at the time included areas such as present-day northern India, Pakistan, and eastern Afghanistan. In Chinese history, there are also translations of 'Wendustan' and 'Chennustan'.

Later, it was really characterized by Emperor Qianlong according to the pronunciation of Tibetan and Hui, personally researched, and determined that it was translated as "Hindustan".

The jade of Hindustan was introduced to the mainland during the Qianlong period and was given to the Qianlong Emperor as a tribute, and it was deeply loved by the jade idiot emperor.

So much so that later the Qing court also set up a special office to set up an imitation and learning unit, the Qianlong Emperor himself has also written poems many times to praise, Ji Xiaolan's "Reading Wei Caotang Notes" also recorded that "the ingenuity of today's jade, with Tracestein as the first", it can be seen that Tracestein jade has an important position in the history of jade in the Qing Dynasty.

The jade of Hindustan is actually Muslim jade or Islamic jade, and the name of Hindustan was personally examined by Emperor Qianlong.

The Mughal Empire was an empire established by the descendants of the Mongol expedition to the west, and later after greening, it was entrenched in Central Asia, because of the image of Chinese culture, so it was different from their cousins in the west, because their cousins in the west had more contact with Europeans, so they preferred things like gemstones, and did not pay much attention to jade.

The people of the Mughal Empire are not the same, although they are also the belief of the Green Religion, but because they are also affected by the image of Eastern civilization, from the beginning of their birth, there is a jade. Aiyu. The habit of using jade.

It's just that their habits of making jade and loving jade are very different from those of our China. Most of their jade and jade are biased towards the practical aspect, so the jade they produce is basically practical, and there are few ceremonial jade and peiyu that we Chinese like.

At that time, the people of Hindustan believed that the food utensils made of jade could avoid poison, so they carved out the jade. Generally, it is mainly practical bowls, cups, washers, plates, pots and other eating utensils.

Moreover, the decoration of these jade objects is very characteristic of local culture, and some of them are inlaid with gold, silver filaments, red, green, yellow, blue and other colored gemstones or glass on the walls; The pattern decoration is mostly plant flowers and leaves, mainly Camellia, passionflower and clematis; He also likes to use heterochromatic gemstones to inlay animal eyes carved into jade.

In addition to these decorative techniques, they also use water mill technology from the West, so the jade they carved out is generally the carcass is transparent, so when the jade of Hindustan was introduced to China, there was a saying that "Xikun jade is extremely ingenious, and the water mill jade is as thin as paper".

Most of the jade materials used in the jade exported to China in the Qing Dynasty were Khotanese jade and Yarkand amphibole jade from southern Xinjiang. It is very different from the mutton fat white jade that we like in China.

Moreover, those jade craftsmen like to carve with solid jade, that is, one vessel and one color. In particular, white jade or green and white jade is used, which is transparent and crystalline, which is also very distinct from our traditional Chinese jade like to leave jade skin or variegated jade carving.

It was these distinctive characteristics that made Jin Muchen see the jade in front of him that was very different from our ancient Chinese jade, and the first thought that came to his mind was to hit the treasure.

You must know that after the introduction of Hindustan jade into China, because of its distinctive style and paper-thin characteristics, it was once chased by the jade idiot emperor, and even ordered the Qing court to set up a special unit to learn and imitate Hindustan jade.

So much so that in the late Qianlong period, the jade produced by the Qing Dynasty office would have some obvious traces of the style of Dustan jade.

However, there are not many such jade objects circulating in the market, just like the enamel colors in the secret collection of the Qing court at that time, which are basically unknown to outsiders.

This situation continued until the late Qing Dynasty, when some of the Hindustan jade artifacts were brought out of the palace to the people, and the Hindustan jade artifacts became widely known to those who liked jade in China, and then caused a frenzied wind of imitation.

However, despite this, there are still not many surviving Hindustan jade.

Although the people of the Mughal Empire were equally fond of jade, they had long since begun to produce Hindustan jade for use by the princes and nobles of their own country.

However, after the invasion of the British, it dealt a devastating blow to the Mughal Empire, coupled with the continuous ethnic and religious disputes between the local people, and the fact that the British, or Westerners, have not taken jade seriously, so there are very few Hindustan jade artifacts that can be preserved in the local area.

