Volume 6 Chapter 11 The bronze cauldron

He immediately asked someone to make a pot of good tea and respectfully handed it to the old scholar, asking him to tell him more.

The old scholar, who had nothing to do, was also interested and came up with the story.

It was thirty years ago. At that time, the old man was a professor of Chinese studies at Peking University, a member of the Kuomintang, and his son-in-law was a brigade commander under Zhang Lingfu. After the 74th Division was defeated, the remnants of the Kuomintang army scattered and his son-in-law fled into the Qimeng Mountains with the remnants of his troops and became a bandit. Later, the People’s Liberation Army launched a major campaign against bandits, and his son-in-law was forced to flee and joined up with Kuomintang spies to prepare to flee to the United States.

After paying off the right people, the old man and his family were taken into the mountains by his son-in-law to wait for news of a boat. Because the situation was very tense, it was inconvenient to bring his family along, so during this time, his son-in-law settled them in a Taoist temple, disguised as a Taoist priest, waiting for the secret service to pick them up.

It was said to be a Taoist temple, but it was actually a kind of folk temple. However, unlike other temples in the mountains, this Taoist temple was built between two cliffs less than 50 meters apart, with an empty space below, which was very peculiar. The entire temple resembles a giant staircase, with seven floors in total. The walls are all made of yellow-painted mud walls, very simple. The top four floors are wooden planks strung between the two cliffs, without even railings. Several shrines are decorated with clay statues of the Three Pristine Ones, as well as Guanyin and the Earth God, very Chinese in style.

The entire Taoist temple is managed by two old Taoist priests, the old one being the father of the younger Taoist priest. During the chaotic times of war and unrest, the incense was sparse, and his son-in-law gave them some money as a cover.

The old professor lived in the Taoist temple for two months. The Taoist temple was in the mountains, and it was inconvenient to climb up and down. He also had nothing to do, so he began to study the antiques in the Taoist temple. It was during that time that he discovered a strange thing. Many of the objects in the temple were crude and poorly made folk crafts with little value. Occasionally, there were a few antiques, but they were all from the Ming Dynasty. However, on the top floor of the temple, there was a bronze alchemy furnace with a very strange shape, like an upside-down lotus flower. Judging from the patina on it, it was even older than the other objects in the temple.

The old professor was not a history major, but the old teacher at the time had some experience with these things. He was very interested and asked the old Taoist priest where the furnace came from.

The old Taoist priest praised him for his keen eye, saying that the furnace was indeed extraordinary. It had collapsed from the mountain during an earthquake before the liberation, and many skeletons of the dead had also collapsed at the same time. The villagers were very scared, so they carried it here to be guarded by the gods. It had been more than 60 years, and he was still young at the time, so he didn’t know the specific circumstances.

The old professor found it all the more interesting. However, at that time, the country was in chaos, and he was in a special position, so he was unable to conduct any further investigations. He thought about it for a while in the Taoist temple, but there was no further news. However, the circumstances and environment at that time made him remember this incident very vividly. He also remembered the shape and pattern of the furnace very clearly, so when he saw the pattern that Jude showed him, he recognized it.

He told Jude that the pattern was on the lid of the furnace, and the shape was exactly the same as the pattern. If he wanted to know more, he could try to find out more about the situation at the Taoist temple. However, the sea has changed, and whether the place still exists now depends on your luck.

Jude was excited and disappointed after hearing this. He was excited because it was clear that the story behind the pattern was richer than he had imagined, but he was disappointed because after hearing all these stories, he still knew nothing about the pattern.

He really wanted to see the bronze alchemy cauldron that the old professor had mentioned, but at that time, it was almost impossible to do so. At that time, it was very difficult for an American to go to China, especially for a notorious antiquities dealer like him.

However, Jude Kao was very arrogant. No one could stop him from doing what he wanted. He still found a way: he couldn’t go to China himself, but after so many years of cultural relics activities, he had a close network of contacts in China. He began to try to contact his old contacts in China, trying to find someone to go into the Qimeng Mountains, to the Daoist temple in the mountains to take a look, to find out what was going on, and ideally, to steal the furnace and transport it to the United States.

