【Chapter 38】Surprise discovery of the Zhu family’s treasure

When Chen Guoqiang left like this, Zhu Mingyang became particularly depressed, but his mentality quickly adjusted. He wanted to do something, but he couldn't think of anything he could do for a while, so he came to the Zhu family's old house alone on a whim.

The Zhu family's old house is quite similar to the folk houses in Jiangnan Water Town, but the most peculiar thing is that the old house is built against a hill. Looking at it as a whole, it is impossible to tell why, but if you are an expert, you can see it at a glance.

,

The location of this old house against the mountain is a bit weird! Because according to this courtyard design, it should be the pattern of the Jiangnan water town with three entrances and three exits, but this old house only has two and a half entrances, which means it is still half close.

In the mountains behind...

Zhu Mingyang had been to the old house last time and saw something different, but he never noticed anything special. Looking at the objects his mother had used before her death, his eyes became moist and tears flowed down involuntarily. His mother died in depression.

, unwilling to do so until his deathbed

Want to tell him who his biological father is? This also buried deep hatred in Zhu Mingyang's heart. In his past life and now, he has sworn to find the person who betrayed his heart, no matter where he is, let alone who he is.

He must apologize to his mother's grave...

After a long, long time, he controlled his fluctuating emotions and walked towards the last courtyard, which was his favorite place to play when he was a child...

His hands caressed the stones, walls, trees where he played with his uncle when he was a child...

He couldn't help but sigh heavily: He must seize the opportunity in this life... Hey! What's going on! At this time, his hand involuntarily knocked on the stone wall he touched, and the sound it made was a little strange. He was slightly startled.

Immediately he knocked on other stone walls, and his heart was shocked: it seems that the old house must have some unknown secrets!

Thinking of this, Zhu Mingyang began to search carefully, and time passed by minute by minute. An hour later, he finally found something different on a pillar half buried in the wall, and the shape of this pillar

Next to it is a gate, and inside is the ancestral hall of the old house...

He only came here three times - when he was full moon, when he was one year old, when he was ten years old, and to offer sacrifices to his ancestors.

There was a slightly sunken place that was not noticed by the pillar that was half buried in the wall. Zhu Mingyang thought for a moment, then a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. He stretched out his hand and pressed it gently, and then he heard a burst of sound.

A slight sound came from the ancestral hall...

Zhu Mingyang pushed open the door of the ancestral hall and went in. The scene in his mind was different. At a glance, he saw a dark, one-meter-square hole on the ground in the center of the main hall!

Zhu Mingyang did not hesitate. He came to the entrance of the cave and saw with his super eyesight that it was a stone ladder leading to the ground. He walked in. Just after taking two steps, there was another slight sound.

The hole was quickly covered, and then a faint luster appeared!

He didn't care about this, and walked along the ladder with the faint luster. His intuition told him that he was walking underground. After walking thirty steps of stone stairs, it became a straight road. After more than thirty meters of

On the straight road, in front of you is a stone gate that exudes a green luster——

Although the cave exudes a faint light, and the floor and walls of the cave are all made of stone. From his perspective, such a cave is at least two hundred years old. It seems that it should be deep in the mountains, but it is not.

It feels damp, and it's obvious that there is a unique ventilation device in this cave.

The stone door was opened, and the light inside became slightly brighter. The hole was at least a hundred square meters, and was surrounded by two rows of tall wooden shelves. In the middle, there were more than a dozen large wooden boxes inlaid with copper nails.

Although he didn't know what was in the wooden box, the antiques on the shelves were all exuding a rich luster, and they were all priceless treasures. There were actually nine pairs of gold-cast items left over from an unknown dynasty.

Small incense burner...

Zhu Mingyang was surprised. He had never thought that there was such a treasure in his old house. Taking out any of these things would cause a huge sensation. The value of these treasures can no longer be measured by money, but by the value of past lives.

At that time, no uncle had mentioned it, and this place was designated as a provincial cultural relic by the government for protection in later generations. There was no news of these treasures being discovered. It seems that the things here must have been left behind by the Zhu family through generations.

Just as Zhu Ming was thinking, the whole cave slowly became brighter, like daylight. He looked around and realized that there was a huge glass mirror around the cave. It was the principle of reflection that made the cave brighter.