In fact, the earliest time that the jade artifacts that came to China were the tributes paid by some vassal states in the southwestern periphery of the empire.

And Jiaqing after Qianlong, his enthusiasm for jade was far less crazy than his Laozi, so in the Jiaqing period, those vassal states in the southwest were no longer like domestic tribute to Zendustan jade.

Therefore, there are very few traces of Hindustan jade in China, coupled with the war in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and the later warlord strife period, there are very few traces of Hindustan jade that can be preserved in China until now.

At present, according to official records, there are only dozens of pieces stored in the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Antique Museum on Treasure Island.

Most of the Hindustan jade that fell to the market was the Hindustan jade that was stolen from the Qing court by the British and French forces.

It is precisely because of the scarcity of the surviving and the bonus of the Jade Idiot Emperor that this kind of Hindustan jade is now very popular in the antique auction market in Greater China.

If there is a genuine product in the world, then it is basically not difficult to fetch a sky-high price in the auction market.

In 2010, at an auction held by Christie's in Hong Kong, there were two pieces of Qianlong Imperial Collection of Jindustan jade auctioned in succession, and they aroused enthusiastic popularity as soon as they were unveiled.

One of the Qianlong imperial shell-style jade washes, but only the size of a palm, was auctioned at a sky-high price of 9.25 million, and another jade lei ear jar that was only 15 centimeters wide was auctioned at a sky-high price of 10.18 million.

It is precisely because of the crazy auction that the Hindustan jade has entered the attention of tens of millions of collectors, and in recent years, the concept of Hindustan jade has been widely spread in the domestic market, which has also led to a surge in fakes in the domestic market.

Although some of them are folk circulation products made by jade masters in Yang@Zhou and Su@Zhou in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, even if they are not related to the Qing Imperial Collection, they can also be auctioned at high prices, and even some imitations of Zhendustan jade in the Republic of China can finally be auctioned for a high price of millions, which shows the market's thirst for this kind of jade.

And Jin Muchen didn't expect that he would be able to see so many traces of Dustan jade at the Tokyo Bay International Antiques Fair in Japan today.

However, after the initial ecstasy, Jin Muchen quickly calmed down, although these jades are Zhendustan-style jade, it is difficult to say whether they are the ancient jade of Zhendustan back then.

You must know that since the abdication of the Jade Idiot Emperor, the jade of Hindustan has quickly declined in the Mughal Empire, after all, their place is barren and barren, and such jade can only be used by those noble lords, how can ordinary people afford to use it?

The reason why it flourished for so long was because the Chinese emperor liked it and was in need of exporting, so it flourished for a while, and then after China stopped importing on a large scale, the business of this jade business in Hindustan also declined, and even the craftsmen who made jade gradually fell into dislocation.

Later, when the British conquered India, they brought their favorite characteristics and their favorite special utensils, and the Mughal Empire did not produce any classic jade.

Later, because of the instigation of the British, there were constant disputes in that area, and there was no intention to produce this thing, so this is also the main reason why this Dustan jade is scarce in the market and a strange commodity can be lived.

So after seeing these Tracestein jades, Jin Muchen was ecstatic for a while, but quickly calmed down.

He called the boss, and after obtaining the boss's consent, he began to pick up those jade bottles and plates to start identifying, after all, in recent years, because this trace jade has been sought after in the market, so there are a lot of fakes, and you must be careful when identifying.

In fact, the method of identifying this trace jade is very simple, first of all, it is to start with the pattern of the jade.

When the jade craftsmen of the Mughal Empire carved the jade of the Mughal Empire, there was no such thing as machining, and the reason why they were able to polish the jade bowl so thin was because of the method of water milling.

When carving patterns on these jades, it is all by hand, and modern imitations are generally based on the principle of how fast and easy to save, so when counterfeiting, machining methods are basically used.

In the past, because it was all polished by hand and eyes, it could not guarantee that the walls of these cups and plates were as thin as one, so even if it was a high-quality jade, there would be uneven thickness, and this is also the characteristic of authentic Hindustan jade.

In addition, the patterns on the body of modern imitations are also not hand-carved, all of them are carved by modern machinery, so the traces of processing are very obvious, and it can even be said to be "full of fire", which can be easily identified...... (To be continued.) )