It seems that there was really no shortage of gold in the Han Dynasty. They could produce so much just as toys for children, and all of them were used for burials.
Come to think of it, those people back then dug an ancient tomb of a child!
Situations like this were not uncommon in ancient times. The children of dignitaries were also dignitaries, and they also needed to be buried well!
Slowly clean out these little beasts and put them aside.
After entering the cave, Chen Wenzhe was stunned when he saw the dazzling array of things arranged in an orderly manner in the large cave.
He had seen the world, but he was still shocked when he saw the various utensils here.
This discovery finally let him know where all the gold in the Han Dynasty went.
Where can it go? It’s all here!
And Chen Wenzhe was sure that what he discovered was the accumulation of ten or eight Han tombs at most, and no more.
The entire Eastern and Western Han Dynasty seems to have been over four hundred years in total, right?
Even if there was not much gold in the Eastern Han Dynasty, how many princes and grandsons would a Western Han Dynasty have for more than two hundred years?
For so many years, so many vassal states have paid lavish burials, so how many treasures are buried underground in our country?
Chen Wenzhe really couldn't imagine that the collection here could only contain the funerary objects from a few ancient tombs...
And just in these few Han tombs, so much gold can be buried underground.
So how many gold and silver products were buried by the princes, generals and ministers of the entire Han Dynasty?
So much gold recorded in history disappeared during the Western Han Dynasty. Where did it go?
Many domestic experts probably underestimated the princes, generals and ministers at that time.
Many people have consulted a lot of information, but they have not found detailed records in any documents, at least so far they have not found the whereabouts of the gold in the Western Han Dynasty, so the disappearance of the gold in the Western Han Dynasty is a mystery.
Therefore, there have been many speculations in later generations.
One guess is that a large amount of gold was used to worship Buddha.
Since Buddhism was introduced into the country at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, both rich and poor people have set off a craze for worshiping Buddha.
The wealthy people competed with each other and even used gold powder to decorate Buddha statues and added gold powder to ink to write scriptures.
Just like that, the consumption of gold increased greatly, and in less than a hundred years, the gold was exhausted.
Another guess is that after the opening of the Silk Road, ancient Rome made a lot of gold by doing business with us.
However, this statement is not very reliable.
At that time, we were rich in tea and silk. In the process of East-West trade, we obtained higher profits and a large amount of gold flowed in, but it could not flow out.
The third guess is more convincing, that is, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, the construction of the emperor's mausoleum consumed a quarter of the national fiscal revenue, and there were countless burial objects.
Taking Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty as an example, the imperial mausoleum was built after he became emperor at the age of 16. It took 54 years until his death without interruption. The cost is conceivable.
After the death of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, his burial objects filled the entire tomb.
As the saying goes, "Those who are good above are bound to be bad below." If the emperor of a country creates such a strong funeral atmosphere, why would the people below not learn from it?
For a period of time, from nobles to officials, from wealthy businessmen to ordinary wealthy households, they all imitated each other and were all proud of their rich burials.
Therefore, the gold reserves during the Western Han Dynasty decreased sharply.
However, when this speculation emerged, some people expressed opposition to it.
They called the gold at that time not gold, but brass.
Because from a historical perspective, the social productivity at that time was not enough to produce so much gold, and there would be more copper products.
However, this statement is completely untenable. That is, in the Western Han Dynasty, the unit of measurement for gold was "yi", while the unit of measurement for copper was "baht", or simply "qian". This difference is very obvious.
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Between the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was another dynasty, the New Dynasty established by Wang Mang.
At that time, the gold reserves were 560 tons. In addition, including private reserves, the gold reserves in the late Western Han Dynasty were absolutely astonishing.
However, just a few decades later, Wang Mang lost his dynasty and Liu Xiu restored the Han Dynasty, but so much gold disappeared.
And all of this later became an unsolved mystery.
But now, Chen Wenzhe believes that what a mystery it is, it is the short-sightedness of modern people.
Look at the gold cakes hidden here. In ancient times, apart from gold bricks, gold cakes were the most common.
There are too many gold cakes placed here. If you pick one up at random, it is quite big.
This kind of gold cake has a diameter of 6.2 to 6.5 centimeters, a thickness of 0.6 to 0.7 centimeters, and a weight of 247.5 grams. This can be regarded as a standard gold cake of the Han Dynasty.
These gold cakes are in the shape of irregular round cakes, with convex and uneven fronts and concave ice cracks on the backs. Above them are the four characters "Juji Shangkou" in vertical official script and the inscription "u" in Chinese inscriptions. There are small square stamps on the edges.
The writing is a bit unclear.
Chen Wenzhe has seen a lot of this kind of thing and understands it better.
The size and weight of the gold cakes that have been unearthed are inconsistent. The larger ones are mostly 5 to 6.6 centimeters in diameter, while the smaller ones are about 3 centimeters in diameter.
Ordinary people cannot catch it, but if it falls into the hands of princes, generals and ministers, it will definitely be buried with them.
Generation after generation of princes were buried with them, and finally they were all buried underground.
Without looking at the gold, Chen Wenzhe looked in other directions.
Gold is the most common here, and he has developed aesthetic fatigue, so he discovered something different this time.
"Is this silverware?"
With just a glance, Chen Wenzhe saw a small silver basin among the golden utensils.
A small basin appeared among a large number of gold vessels, which seemed to be extraordinary.
Sure enough, when he picked it up and looked at it, Chen Wenzhe discovered the inscription on it.
The correct name of this thing should be Yinluo.
"狗, a small basin, Guangyun is called Tongchao."
"Cho is a warmer."
From this we can see that the 闗 is a warm water utensil for washing and bathing.
This silver turtle is quite big, with a height of 19.5 cm and a diameter of 45.7 cm.
The shape of the vessel is also good, with a flat folded rim, a short straight neck, annular ears on both sides, a bulging belly, and a flat bottom.
The inscription is on the abdomen, using incised engraving, and it is engraved on it: "The eunuch's family is bathing and bathing, one stone, one bucket, eight liters, weighing twenty-one kilograms, twelve dozen Zhu, the first emperor."
Things with inscriptions and things without inscriptions have absolutely different values.
It seems that the villagers during the Republic of China knew this very well, so they kept this small basin here.
I looked at them again and again with pleasure, and found that these utensils were all well preserved, which was not easy.
It is definitely not easy to transport it all the way from Pengcheng in China to here.
Unfortunately, it was left here in the end and fell into his hands.
Chen Wenzhe felt a little emotional that such a huge amount of wealth had not played any role and had been circulating underground for two thousand years!