Volume 6 Chapter 12 The Astrolabe

Then, Uncle San took two crumpled photos out of his ragged bag and handed them to me.

I knew that these photos must be of the alchemy furnace. These photos were probably given to him by the foreigner. This is a complicated matter. Without these photos, I’m afraid I can’t explain it clearly. Now he’s using me.

When I took a second look, I saw that the first photo was of a huge furnace on display in a museum. When San Shu said this, I didn’t know that this thing was so big, almost as tall as a person. It would be an impossible task to smuggle this thing out of the country.

The second picture shows the bottom of the furnace. I saw a bronze furnace bottom covered with patterns. In the center of the furnace bottom, there was a fist-sized bronze beast looking up to the sky, its head tilted up to the sky, very majestic. In terms of modeling, it was a top-notch product.

“This is the restored furnace in the museum. The second picture shows the inside of the furnace.” Uncle San explained to me, “The mechanism discovered by Xie Lianhuan is a very clever water inlet. It is used to add water to the furnace when refining medicine. The furnace wall is hollow and contains water. As long as you turn the lid of the furnace to a certain position, you can open the mechanism under the beast that looks up to the sky. The water in the furnace wall will then spray out of the beast’s mouth. In this way, when refining medicine, there is no need to open the furnace lid.”

I nodded in amazement, but such a mechanism is actually not particularly special in China. Why is this mechanism the key to unlocking the Warring States silk book?

Uncle San said that the problem is not the function of this mechanism, but the way it works. He took out a magnifying glass and asked me to take a closer look at the pattern on the bottom of the furnace.

The photo was small, but when I looked closely, I saw that there were many small relief dots around the center of the furnace, which looked like rust.

“What is this?” I still didn’t understand, so I asked.

“It’s understandable that you don’t know. The relief on the bottom of the furnace is an ancient star map.”

“Ancient star map?” I was stunned. “Is it a map that shows the position of the stars in the sky?”

Uncle San nodded and then took a picture of the diagram translated from the silk book of the Warring States period and showed it to me for comparison: “This is the most ingenious part of the mechanism. The bottom of the stove is an ancient star map. When the stove lid is turned to the correct angle, the curve on the pattern on the stove lid will coincide with the six stars in the star map on the bottom of the stove, and the mechanism will open.”

As soon as I heard this, I immediately thought of something, and then I suddenly realized: “The two figures can coincide. So, the strange lines on the silk book from the Warring States period are actually a ‘star chart’?”

Uncle San nodded: “That’s right.”

A star chart is a tool for stargazing. Because there are tens of thousands of stars in the sky, and they move according to the changes in time and season, it is very difficult to find specific stars from so many stars each time you stargaze, so there is such a thing as a star chart. Generally, it is based on the lines connecting the stars. As long as you align the Big Dipper on the star chart, you can use the compass and the seasonal scale to turn the star chart, and those specific lines will coincide with the stars you are looking for.

I couldn’t help but applaud. Oh, it’s not hard to think of it. Why didn’t I think of it just now? This is also very logical. Astrology was already very developed during the Warring States period, and people at that time believed that the movement of the heavenly bodies represented the movement of all things in the world, and that they could gain insight into some heavenly secrets. These heavenly secrets often foreshadowed changes in the country, major wars and disasters, and generally could not be disclosed at will. It is also understandable that Tie Miansheng hid the star map he observed in the silk book.

It is also possible that the star chart appeared on the furnace at the same time, perhaps because the celestial phenomena represented something special, which made many people at the time pay attention to it.

Uncle San nodded: “You’ve improved, you’re right. After these things were transported to the United States, Jude Kao also immediately discovered the secret. He, like you, thought of astrology.

This was a very exciting discovery. It can be said that in the history of archaeology, it was the first time that Jude Kao had made a name for himself again. However, at this point he no longer cared. He was completely absorbed in the process of archaeology: what did the star pattern mean? Judging from the fact that it was hidden so carefully, the star pattern obviously foreshadowed something very important that could not be known by others.

He superimposed the star map on the astrolabe, identified the six specific stars in the overall star map, synthesized the star map, and then looked up ancient books to find out what the star map meant in astrology.

However, ancient Chinese astrology was almost the same as feng shui, and it was extremely complicated. It was even more esoteric than feng shui, and there was almost no systematic information. The hidden star chart on the silk scrolls from the Warring States period foretold the future, but it was impossible to find out what it meant.

The only way to solve the mystery was to find the so-called masters, but this time they could not be found in the United States. So, Jude Kao once again asked Xie Lianhuan to go to China to look for them.

However, this time, Xie Liankuan was unable to complete the task. At that time, anyone who knew a little about the Zhouyi geomancy was sent to the cattle shed. Those who escaped were all trembling, and no one would speak up.

It was very inconvenient to ask around in secret. After two years of searching, there was no result, and at the same time, there was no progress in other research in the United States.

In desperation, Qiu Dekao had another brainstorm, and his attention was once again focused on the Warring States silk book. He speculated that since there was a star map on the silk, perhaps there would be secret records of the star map in other parts of the book.

So, while he was buying Lu Huang silk in China, he also began to think about his grandfather, who had sold the silk book. According to his experience, tomb robbers never leave empty-handed, so there could not be just one volume of the silk book.

At that time, Xie Lianhuan and Qiu De’s relationship was already very good. He was a heartless person, so he helped Qiu De’s grandfather to inquire about the news. Unfortunately, my grandfather was very tight-lipped and couldn’t ask anything. In desperation, Xie Lianhuan came to ask Uncle San again. At that time, Uncle San was interested in the notes in my grandfather’s notebook. After drinking a lot of wine and talking a lot, he told the whole story of my grandfather’s theft of the Warring States silk book.

Hearing this, I couldn’t help but say, “Uncle, did the foreigner know about the Bloody Corpse Tomb and did you tell him yourself?”

Uncle smiled wryly and shook his head, “I really drank too much at the time. After the wine wore off, I couldn’t remember telling him about it. Later, when the foreigner told me about it, I remembered and I regretted it.”

I also smiled with him. This is really dramatic. But to be honest, when Jude Kao chose to solve the mystery, he probably already knew about the relationship between the Wu and Xie families and had already planned this level of involvement. This foreigner is really creepy.

After Jude Kao got the news, he had the intention of re-excavating the Bloody Corpse Tomb. Unfortunately, Xie Lianhuan couldn’t dig, and he couldn’t find anyone else. At that time, Sino-US relations began to improve, and he felt that the situation would change. He waited patiently for a while, and sure enough, he waited for an opportunity. He then returned to China with a group of archaeologists and began planning the operation. So there was what happened to Uncle San.

After that, guess what happened. After Uncle San escaped from the tomb that night, Jude Kao entered the tomb the next afternoon. Needless to say, this turned into a disaster. When they opened the secret compartment at the bottom of the coffin, the flying king killed almost everyone in the tomb.

Fortunately, a clever assistant who had been hired by Xie Lianhuan detonated the explosives at the most dangerous moment, completely collapsing the inner chamber. At that time, Xie Lianhuan and Qiu Dejiao, who were in the outer chamber, were able to save their lives. Unfortunately, he and his men were all buried alive in the tomb.

The scene was extremely terrifying, and Jude Kao, who witnessed it, was so shocked that he almost went insane. His understanding of China over the past few decades completely collapsed. After returning to Changsha, he immediately returned to the United States, fell seriously ill, and almost went crazy. His research on the Warring States Silk Manuscripts was also immediately terminated.

However, we know that this is only temporary. A year later, the second era of maritime archaeology arrived, and the wheel of fate began to spin faster and faster under the sea of ​​the Xisha Islands.