The hole became so bright, and the frame was engraved with patterns of dragons and phoenixes, apparently also

It is an old antique, and such a thing is simply impossible to appear among the people. In the feudal dynasty, the dragon was a totem exclusive to the emperor, and the phoenix was also exclusive to the queen. No other folk had ever seen such a frame, and at this time his

A piece of history about glass mirrors appeared in my mind involuntarily.

According to records in the book "The Decade of Yongzheng: The Story of the Swedish Ship" published by the National Social Sciences Press: During the Yongzheng period, Guangzhou's foreign trade became increasingly prosperous. Every summer and autumn, there were nearly 20 or 30 ships from Western countries.

Large ships came for trade, from Britain and France.

China, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and other countries, and these large ships came to buy tea, porcelain, silk, etc. from China. Along with the ships were some products from Western countries, such as woolen fabrics, clocks, etc., among which there was one thing that was quite special.

The product is glass; the Guangzhou trade that undertook Western merchant ships

The foreign merchants were basically experienced merchants from the Fujian area, and their families were extremely wealthy. The foreign merchants' merchant houses built in the southwest corner outside Guangzhou were very large in scale. There were shops outside the merchant houses and huge warehouses and goods yards inside the merchant houses.

There is also a special wharf on the riverside, next to the foreign goods trading house, there is also a special wharf

A special courtyard was built outside the gate, which had an independent door to the outside world and one that could directly lead to the foreign goods trading house. There was at least one two-story Western-style building in the courtyard. The layout was incompatible with the residential buildings at that time. It was specially designed for renting by Western merchant ships and foreigners.

It serves as a place of residence and shopping for Westerners doing business in Guangzhou.

Since it is a place where Westerners live temporarily, the architectural style is still quite Westernized. Foreign goods shops are built along the river, and they are also close to the river. They usually also have a large balcony and two-story building, which was also the style of Guangzhou City at that time.

It is a novel building that is unique inside and outside. The merchants of the foreign goods trading house were also the first to import

The glass ones were probably used for the construction of the Yi Pavilion. After the windows on the second floor were installed with glass, they became even more unusually majestic and western-style. This type of Yi Pavilion was perfectly constructed and of course it was very worthwhile. At that time, Western merchant ships rented such a courtyard.

, a trading season costs one thousand taels of silver.

After the use of glass, there are naturally people who are greedy for it, but the merchants are all white men without fame, and they are all country guys from Fujian. In the early years of the Yongzheng Dynasty, the government and the local gentry in Guangzhou basically looked down on it. In modern terms, those Fujianese who dealt with foreigners, including those who were merchants, translators, and compradors, were all outside the mainstream society. Things like glass appeared in the early years of Yongzheng's reign. It is imported, but it has great limitations in actual use.

In the seventh year of Yongzheng (AD 17), Emperor Yongzheng appointed the deposed former governor of Guangxi, and Zu Binggui, a servant of the Three Banners of Manchuria, took up the post of customs supervisor at that time. Before Zu Binggui, Guangdong Customs Supervisor The post has always been held concurrently by the governor of Guangdong; since Zu Binggui, he has served alone. His name is an official sent by the Ministry of Household Affairs, but in fact he directly obeys the instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Zu Binggui is a second-rank official, and he is also He also held the post of supervisory censor and had the power to reach the emperor secretly. In terms of power and status, he was higher than the governor of Guangdong.

The styles of Zu Binggui and his predecessor, Guangdong Customs Supervisor and Guangdong Governor Yang Wenqian, were also very different. One was to concentrate on collecting rare treasures for the Ministry of Internal Affairs; The rich Fujian natives fought very fiercely; especially they had a very good relationship with Chen Shouguan, a merchant of Guangshun Trading Company, the largest foreign goods trading house at that time. It can be said that they were so good that they were brothers. In this way, what good things could Hongshang have? , Zu Binggui is naturally very familiar with them, and after going back and forth like this, this glass has become a good item for Zu Binggui to make money.

