Chapter 13 The Origin of the Gold Cake [Requesting Monthly Ticket]
“I don’t know how much it can be sold for?”
Li Yu picked up the gold cake on the table and wanted to take a photo and send it to Zhou Ruotong. It doesn’t feel right.
She just sold a Northern Song Dynasty silver ingot in the morning, and here comes a Han Dynasty gold cake. She would be damned if she didn't doubt the origin.
But you can ask the price first and warm up this gold cake by the way.
Li Yu thought for a moment, picked up his mobile phone and sent a message to Zhou Ruotong:
"Miss Zhou, I would like to ask, are the gold cakes from the Han Dynasty valuable now? My grandma said that there were bandits in the backyard of my hometown. There are gold cakes buried in the dry well. If the price is high, I plan to go down and look for it.”
Li Yu’s hometown is in the countryside. There is indeed a dry well in the backyard, but it has long been filled with gravel, bricks and other debris.
Use this as an excuse to find a suitable reason for selling cultural relics.
Zhou Ruotong was having lunch at the archaeological team's station. When he saw this news, he frowned slightly.
She put down her chopsticks and went outside, dialing Li Yu's phone:
"Are you short of money?"
Isn't it obvious... Li Yu on the other end of the phone didn't know this What does the sudden call from a beautiful lady mean? She smiled and prevaricated:
“I am very curious, and I have wanted to go and have a look since I was a child.”
Zhou Ruotong was speechless:< br>
"If you are really short of money, I can lend you some. Dry wells are very dangerous. Not only do they lack oxygen, they can easily collapse. Moreover, the legend of bandits burying gold and silver is not reliable. Don't take your own life for granted."
Why did the person who was chatting and laughing at the dinner table yesterday turn into a childish person today?
Are men really young until they die?
She complained a few words in her mind and answered the previous question:
“The market price of gold cakes in the Han Dynasty was no more than 100,000, and the museum purchase price is usually 60,000 to 70,000... Now the price of gold is high , it can be sold for more than 100,000 when sold as gold jewelry, but it depends on the purity and weight and cannot be generalized. ”
More than 100,000?
Li Yu was immediately stunned by this number.
Yes, you can take this gold cake to a gold recycling shop and sell it instead of going through the cultural relics channel.
Not only can you make more money by selling it, but it does not involve reselling cultural relics, so you get the best of both worlds.
“Thank you, Miss Zhou. I thought about it and decided that digging a dry well is too dangerous, so I won’t go there.”
Li Yu thanked him and hung up the phone.
He picked up the gold cake again, observing it while thinking about ways to realize it.
Gold cakes are a very common ancient gold artifact in the Han Dynasty. More than two hundred pieces were unearthed from Guanghai Hunhou Tomb. Gold cakes can also be found in other large tombs of the Han Dynasty.
It is said that tomb thieves in the past liked to dig the tombs of the Han Dynasty, especially the tombs of the Western Han Dynasty.
The reason is that there was a lot of gold in the Western Han Dynasty, and the gold rewarded by the emperor often amounted to tens of thousands of kilograms. At that time, generous burials were popular. Even ordinary people would be buried with one or two gold objects in the tomb.
Moreover, most of the gold vessels buried with them will also have words engraved on them to commemorate them.
“Eh? Why is there no writing on this gold cake?”
Li Yu took the gold cake in his hand and looked at it twice, but he couldn’t find any words, not even scratches. .
This is wrong. I remember that the gold cakes in the tomb of Haihunhou all have inscriptions on them.
Li Yu left the restaurant with the gold cake, followed the stairs to the study room on the second floor, and pulled out a picture album from the bookshelf. This was a commemorative picture album he bought when he visited the tomb of Marquis Haihun last time.
"Woof?"
On the carpet next to him, the sleeping golden retriever raised his head and looked at Li Yu doubtfully.
“Keep sleeping, I’ll check the information.”
Li Yu sat cross-legged on the carpet where the golden retriever slept, which made him very dissatisfied. After a groan, he turned over and got up. , staring at the gold cake curiously.
Most of the gold cakes in the tomb of Haihunhou have marks, either stamps, engravings, scratches or repairs and beating marks.
As for the piece given by Lu Bu, not only did it not have any human markings, the workmanship was even rougher.
Compared with the gold cake in the picture, it looks like a knockoff without imitating the essence.
Haihun Hou is a tomb from the Western Han Dynasty, and Lu Bu's gold cake comes from the Eastern Han Dynasty two hundred years later. Logically speaking, the technology of the Eastern Han Dynasty should be better, and this situation should not happen.
Li Yu scratched his head and picked up the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" next to him, trying to find the answer from it.
As a result, he flipped through the pages and finally found it. It was the description that after Dong Zhuo decided to move the capital, he ordered Lu Bu to dig up the imperial mausoleum to find the treasures and take them all away.
Excavation of imperial tombs?
Reminiscent of Dong Zhuo's actions of desecrating the harem as soon as he arrived in the capital, murdering the young emperor Liu Bian and the Queen Mother He, and massacring ministers, it makes sense that he planned to build the imperial mausoleum as soon as he arrived in Luoyang.
