Riding the wind of rebirth

"What new collections have you added to your collection recently?" An Siyuan waited until Zhou Zhi had satisfied his cravings before asking him.

"I'm so ashamed." Zhou Zhi shook his head. "I've been in a remote ethnic minority village for a while, so I haven't made much progress in collecting. I just entrusted Sister Wanqiu to participate in a few auctions, and I also collected a few things while traveling."

"Oh, right." Zhou Zhi took out a photo album from his bag. "These are the five ancient buildings that were renovated with the funds you donated. I asked the staff to take photos of them and put them into an album. Each page has two photos, one before the restoration, and one after the restoration, when I stood at the last shooting location."

"Oh?" An Siyuan put down his pipe and took the photo album. The album was as big as A3, and each page had two photos, top and bottom, which were very clear.

"This is important information in itself and will become a model for our restoration," Zhou Zhi said.

In fact, An Siyuan took action to save China's ancient buildings earlier than Zhou Zhi. In 1992, he donated a sum of money for the repair of several ancient buildings.

After the Three Gorges Cultural Heritage Protection Fund was successfully operated and attracted a large number of donations, Zhou Zhi believed that cultural relics protection work should not be limited to the Yangtze River Basin, so he changed the name of the foundation to Yu Tang Cultural Heritage Protection Fund, and expanded the business scope from cultural relics protection to humanities investigation, research, documentary filming, exhibition and publicity and other aspects.

After hearing about this, An Siyuan simply handed over his own fund to the Yu Tang Cultural Relics Protection Foundation for management. However, Zhou Zhi still continued to list out the ancient buildings that were originally operated independently by the An Siyuan Foundation. Now that the renovation has been completed, it is natural for him to let An Siyuan come and see the results.

Several buildings are located in several places. The two in Wangkeng and Jiangbei Village are relatively easy to save. They are located in the village and can be renovated however the villagers want.

However, it is difficult to rescue the Jinshi Mansion, City God Temple and Liu Family Ancestral Hall located in the urban area.

According to the principles of cultural heritage protection, Zhou Zhi felt that it would be best to list it as an immovable cultural relic, and that the most scientific approach would be to protect it on site.

But the local government does not think so. These three buildings conflict with urban planning and construction. The municipal government needs to expand roads and plan new districts, and these three places have become roadblocks.

If it were twenty years in the future, it would be easy. All planning would give way to cultural heritage protection. It is said that the subways in other cities were dug out with shield machines, while the subway in Xi'an was dug out with spoons and brushes. This sounds exaggerated, but it is the truth.

But the situation is different now. Economic development takes precedence over everything else, so these buildings should be moved.

Even moving is too troublesome. The local authorities want to learn from the "advanced experience" of cultural heritage protection in the Three Gorges, which is to demolish the buildings and only keep the architectural components with cultural value and put them in the cultural center, and put the rest aside.

Finally Zhou Zhi came up with a solution. He spent more money to move all three buildings to Wangkeng and also helped design Wangkeng into a tourist attraction as a reward.

Now that it has been given the performance hat of attracting investment, the degree of cooperation at the local level is indeed different.

After reporting this to An Siyuan, An Siyuan expressed his great pleasure: "This is a good gift. It is the right choice to let you handle this matter."

"Has the Foundation found the whereabouts of that bronze artifact?"

"Wow... that process is too complicated." Zhou Zhi shook his head and sighed: "Fortunately, we finally found it in the sixth issue of Wenwu magazine published by Wenwu Publishing House in 1985. The bronze ware you bought in Hong Kong two years ago should be the bronze ware with an inscription collected by the Cultural Relics Group of Cangzhou Regional Cultural Bureau and unearthed in Dongjiao, Tang County, Hebei."

"Because it has the words 'Lu Zizhong's son Guifu made his own food,' the author Wang Minzhi titled his article 'Western Zhou Guifu Dun unearthed in Tang County, Hebei Province'. When submitting the article, he also submitted a rubbing of the inscription on the lid of the Guifu Dun and a rubbing of the vortex pattern on the lid handle."

