At the end of 2005, according to the oral recollections of the person involved (Mrs. Bao).
In that era of the last century, a large number of cultural relics were destroyed and confiscated. Many wealthy families had no choice but to bury their family heirlooms deep underground, usually in a jar and buried with the soil.
After 1970, the state took the initiative to return many things to the heads of households. This type of returned cultural relics usually comes with a box made of ebony, with the words "return to the number of 000" written on it, so I saw this when collecting.
Those who grow boxes have many good things.
At around 10 o'clock in the evening, the huge Bao family cemetery was very desolate. A fire lit up in front of a tombstone. It was Old Mrs. Bao who was burning paper for his father.
Next to the tombstone, a narrow hole with a diameter of less than one meter square was opened in the ground.
A long rope hangs down from the hole. The temporary helper I called, Dou Sprout, is squatting next to the rope and smoking. Along with the rope, there is also a blower pipe.
Seeing the rope swaying, Dou Sprout immediately started to lift the soil. The loess he lifted casually fell next to the tombstone and piled up into a small mountain.
"Damn it, Fengzi, haven't you reached the end yet?"
"No!"
It’s too deep. This is the second deepest hole I’ve dug since I started in the industry!
Some people say that you are bragging. If you are 30 meters deep, you must be ten stories high. Who believes it? Anyone who has this idea is an amateur. There are many tombs of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Warring States Period that are buried tens of meters deep underground.
From the afternoon till now, the vertical depth is already close to 30 meters!
The space underneath is small, dark, and lacks oxygen. The blower has to be turned on every five minutes to provide oxygen. In the early years, people in the industry used the Dongcheng brand portable blower, which burned diesel and had a soft plastic pipe connected to one end.
I was wearing a headlamp and was covered in dirt, so I could only dig sideways underneath.
"Bah, damn..."
I thought to myself, is this old lady playing tricks on me?
After digging for most of the day, I haven't seen any hair yet. If I keep digging, I'm afraid I'm going to reach the underworld.
Half an hour later, the depth dropped another two meters. I was digging and digging, and suddenly I saw a lot of rotten hay.
After digging through the hay, I saw a small water tank half-buried in the soil.
At this time, my heart was beating wildly, and I carefully cleaned up the floating soil around the mouth of the tank with my hands to expose it completely.
The tank is pressed with a three-inch thick solid wood board!
The surface of the wooden board was moldy and rotten. It was obvious that it had been buried for a long time. After removing the wooden board, I saw that there was still hay in the tank. At the bottom, there was a cast iron box hidden.
The whole box is square in shape, with the old-fashioned long copper lock on it. The surface of the iron box is stained with rust. There are round pull rings on the left and right sides. I tied the pull rings on the rope and looked up at Dou Sprout as he pulled it up little by little.
.
It took me a lot of effort to climb up, and I gasped and asked: "Grandma, where is the key to this box? Open it quickly and take a look."
The old lady looked at the iron box, shook her head and smiled bitterly: "I saw this thing once when I was a child. I didn't expect that I could still look at it before I died. Dad, all the ancestors of the Bao family, please
You forgive me."
The eldest sister covered her face and choked softly. Almost no one noticed that the corner of her mouth curled up.
The old lady took out a bunch of old-fashioned keys from her arms, pointed out which one it was, then handed it to Dou Sprout and said to open it.
Dou Sprout took the key and tinkered with it for a long time. He shook it vigorously and said angrily: "Grass, is it rusted to death? It can't be opened!"
"Get out of the way, I'll do it."
Little Dou Sprout didn't know that there was a skill in opening this kind of old lock. After I took over, I first inserted it until it stopped, and then rotated it hard at a 45-degree angle.
If your hand feels like it can't turn anymore, you should slowly pull it out a little, and then twist it again.
Just listen to the sound of Kata...opening.
After opening it, I saw that there was a lot of old oil paper stuffed inside the iron box. After peeling off the oil paper layer by layer, what appeared in front of me was a scroll.
The eyes of the shaft head were white and yellow, and I recognized it at a glance. It was a shaft head made of "a certain kind of tooth". In the past, it was a very high-end material that ordinary people could not afford.
Dou Sprout's eyes widened. He held up a flashlight to help me illuminate, while I untied the rope and unfolded the scroll bit by bit.
It's not a paper painting, it's a silk painting.
