In 1963, Sun Xiuying was doing work at home in Jiejiazhuang, Yantai, Shandong, when she suddenly heard someone knocking on the door. She stopped what she was doing, wiped her hands on her apron, and hurriedly opened the door.
As soon as he opened the door, he saw two people standing outside the door wearing Mao suit style clothes. At first glance, they were not from the village, they seemed to be from the city.
Sun Xiuying looked at the two strangers with confusion. Before she could ask, the other person said directly: "Is this Sun Xiuying?"
Sun Xiuying replied: "I am, who are you?"
"Hello, Sun Xiuying , We are from the Yantai Museum. I heard that you have a mat made of ivory in your home. Can you let us take a look? "
Sun Xiuying was shocked when she heard this. These people are targeting herself Is it from the ivory mat at home? Recalling her father's last words , Sun Xiuying didn't even think about it and replied directly: "Nonsense, I don't have such a thing at home."
Before anyone could react, Sun Xiuying opened the door. Closed.
No matter how many people outside knocked on the door and called her to open the door, Sun Xiuying ignored her. She did not enter the inner room until the knocking on the door disappeared.
After entering the inner room, Sun Xiuying opened the cabinet and took out a rectangular package wrapped in layers of oilcloth and cotton. Inside the package was a long wooden box.
Opening the wooden box, an ivory mat 2.03 meters long, 1.23 meters wide and weighing 2.2 kilograms suddenly appeared.
The ivory strips used to make this ivory mat are only 3 mm wide and 0.5 mm thick. They are woven with a herringbone texture. The production process is very exquisite and the texture is uniform. At first glance, it is not an ordinary product.
Looking at the ivory mat, Sun Xiuying couldn't help but recall its origin.
The treasure stolen from the palace
The matter dates back to the late Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the war was in turmoil, and the eunuchs and maids in the Qing Palace were fleeing the Forbidden City one after another.
Some eunuchs and palace maids took advantage of this chaotic situation to sneak out some antiques, calligraphy, paintings, utensils, and things used by the masters from the palace, and sold them to subsidize their living expenses after leaving the palace.
This morning, it had just rained and was still gloomy. There were no customers in the Beijing Xiyuelai Pawn Shop for the time being, and the shopkeeper had begun to take a nap.
At this moment, a man suddenly came in, holding a wooden box in his hand. As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the shopkeeper felt something was wrong.
The man's voice is very high-pitched, which is different from ordinary men. When you hear it, you can tell that he is a eunuch and comes from the palace.
The man said: "I want it to be a treasure." After saying that, the man put the wooden box on the counter.
knew that the man's identity was unusual, and that the things he was selling might have come from the palace, and were most likely treasures used by the nobles in the palace. The shopkeeper did not dare to neglect and carefully opened the box. Inside was a beautiful, extremely soft ivory mat.
The shopkeeper naturally knows the goods and knows that this guy is really a treasure, so he quickly asked: "How much do you want? Live or dead?"
The man replied: "Dead, five large yellow croakers, less is not enough."
That one In that era, people called a gold bar weighing ten ounces "big yellow croaker", which is equivalent to 312.5 grams in today's weight. "large yellow croakers" are equivalent to 1.56 kilograms of gold, which is about 600,000 yuan based on the current gold price.
This is not a small amount. The shopkeeper did not dare to make the decision himself. After comforting the man, he immediately went to the backyard to find Ding Baojian, the owner of the pawnshop.
After hearing this, Ding Baojian did not dare to be careless. He quickly followed the shopkeeper to the counter. After greeting the man warmly, he looked at the ivory mat carefully again. The more he looked at it, the more he liked it. He knew this thing The value is far more than 5 large yellow croakers.
So without saying a word, she accepted the ivory mat at the price offered by the man.
After accepting this treasure, Ding Baojian did not dare to stay in Beijing for a long time, for fear of long nights and dreams, he took the mat back to his hometown in Huang County, Shandong and kept it.
The treasure was snatched away
Time passed, and in the early years of the Republic of China, warlords were fighting in a melee. Businessmen like Ding Baojian naturally became the fat in the eyes of the ruling warlords, and they came to take a bite when they had nothing to do.
Sun, who was the director of the Huang County Taxation Bureau at the time, accidentally learned that Ding Baojian had a mat made of ivory at his home, which was a good thing that could only be enjoyed by the emperor and ladies in the palace.
Sun went to the Ding family and forced Ding Baojian to sell him the ivory mat. Ding Baojian was naturally reluctant at first, but he couldn't stand Sun using his power to suppress others. For the safety of himself and his family, he finally had to sell the ivory mat to Sun at a low price of only a few hundred ocean certain.
Sun, who got the ivory mat, did not dare to keep it in Huang County , for fear that people would talk too much. If someone more powerful than him knew about it, how could he keep it?
So Sun took the ivory mat back to Xiejiazhuang, Mouping, Yantai, Shandong and kept it for collection.
Fortunately, not many people later knew that Sun had an ivory mat in his hands. Coupled with the war, the ivory mat stayed safely in Sun's family for decades until Sun became seriously ill and passed away.
Before his death, Sun called his daughter Sun Xiuying to the bedside. repeatedly told her that this was a treasure and she must keep it well. No matter who bought it, she could not sell it and she should pass it on as a family heirloom.
Sun Xiuying only knew that her father bought the mat with money. Since her father said this, she kept it in her heart, so when the staff of Yantai Museum came to her door, she was rejected.
became the treasure of the town hall
In 1963, Sun Xiuying was over fifty years old. She never forgot her father's dying instructions to protect the ivory mat.
