The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 513 Pony!!!

More than a decade later, some of these young people who came out of the military compound have become rock godfathers, some have become famous novelists, and some have become first-class domestic directors, stars, and hosts...

It is no exaggeration to say that the children of the academy support half of the entertainment industry in Yanjing.

Wang Yu, who later became a "fixture" in the Yenching literary world, and Ma Wei, a big name in the antique world, were both good friends and close buddies who grew up together in a military compound.

The later famous director Feng Xiaogang also hung out with Ma Weidu, Wang Wei and a group of kids from rich courtyards, but he joined them relatively late.

Many years later, Feng Xiaogang made a special movie called "Mr. Six", directed by Guan Hu. He served as the producer and personally played the role of "Sixth Master", having a great time.

Both of them are children of military compounds, and Ma Wei came from an air force compound.

The Air Force compound is the most powerful among all the military compounds. Ma Wei later talked about the big words "Go all out to annihilate the invading enemy" engraved on the wall at the entrance of the Air Force compound, and he still looked very confident.

Speaking of Ma Weidu, he is an acquaintance of Liu Zhiye. To be precise, he is the new apprentice of "Polan Hou" and the junior brother of Yan Jiecheng.

Speaking of these future bigwigs, they are now just young men who have just entered the society and are not famous yet.

Ma Weidu, who was later called "Master Ma", is still just a "little Ma" today, but he has already shown his potential.

Ma Wei, who had just returned from the countryside a few years ago, was a milling machine operator with only primary school education.

However, Ma Weidu, who became a worker, was not satisfied with his current life situation, he had higher aspirations.

He races against time every day, and uses every bit of his available time to read and improve his literary accomplishments.

Ma Wei has his own unique writing style through reading a large number of books and accumulating literary literacy over a long period of time, coupled with his rich life experience.

Ma Wei's debut work "The Moon Is Full Tonight" which made him famous has not been published yet.

It was not until the next year when he published his work in the Xiaguo Youth Daily that Ma Modu became famous in the literary world.

From then on, Ma Weidu officially began his creative career and successfully published several novels.

Ma Weidu, who loves reading and writing, was later transferred to the "Youth Literature" magazine as an editor.

Compared with Ma Weidu, Wang Yu became famous later.

After Ma Wei became famous, Wang Yu published the short story "The Story of the Seagull", which was not particularly famous.

Ten years later, Ma Weidu, Wang Qian, Liu Zhenyun and others established the "Seahorse Film and Television Creation Studio".

He adapted and created many TV series that were very influential at the time, including "The Story of the Editorial Department", "Seahorse Ballroom", etc., and Wang Qi and others became celebrities.

So their golden age will come ten years later.

Wang Wan is a man of great talent and a bit of a ruffian, which is particularly evident in his novels.

The literary world has always had a habit of writers looking down on each other, and Wang Yu was later not well-received in the entire Yenching literary circle.

Because Wang Yu's personality is wild and ruffian, he will definitely say whatever he thinks. Commenting on Yu Qiuyu, he cannot be considered a writer. At most, he is just a traveler who wrote down some of his inner feelings.

He commented that Yu Danqing was explaining the Analects with the high hat of the market on his shoulders, which was meaningless.

Later, Wang earned the reputation of being a "nail house" in the literary world, and also became a "troll" that everyone stayed away from.

If it weren't for Ma Weidu's help, Wang Yu's talent might not have been fully utilized.

The ruffian Wang Ka commented on Ma Weidu with just one sentence: "He is just an antique dealer."

This is true. In addition to his love of literature, Ma Weidu’s biggest hobby is collecting antiques, and he later became wealthy because of collecting antiques.

Speaking of this, it is quite legendary that Ma Wei likes to collect antiques.

Ma Wei dropped out of school in the fourth grade.

After dropping out of school, Ma Weidu spent his days running around with the older kids in the yard until he went to the countryside to become an educated youth.

Ma Weidu, who had nothing to do, became one of the first educated youth.

Ma Wei is young and doesn’t know what is hard or not, and he is always curious about new things.

There are many strange people and things in the countryside. The one that impressed Ma Wei the most was catching a white croaker in the waves.

At that time, a female educated youth was by the pond. She accidentally fell into the water and drowned, and her body sank into the pond.

Several villagers who could swim went into the water to rescue the person, but they failed.

There was no other choice but to ask the best swimming fisherman in the area to catch them all.