After all, it cost one thousand taels of gold to bribe Lu Bu, so it should cost more to bribe other ministers and celebrities.
Such money certainly did not come from the bitter cold land of Xiliang. It could only come from the capital.
If you want to get a large amount of gold quietly in the capital, digging the imperial tomb becomes the best choice.
Li Yu sat back against the bookshelf and made an inference about the gold cake in his hand:
Because the gold cakes in the tomb were all stamped and engraved, they were easily exposed, so Dong Zhuo had the gold cakes melted. Recast it and erase the traces on it.
But because the craftsmanship was not refined and the time was too short, it was made into a copycat product. Gee, it makes sense when you think about it.
In this case, Li Yu decided to sell the gold cakes to a small shop that recycles gold.
Without written traces, there is no way to prove the origin. On the contrary, this gold cake is rough, more like a gold nugget made by refining gold from scraps.
“Woooo~~~”
Just as he was planning when to cash out, the big golden retriever came over and barked flatteringly.
Li Yu asked curiously:
"What's wrong? Are you hungry?"
The big golden retriever barked twice more, stood up and took out a small brown irregular ball from the corner next to it. He put it on the carpet and pulled it with his paws a few times.
Li Yu picked it up and looked at it, and found that it was a chestnut. He asked doubtfully:
"What do you want to do? Do you want to play ball?"
"Woof!"
The golden retriever denied it, licked his tongue and made a eating motion.
"You want to eat this thing?"
"Woo~~~~~~"
The big golden retriever was wagging its tail excitedly, as if he was being guessed.
Li Yule said:
"Why do you suddenly want to eat this stuff? There happens to be a chestnut forest nearby, we can go pick some up."
After saying that, he patted his head and went back to stocking up on grains, oil, rice and noodles. In fact, chestnuts could also be stocked. Whether entertaining Wu Song and Lu Bu or giving them to Zhou Ruotong, it was a good choice.
And chestnuts can not only be used as snacks, but can also be used to stew chicken, stew meat, stew ribs, and even make chestnut stewed rice or various snacks. It is also very delicious. It is a versatile ingredient.
Since the dog wants to eat, then go pick it up.
Li Yu put the gold cake into the bookcase and planned to visit a gold recycling store in the city in two days to see the situation.
You can’t rush this, you have to take your time.
When he came downstairs, he carried a basket with two woven bags in it, then picked up the iron pliers for picking chestnuts, drove an electric tricycle, and pulled the big golden retriever down the cement road.
Walking to the middle of the mountain road, there is a forest on the gentle slope next to it, full of chestnut trees.
The chestnuts growing inside are large, glutinous and fragrant, and are very popular with the villagers of Shitou Village. A few days ago, Li Yu saw them running down the mountain to pick chestnuts.
Parking the electric tricycle on the side of the road, Li Yu carried a basket, iron pliers and a woven bag, and led Gouzi to attack the chestnut forest.
At the archaeological team station, Zhou Ruotong had had lunch and was sorting out the excavation data in the morning. Pang Donghai, the leader of the archaeological team, suddenly came over.
"Ruotong, I heard that you are dating someone?"
Pang Donghai is nearly fifty years old and is the proud disciple of Mr. Zhou family. He also has a close relationship with Zhou Ruotong's father, Zhou Bingren.
Today he heard that a handsome young man came and wanted to ask what was going on.
It must be the ticket check aunt who is gossiping about me... Zhou Ruotong rubbed his temples and explained:
"It's not the target, it's a silver ingot seller. He sold the Northern Song Dynasty silver ingot to the second uncle... Uncle Pang, why are you asking?”
Pang Donghai pulled the chair next to him and sat down, and said seriously:
"Your dad wants you to go to the National Museum to work after a period of experience. The conditions in Beijing are much better than here... I'm worried about you. We have talked about a partner here, and the two places will be separated when the time comes, so I would like to remind you. "
But I don't want to go back to the capital, I just want to do research on the front line... Zhou Ruotong wanted to refute, but felt that it was impolite. I could only protest silently in my heart.
The economy in Yinzhou is indeed poor, and it is incomparable with the capital in all aspects, but it is the frontline for studying the culture of the Shang Dynasty, so she does not want to go back.
And after returning home, the elders in the family will bring some strangers over for no reason, saying they want to communicate, but in fact they are just blind dates.
Zhou Ruotong was a little disgusted by this. In her opinion, if she had the time, she might as well study oracle bones for a while.
The subtlety of writing is much more interesting than that of men.
In the chestnut forest, Li Yu and Gouzi enjoyed picking them.
While he was busy, a middle-aged man in his fifties came over on a battery car. When he saw Li Yu, he stopped the car and said hello with a smile:
"Xiao Li, you Why are you picking chestnuts like us old people?”
Li Yu turned his face and saw that the other person was Wang Shengli, the village director of Shitouzhai Village. He smiled and said:
"Winter is coming soon. I'm collecting some snacks for snacks. Uncle Wang, why are you going?"
"Coming to find you..."
Looking for me?
Li Yu put down the basket in his hand and asked curiously:
"What's the matter?"
Wang Shengli said with a smile on his face:
"I want you to do a favor for the village. I wonder if you have time..."
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(End of this chapter)