At this time, the People's Republic of China was founded and the Yantai Museum had just been built. It was almost empty and there were no cultural relics. Shi Zhengfu, the first director of the
museum, personally led a working group to the homes of villagers in Muping, , to conduct a survey and collection of cultural relics. He wanted to collect the folk cultural relics for scientific preservation to avoid damage.
After being rejected by Sun Xiuying, the two staff members at the beginning of the article went to Director Shi to report the matter.
They all felt that judging from Sun Xiuying's reaction, she must have lied, and the ivory mat must be in her hands.
After receiving this situation, Director Shi was very excited and took the staff to the village and asked the then production team leader to take them to Sun Xiuying's home again.
Because there was a captain leading the team this time, Sun Xiuying was too embarrassed to turn people away directly, so she had to let the guests into her home.
The curator began to persuade Sun Xiuying to sell the ivory mat to the museum. Don't let such a good thing wander around. It would be a pity if it was accidentally damaged.
At first, Sun Xiuying never admitted that there was an ivory mat at home. Later, she did not defend herself and listened to the curator's persuasion. Captain
was also helping Director Shi persuade Sun Xiuying.
The curator of history is also a person who does not give up easily. When Sun Xiuying didn't agree once, he came twice, and when he didn't agree twice, he came three times.
Gradually, after listening to what Director Shi said, Sun Xiuying began to waver in her heart.
She is just an ordinary rural person, and the conditions at home are indeed not good. If she puts the mat down like this, it is hard to say that she will accidentally be bitten by ants or mice, as the curator said, or she will encounter an extreme situation. The ivory mat may become damaged due to weather conditions, lack of proper storage, or over time.
If a treasure was destroyed in her own hands, Sun Xiuying felt that she was sorry for her father's entrustment, and she could not forgive herself.
So she turned around and went into the house and took out the ivory mat.
When the curator unfolded the mat, his eyes lit up and he kept muttering: "It's so beautiful, so exquisite. The craftsmanship is incredible."
According to research, this ivory mat was made in Qing Dynasty Yongzheng Years. At that time, Guangdong had close trade relations with Southeast Asian countries, and ivory materials were abundant, which also gave Guangdong craftsmen room to develop.
Therefore, the local ivory carving artists use their superb skills to split the ivory into thin slices with a thickness of only 0.2 mm to make "tooth wire". After it is finely polished and smooth by the master craftsmen, it is then woven according to the herringbone pattern. The whole process takes a long time and consumes a huge amount of ivory.
It takes a lot of manpower and financial resources to make an ivory mat. Because of this, Emperor Yongzheng, who always prided himself on being frugal, issued an order not to allow it to be made again. So far, there are only 5 ivory mats in the world.
,300 years have passed, but the ivory mat in front of the curator is still as smooth as new, and its flexibility has not changed at all. This is evident from the superb mat-making skills of ancient craftsmen.
In the end, the curator purchased the ivory mat for 300 yuan, some said it was 500 yuan. Over time, the transaction figures have become a bit unclear.
But whether it was 300 yuan or 500 yuan, it was not a small amount in 1963.
Currently, only three of the five ivory mats exist in the world. One is in the Forbidden City Museum in Beijing and the other is in the Yantai Museum. They are national first-class protected cultural relics and have become the treasures of the Yantai Museum.
Today, the valuation of this treasure has exceeded 100 million yuan. As time goes by, its value will become higher and higher, even immeasurable.
If you go to Yantai Museum now, you will have a chance to see this precious treasure.
The history and craftsmanship of ivory mats
Ivory mats have a very long history and are not unique to the Qing Dynasty. In the "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing", there is a record that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "gives Mrs. Li an ivory mat with ivory mat". The ivory mat is Ivory mat. "Book of Wei Hanwu Zhuan": "Hanwu removed the governor of Zhizhou and presented the Qibao bed with ivory mats." "Gezhi Jingyuan" records: "Che Yong was the governor of Guangzhou, and his son used ivory mats for many jobs, and the natives suffered from it." .
These historical materials all show that ivory mats have been made since the Han Dynasty , but very few of them have survived in the world.
And the production process of ivory mats is also recorded in detail in "Gezhi Jingyuan":
"Annan Deng Shangshe said that his ancestors first paid tribute to ivory mats, and all the ivory mats were collected one by one. Inside, boil the ivory until it becomes soft, and pull out the ivory strips one by one to make a mat. "
Generally speaking, it is necessary to soak the ivory with a special liquid before it can be made into silk thread for weaving. The requirements for the shape, texture and color of ivory are very strict, and the loss is also very large. The utilization rate of ivory is less than 10%, which is why Emperor Yongzheng ordered to stop production.
Moreover, the climate in the north is mostly dry. If the ivory is suddenly brittle when it is made in the north, it can only be transported to Beijing after being made in the humid south.
Nowadays, the special prescription and production technology for making ivory mats have long been lost in the vast river of history. It has to be said that it is a regrettable thing.
But think about it, it is not a bad thing.
If there are still people who can make ivory mats now, there may be some rich people who would rather pay a big price and find ways to make them for themselves to enjoy.
But how many innocent elephant lives will be lost behind an ivory mat?
There is no harm without buying and selling. Once there is a reason for buying and selling, how can animals escape harm?
The wheel of history is rolling forward. If some things disappear, just disappear. It can be regarded as a disguised protection of elephants. It is enough to leave the best things in museums for future generations to admire.