After "Yiba Lao" was invited, he asked the village chief whether meals were provided. The village chief said of course meals were provided.

After the two of them agreed, Yiba Lao made a request that all the women present should leave.

The village chief wondered, "Is there any reason for this?" Yiba Lao said, "He has to take off all his clothes. If he is wearing clothes, it will increase the resistance."

The village chief immediately asked all the women to leave the scene.

I saw "Yaba Lao" take off all his clothes, take a deep breath, and jump into the water with a splash.

In this way, everyone waited on the shore for almost an hour, but there was no sign of "Yibao Lao".

This made everyone worried, and the village chief was even more anxious, thinking that if this person was not rescued, and another person was lost, it would not be worth it.

Therefore, the village chief asked several villagers who were good at swimming to get ready and go into the water again to rescue the people.

At this moment, waves were rolling in the middle of the pond, a female body floated to the surface, and then a fisherman also poked his head out of the water.

Everyone was amazed. It was really amazing that they could pull a person out of such a bottomless and turbid pond.

Ma Wei still remembers this incident vividly, and it also made him realize that there are many talented people in the world, as the saying goes, there is always someone better than you.

As a result, Ma Weidu began to like reading, and he wanted to explore more strange stories from books.

Reading enabled Ma Weidu to accumulate a lot of cultural knowledge and fill in his knowledge gaps.

It had a profound impact on his later life and work.

Until two years ago, Ma Wei was transferred back to Yanjing through his father's connections and worked as a worker in the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building.

The workers who can work in the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building are all very excellent workers.

After entering the workshop, everyone was assigned a master. Ma Wei learned machine tool milling in the factory.

The master he followed was a master named Dong. After Ma Wei entered, he respectfully called him "Master".

Every day when he goes to work, he must arrive earlier than his master. When he arrives at the workshop and sees that his master has not come, he will be particularly happy. Then he will go to the hot water room next to the machine room to get hot water for his master using a large porcelain vat.

If you smoke, you must first offer one to the chef and light it for him respectfully.

People of this era maintain a good master-disciple relationship, and Ma Weidu has also put this into practice well.

Every day at work, he deals with cold machine tools. After get off work, he wanders in the sea of ​​books, reading, reading newspapers, thinking, and writing.

So how did Ma Wei fall in love with collecting antiques and become the apprentice of "Polan Hou"?
This is a long story.

In fact, Ma Weidu has been interested in old things since he was a child.

When I was young, the school organized a visit to a museum. The teacher’s assignment was to go and it didn’t matter what you saw.

In Ma Weidu's impression, the teacher always said "Keep up, keep up...", and the students just followed one by one, just skimming the surface.

But Ma Wei refused to do that. He always stayed at the end of the team and just wanted to watch and see clearly.

He felt it was particularly important to understand the causes of history.

Later, Ma Weidu moved to Heijiang with his family and grew sorghum on a farm. He returned to Yanjing when he was 16 years old.

Ma Weidu just wandered around the streets, and his life was a bit like the movie "Sunny Days" starring his good brother Jiang Wen.

During his restless youth, Ma Weidu always had a question in his mind: Why is the education I received different from the history I saw?
Why are we taught that “people in the past didn’t live as well as we do”, yet the things they used, such as eating bowls and chairs, are prettier than ours?
This is the budding interest of a teenager who likes old things in collecting.

The late 1970s was the period when Xiaguo’s art was least valuable.

The cultural relics market in Tianjin was formed the earliest. Ma Wei worked in the Yanjing factory and often went to Tianjin whenever he had time.

At that time, people's income was generally not high, but things were also cheap. Ma Wei saved enough money from smoking to satisfy his collecting addiction.

At the beginning, because of the limited money, Ma Weidu collected things relatively slowly.

But people these days have no values ​​towards antiques and cultural relics. If you like something, people will just tell you to take it and they won’t charge you any money.

To be honest, Ma Wei was passionate about collecting antiques at that time, but he was just a "rookie".

Although Ma Weidu has good talent, he has no master to teach him and has to rely on himself to explore. It would be strange if he didn't suffer any losses!

Although the 1970s was the golden age of the antique market, there were fewer counterfeits of antiques at that time, and the prices were cheap, so it was easy to find a bargain.

But there are many imitations, but they are just the ones used by the people in the past. Fortunately, old items are not valuable these days, and Ma Wei is in good condition and can afford it.

Until one day, Ma Weidu came to Panjiayuan to shop for Taobao again.