According to the archives disclosed by the Qing Palace, in the ninth year of Yongzheng's reign, Zu Binggui sent to the palace "a large piece of glass, five feet long and three feet four inches wide, enclosed in a wooden crate covered with white cashmere." Such a large piece of glass has traveled thousands of miles. It came from Europe and was carefully transported to the capital by land. It was really a rare thing, and the emperor was very happy. During the Yongzheng period, the imperial palace began to use this kind of imported foreign glass, which also ended the history of China. For thousands of years, windows have been red-pasted. In this way, Zu Binggui can be regarded as quite meritorious. It was such a difficult and dangerous journey, and a special person had to escort a large piece of plate glass to Beijing. After all, it was still a big thing that required a lot of effort. Only Only the emperor can afford it. Zu Binggui’s three uncles and four aunts among the imperial relatives in Beijing have always taken good care of him. Now that he has a wonderful job like customs supervision, he naturally wants to serve up something particularly interesting. In this way, the imported flat glass finally transformed and became a plaything of wealthy families in Beijing, called glass enclosure.

The so-called glass screen actually involves hiring famous carpenters from Guangdong to make a wooden frame out of high-quality hardwood, such as rosewood, etc., which is then carefully carved and polished, and then inlaid with imported glass pieces to form a frame. Surrounding the screen, and then asking skilled painters to paint landscapes and figures on the glass, lifelike. Such a screen was sent to Beijing, and all the princes and nobles loved it. And whether the production of this screen was originally Zu Binggui's idea? It is not known, but it is indeed well-documented that the glass enclosures that Zu Binggui paid tribute to several times, without mass production, were distributed to the three uncles and four aunts in Beijing. For example, in April of the ninth year of Yongzheng's reign, they were given to the emperor. The two glass screens, totaling twenty-four, were sent. The emperor liked them very much, so he specially ordered them to be collected by Haiwang, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In a short time, the glass screens became the most prominent furnishings in the homes of Beijing's princes and nobles. Already.

This method of making treasures from imported Western glass was quite original. In the future, many famous carpenters came out of Guangzhou, and some even entered the palace's manufacturing office and became famous craftsmen. Living here, Guangzhou's glass paintings became famous.

, especially imitating Western brushwork and depicting portraits on glass, which has achieved great success, such as Qianlong's

Pan Zhencheng, a famous merchant in Guangzhou during the 1960s and a third-grade official. The glass portrait he gave to the chief executive of the Swedish East India Company in the middle of the Qianlong period is still hanging in the History Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden. The painting is very exquisite, the characters are lifelike, and the combination of woodware production and glass painting

The achievement should also have a lot to do with the mass production of glass enclosures.

Although there is no record of the era when glass mirrors came from in those historical materials, some people believe that glass existed in the Ming Dynasty, but the glass mirrors that were used in large quantities were probably in the Qing Dynasty. The reason is that with glass, how can there be no mirrors?

Zhu Mingyang looked at these priceless treasures. If they were placed in the past, he would definitely spend one or two to enrich his own funds, but now he does not need these. These are treasures left by his ancestors, and he must not

Take it out and sell it. If you really encounter a problem with cash flow, you can still take out one or two items that are not very valuable and take them to the auction house for auction. This way you can also get funds and make friends with many people from all over the world.

Celebrities, now let’s take a look at what’s in those big wooden boxes!

Thinking of this, he casually opened a wooden box, and suddenly a shining light pierced his eyes! Oh my god! Luminous Pearl!

Zhu Mingyang was stunned. The wooden boxes he opened casually were all full of luminous pearls, large and small. The smallest ones were as big as sparrow eggs, and the largest ones were as big as ostrich eggs. With his eyes, he could immediately identify these luminous pearls.

It is absolutely formed naturally, without any trace of artificial polishing...

In addition to these luminous pearls, there are also pearls. Zhu Mingyang looked at these things again, thought for a moment, took three luminous pearls the size of eggs, and four pearls of the same size. After carefully putting them away, he inhaled deeply.

After taking a deep breath, he came out of the cave and carefully examined all the traces.

After tidying up the ground to make sure nothing was exposed, he stood in front of the old house, took a deep look, and murmured to himself: "It seems that the things in the cave cannot be kept here for a long time. What if something happens?"
Chapter completed!