At that time, China had just suffered the 10-year Cultural Revolution, and everything needed to be rebuilt. His old connections had been completely destroyed, and the older generation of tomb robbers had either died or fled during the purge after liberation. He used his connections in the Kuomintang to exhaust all channels, but he couldn’t find anyone he knew.

In desperation, he took the risk of turning to a few smugglers he didn’t know at the time, asking them to introduce him to some newcomers in the Changsha industry.

After many twists and turns, he finally managed to contact a Chinese man who was willing to cooperate with him.

This man was Xie Lianhuan.

Uncle San was puzzled as to how Xie Lianhuan got into this line of work. At that time, even the head of the Xie family dared not get involved in his family business, and could only live off his savings. Smuggling cultural relics was a serious crime, just like drug trafficking today. It was a life-and-death situation, and no one dared to do it unless they were desperate for money.

Xie Lianhuan was a rich kid at the time, completely spoiled. The old man of the Xie family deliberately wanted to wash his hands of him, so from a young age he was not allowed to touch the family business or learn anything. So no matter his courage, vision, experience or other objective conditions, he would never have entered this line of work, and there was no reason for him to be able to contact the big smugglers abroad.

To put it more simply, the art of smuggling cultural relics requires a certain level of skill, and without 20 to 30 years of training and experience, you can’t become a master of the trade. So if Jude Kao was able to contact Xie Lianhuan through an intermediary, it means that Xie Lianhuan must have already had business dealings with these people and had gained their trust. This is unlikely, given Xie Lianhuan’s skills.

This question had been troubling Uncle San until he returned from his first trip to Xisha and began investigating the matter. He asked the head of the Xie family and learned some of the ins and outs. However, this matter has nothing to do with the matter of Qiu Dekao, so there is no need to mention it here.

After Xie Lianhuan and Qiu Dekao met, Qiu Dekao sent his plan to Xie Lianhuan. It was a detailed document, with a sketch of the bronze alchemy cauldron painted by the old man and an advanced camera. He told Xie Lianhuan that he must first confirm whether the Taoist temple was still there—during that time, things like ancient temples were considered “four old things” and might have been destroyed—then collect information about the alchemy cauldron, take photos, send them back to the United States for confirmation, and if everything was correct, then look for an opportunity to smuggle the thing out of the country.

Although Xie Lianhuan didn’t know anything about the underground world, he could still go to a place, see if the object was there, and inquire about things. After he got the information, he went to Shandong and, based on the old man’s recollections, found the mountain area where the ancient Taoist temple was built.

Fortunately, because the Taoist temple was very remote, it had not been disturbed too much and had miraculously survived the turbulent decade. However, the old Taoist priest was dead, and only his son, who was also in his twilight years, was left. Xie Lianhuan photographed the Taoist temple and the bronze alchemy cauldron and sent the photos back to the United States. When Jude Kao compared the photos with the translated patterns, he found that the old man was right. The patterns on the lid of the bronze alchemy cauldron were exactly the same as those on the silk scroll. However, because the alchemy cauldron was so old, the old Taoist’s son could only give a rough description of its origin, which was similar to what the old professor had said.

Nevertheless, Jude Kao was overjoyed and gave Xie Lianhuan the order to start preparing to smuggle the furnace out in secret.

However, as soon as Xie Lianhuan began to prepare, he realized that this was an impossible task.

What Jude Kao had not taken into account was that the furnace was much larger than he had anticipated. Times had changed, and it was impossible to transport such a thing through customs in China at that time. If it was to be smuggled by boat, it would have to be taken to Zhejiang or Guangdong first, which was a huge risk. The unrest on the southeast coast at the time was unimaginable to ordinary people.

They tried many methods, but to no avail, and instead attracted Lei Zi’s attention. In desperation, Qiu De’s mind went completely mad. He told Xie Lianhuan to smash the entire furnace into more than 40 pieces, mark them, and then smuggle them out in batches mixed with the silk that was being exported at the time.

This was a heinous act in the eyes of the archaeological community, but Qiu De-kao didn’t care at all, because the value of the object was meaningless to him.

It could be said that it was a coincidence that when Xie Lian-huan was sawing the furnace, he discovered a very clever mechanism at the bottom of the bronze furnace. It was with the help of this mechanism that the secret of the mysterious patterns on the Warring States silk book was finally revealed.