I saw that the slope in the northeast corner was very lively, and I saw that people were trading antiques there.

Ma Wei was curious and asked why they were trading here. An old man with small eyes smiled and answered him: "Stand high and see far, so you can run fast."

Ma Wei found the old man's words humorous and very much to his liking, so he started chatting with him.

It turns out that this old man's surname is Hou, he also likes to collect old things, and he is very knowledgeable.

There aren’t many people who like collecting these days. Finding someone with similar interests made both Mr. Hou and Ma Wei feel like old friends.

So, the old and the young started strolling together.

At this moment, Ma Weidu suddenly caught sight of a Northern Song Dynasty Ru kiln washbasin, which made him excited.

Uncle Hou noticed that Ma Weidu had a strange expression on his face, so he followed his gaze.

"Well, this thing is good. The boy has good taste!" Uncle Hou admired in his heart, but followed him without saying a word.

Ma Weidu stopped, squatted in front of the stall, picked up a jade cigarette holder and asked the stall owner, "Boss! How much is this?"

The boss had been setting up his stall for a long time but hadn't sold a single item. Seeing that a customer had come, he greeted him warmly, "Sir, do you like this? It's not expensive, just ten yuan will do!"

Ma Weidu bargained directly, "Boss, be honest, how about one dollar?"

The boss frowned and said, "I can't even make a profit at this price. Give me a little more!"

Ma Wei shook his head and said, “I just need a cigarette holder for smoking, otherwise I wouldn’t buy it.

How about this, you can give me an ashtray as well, for a total of three dollars?"

After saying that, Ma Weiwei took the Northern Song Dynasty Ru kiln washbasin and the jade cigarette holder and put them together.

The boss was unwilling to give in and said, "Two pieces for five dollars, you can't let me lose money!"

When Ma Wei heard this, he pretended to feel pain and said, "Five dollars is fine! Who makes me like it?" After that, he took out five dollars and handed it to the boss, then left quickly with the things.

After they were far away from the stall, Ma Weidu still showed off to Uncle Hou: "What's the matter, Uncle Hou, can you give me some advice?"

"Polan Hou" took the Northern Song Dynasty Ru Kiln washbasin with a smile, looked at it carefully, and praised Ma Weidu: "It's a good thing. The Ru Kiln is the crown of Northern Song Dynasty porcelain. There are very few in existence. Your Northern Song Dynasty Ru Kiln washbasin is the best among them."

Hearing this, Ma Wei became completely cocky.

"Polan Hou" liked this young man very much. Seeing that Ma Wei was so proud, he wanted to give him a beating.

"Boy, don't get complacent. You should know that there are always people better than you. Your little bit of skills is not worth mentioning at all."

Ma Wei was just in high spirits when “Junk Hou” poured cold water on him. He immediately said unhappily, “So, you must have collected a lot of good things? Can you let me see some of them too?”

"Poor Hou" laughed dumbly upon hearing this, "Good boy, you still don't accept it. Fine, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll take you to open your eyes. Let's go..."

Just like that, Ma Weidu and "Polan Hou" came to Liu Zhiye's house on Di'anmennei Street.

Before even entering the door, Ma Wei was shocked by the grandeur of the house.

When Liu Zhiye got the house, he asked "Yangshi Lei" to clean it up, making it look brand new inside and out.

Compared with the houses next to it, it clearly stands out from the crowd.

"Oh, Lord Hou, were your ancestors also rich?" When Ma Wei heard that only Lord Hou and a distant relative of his lived in this two-courtyard house, he immediately mistakenly thought that Lord Hou was also one of those old people.

Apart from anything else, it is not something that an ordinary family can own, to have such a well-preserved and large two-courtyard house right at the foot of the imperial city.

When the two men entered the yard and saw the collections of "Jiaolan Hou", the inexperienced Ma Wei was completely eye-opening.

"Polan Hou" gave Ma Weidu a blue and white porcelain jar and told Ma Weidu something that left a deep impression on him.

"Polan Hou" told him that the blue and white porcelain can be used to distinguish historical dynasties.

Ma Wei thought this was an impossible thing. In his opinion, blue and white porcelain was just white porcelain with blue flowers painted on it. How could one see the changes over the past 700 years?

And can each dynasty be distinguished? But "Polan Hou" said: "You can tell if you look carefully."

Later, Ma Weidu bought one and took it home and put it on the bed. There was a table lamp on the bedside. He specially bought a 100-watt light bulb. It was very bright. Without it, he couldn’t see clearly, so he held it and looked at it every day.