"Later, we also found the article "Postscript to the Newly Discovered Guifu Dun in Tang County" written by Professor Wang Entian in the 1990th issue of Wenwu Chunqiu in 7. However, in his article, he believed that this artifact should be from the Spring and Autumn Period." "From the introduction of the two articles and the content of the rubbings, it should be exactly the same as the bronze Dun you bought in Hong Kong Island."

"Go to that guest room and take the things out." An Siyuan pointed.

Zhou Zhi ran into the guest room happily. The bronze bowl was placed on a Ming Dynasty chicken-wing wood table. It looked like a small pot with a lid.

I took the copper drum into the living room and placed it on the table to look at it carefully. I found that the copper drum was not too big and looked quite cute.

The height of this vessel is about 17 cm. The lid is about cm high and the outer diameter of the mouth is about 23-4 cm. The handle is in the shape of a trumpet mouth, and there are three claws on the outer edge of the lid, which can be stuck on the outer edge of the mouth to prevent sliding.

The body of the vessel has a wide mouth, narrow neck, folded shoulders, bulging belly, round and slightly flat bottom, with two circular ears on the left and right sides of the mouth. There is a spiral pattern in the middle of the lid handle and two string patterns on the shoulder.

After opening the lid, there were two lines of inscriptions inside the lid. Now Zhouzhi had no problem recognizing bronze inscriptions, and the content was indeed: "The son of Lu Zi Zhong returned to his father to serve him as a cook."

Based on the style of the inscription fonts, Zhou Zhi was able to date the artifact to the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty at the earliest, but this is actually not correct. Among the two Mr. Wang, Wang Entian conducted a more thorough study and concluded that this should have belonged to the Spring and Autumn Period.

"So this is another stolen cultural relic?" An Siyuan asked.

"This story is a bit long..."

"I have time."

"Uh, okay, let's talk about the origin of this artifact first."

"The reason why bronze vessels with inscriptions are valuable is mainly because of the information recorded in the text," Zhou Zhi pointed to the inscription on the bronze vessel and said to An Siyuan, "There are actually two important figures in this sentence, Zi Zhong and Gui Fu. The meaning of this sentence is actually 'Gui Fu, the son of Zi Zhong from Lu, made a food vessel Shan Dun for him.'"

"By studying Zizhong and Guifu of the State of Lu in history, we find that they were actually doctors of the State of Lu during the Spring and Autumn Period. Therefore, Gaidun should be a food vessel used by "Guifu" during his lifetime. Therefore, the cultural relic is not from the Western Zhou Dynasty as first inferred, but a relic from the Spring and Autumn Period."

"In the 11th century BC, King Wu of Zhou founded the Zhou Dynasty. King Wu's younger brother, Duke of Zhou, assisted the emperor, King Cheng of Zhou. After defeating the former vassal states of the Shang Dynasty that had joined forces with Wu Geng in a rebellion, his eldest son, Bo Qin, was granted the former territory of the Yan State and established the State of Lu."

"The 'Zhong' in Zizhong is actually 'Zhong', the second son in a family is called 'Zhong'. There were many celebrities in the Spring and Autumn Period who were named after their birth order, but the one named 'Zhong' and had a son named Guifu could only be Xiangzhong, the son of Duke Zhuang of Lu."

"So the 'Zi' in the bronze inscription refers to the prince's identity, and the 'Zhong' refers to Xiang Zhong. Xiang is his posthumous title, his courtesy name is Zi Zhong, and his given name is Sui, so he is also called Zhong Sui."

"There is no record of Xiang Zhong's birth date, but he died in the eighth year of Duke Xuan of Lu. Because Xiang Zhong once lived near the east gate of Lu City, he was often referred to as 'Dongmen Xiang Zhong' and 'Dongmen Sui' in classics and histories, and his clan was called the Dongmen clan."

"This is also the origin of our Chinese surname 'Dongmen'." (End of this chapter)