When I first saw this thing, I felt an old-fashioned air coming over me.
The silk looks very dry, severely oxidized and yellowed, and has some stains on the edges. The subject of the painting is an ancient pine tree, and the side is covered with dozens of red seals, large and small!
These seal fonts cover official script, cursive script, running script, etc., and even nine-fold seal script. I don't recognize these seals, but I recognize one seal, which is also the largest seal in the painting.
"The Seal of the Emperor Qianlong".
What a good thing....
We are low-educated and don’t know much about calligraphy and painting, but I have never eaten pork and seen pigs run away. Whether something is good or bad cannot escape my eyes.
Douyazai was a little excited and asked: "Fengzi, who drew this? Didn't you say it was a picture of a sparrow? Where is this sparrow?"
Huh.....
Dou Sprout asked me about it. I didn't see a sparrow either. I only saw a pine tree in the painting.
I immediately turned around and asked: "Grandma, the picture handed down from your family is not a picture of a sparrow, but a picture of a pine tree, right?"
The old lady said expressionlessly: "Look carefully."
I looked at the light again and looked at it carefully.
Damn, I saw a sparrow.
Just one!
It’s hidden on the trunk of the pine tree in the painting! It’s not big, so you won’t be able to find it unless you look carefully!
This little sparrow is painted very vividly, with some characteristics of meticulous painting. The key point is that the sparrow's head is looking to the right.
There is a calligraphy in the calligraphy and painting shop: a sparrow with its head to the left is worth a hundred, and a sparrow with its head to the right is worth a thousand.
This means that all sparrows in ancient paintings with their heads looking to the right are ten times more valuable than those looking to the left.
Although there are many stamps on this painting, it is not signed by the deceased painter. After my identification, this scroll painting should be the "Anonymous Bird Picture" from the Southern Song Dynasty. It was re-framed in the Qing Dynasty.
The trees in the painting are bare and have no leaves, which means it is winter, so the sparrow is more appropriately called Hanque.
"Anonymous" means an unknown painter. There used to be many such paintings in the Qing Dynasty. There are only a handful of Southern Song Dynasty silk paintings in existence. It can be said that each piece is priceless, not to mention that it is stamped with the private seals of so many collectors from past dynasties.
The old lady asked: "How's it going? You guys have an eye on it."
"Well, take a look, the stuff is really good. Grandma, that emerald cabbage and silver pension brand from your Bao family? If possible, I hope you can sell it to me together."
I heard the old lady say expressionlessly: "During the famine years, my father had sold the pension card for money. The jade cabbage is still there, but don't think about it. I agreed to sell this painting just for the sake of it."
Raise money to save my little granddaughter."
I immediately and respectfully said yes, I understand grandma. (I’ll talk about it after I get one.)
"Okay, now that you have seen the things, when will you give me the money?"
I checked the time and said that I would be able to get the money together at noon tomorrow, and then we would pay and deliver the goods.
The old lady said nothing and nodded with a dark face.
...
An hour later, we left Guozhuang on the dirt road.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Douyazai said excitedly: "Brother Feng, you are so awesome! This time we are going to make a fortune again!"
I smiled and said, "Is the little girl okay?"
"It's okay, it's great! You don't know, but that little girl likes Xiaoxuan!"
"It's okay. Just tell Xiaoxuan when you get back and take good care of her and don't let her run around in the mountains."
Dou Sprout nodded and said don't worry.
I sent the bean sprouts back first, and then returned to the county town. I called Wenwen and asked him to meet downstairs.
"Ah? Brother Xiang, you want to withdraw money? But your financial management has only been purchased for two days!"
"Well, I need it urgently. I need 800,000 in cash. You can give it to me tomorrow morning."
Wenwen immediately wondered: "Brother Xiang, you need to make an appointment. We usually don't put that much cash in our bank. Besides, if you withdraw money now, you will lose your principal!"
"How much is the loss?"
"The loss was about 4%, about hundreds of thousands."
"So much! That's alright, I'll borrow someone else's first." (Since this time, I have never deposited my money on a regular basis, nor have I bought any financial products. They are all deceptive things.)
"Wenwen, please help me with the cash. I have to get it tomorrow morning."
Wenwen gritted his teeth and thought for a long time, then said okay Brother Xiang, I will find a way to help you.
The things are in place and the money is about to be in place.
All it takes is the final touch and I can make a fortune.