The purpose of doing this is, firstly, to feast the eyes and enjoy the "feeling of spiritual communication with the ancients"; secondly, to study and become familiar with porcelains from different eras, kiln sites, and craftsmanship.

If a person loves something, he will try every possible way to get in touch with it.

In order to understand the characteristics of ceramics from different historical periods, Ma Wei went to the Ceramics Museum of the Forbidden City almost every day for a period of time.

Often, apart from a few staff members, he was the only visitor in the two courtyards of the Ceramics Museum, and it was empty and silent...

Ma Weidu sees things differently from others. He wants to see every detail and remember it in his heart.

The lighting in the exhibition room was poor, so he brought a flashlight every time he went there and shone it on each piece of porcelain.

He was the only visitor in the exhibition room, and he stayed there holding a flashlight for several hours, which made the staff suspicious.

Later, they really thought that Ma Wei was a "traitor" and it was a big joke.

Whenever Ma Wei encountered something he didn't understand, he would run out to ask "Polan Hou" for help.

After a few interactions, he became familiar with "Polan Hou".

Later, seeing that Ma Weidu was indeed a promising talent, "Polan Hou" accepted him as his last disciple.

Since Ma Weidu became the last disciple of "Polan Hou", he also became friends with his fellow disciples such as Yan Jiecheng.

He often stayed at the state-run cultural relics purchasing point. Every morning before the door opened, there were many farmers pushing their bicycles with old porcelain hanging on the handlebars waiting there. The queue was as long as 500 meters.

When some people sold or even threw away their "worthless" old stuff at home, Xiao Ma felt that his chance had come.

At that time, ordinary people thought that collecting porcelain, calligraphy and paintings was basically a waste of time for feudal remnants, but Ma Weidu quietly began his career of collecting old toys.

An official kiln bowl from the Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties costs 10 yuan.

Ma Wei always goes there before going to work every day. If he sees something he likes, he will save money to buy it for a pack of cigarettes.

As his collection grew, his wallet became increasingly empty.

You need money to collect antiques. Ma Wei relies solely on his own salary and the allowance from his family, which is just a drop in the bucket.

This happened to be a great period of reform and opening up, and in his spare time, Ma Weidu and his childhood friends started a medicinal materials business.

Of course, the medicinal materials business was introduced by his master "Polan Hou".

Ma Weidu and his friends teamed up to trade Chinese medicinal materials from Liujiazhuang.

After all the operations, everyone earned 70,000 to 80,000 yuan, which laid the financial foundation for Ma Weidu's collecting hobby.

Ma Weidu not only collects them himself, he also helps his master collect the scraps and acts as a "middleman" to make a profit from the difference.

At first, when "Jia Lan Hou" offered him a higher price, Ma Wei refused. It was only when he realized that the master was also collecting things for others that he felt at ease.

With the financial foundation, Ma Weidu had the confidence to collect antiques. Coupled with the guidance of famous teachers and his own accurate vision, he soon earned the reputation of "bargain hunter" in the antique business.

Even with money, Ma Wei is still very "bold" in doing things.

Even though Ma Wei had become rich, he never forgot his little brothers and often took Wang Yan, Hai Yan and others out to eat.

On this day, they went to "Donglaishun" to eat mutton hotpot.

As soon as he entered the door, Ma Wei asked the waiter to bring 20 kilograms of mutton, which stunned the waiter.

The waiter thought he was joking. Not to mention whether they could finish it, these 20 kilograms of mutton were not cheap.

Not to mention that this was the early 80s, even for people in later generations who went out to eat hotpot, it was rare to eat 20 kilograms of mutton in one meal.

If this happened in later times, he would definitely be a wealthy man.

As Beijingers, Ma Weidu and his friends like to eat mutton hotpot the most in winter.

When winter comes, those specialized copper pot shabu-shabu restaurants are extremely popular.

The waiter was stunned and asked the leader Ma Weidu: "Can you finish this?"

Ma Wei said don’t ask so many questions, just order like this, and the waiter then went to make the arrangements.

The mutton was cut right on the spot, and the semi-soft mutton slices were cut into even thicknesses, a level that you can never get from making it at home.

When the mutton slices are served and the hot pot is boiled, I pick up 10 slices of meat with chopsticks, rinse them in the pot for a while, and then I can't wait to put them in my mouth. It's so satisfying.

(End of this chapter)