Chapter 249
This method of tomb robbing, which is like looking for a needle in a haystack, has a low shipment rate and an even lower chance of yielding high-quality goods. We set up camp here, gnawing dry food and carrying shovels every day, and rested at sunrise and sunset.
On the fourth day of work, Dou Sprout finally couldn't bear it anymore. He threw the shovel and complained: "What are they? There is not a single decent thing. Together they are not as valuable as the jade bear last time. Don't do it." Let’s move on to another place. Maybe this place used to be the slums of Blackwater City, and there’s nothing valuable at all.”
He glanced around, shook his head and said, "Just work on it for the rest of the day. If you still can't afford the goods, then move to another place."
Dou Sprout was too embarrassed to say anything, so he had to pick up the shovel and continue working.
"Aji, where's Yunfeng?" He turned his head and asked me.
"Over there," I pointed to a black spot in the distance and said, "Aji ran far away."
I was also a little out of breath, seeing that the water and dry food I brought were decreasing day by day. This would be a huge blow to morale if I didn’t have something to cheer me up.
There is something to say.
There is always a way out.
Aji is our lucky star. He does the most work for the lowest salary, and he delivers the goods.
Seeing Aji waving in the distance, we trotted over to look for him.
"F*ck!" Dou Sprout was the first to arrive. He couldn't help but curse after seeing the thing clearly.
We saw that there were some copper flat pots scattered in the sand pit dug by Aji. At a glance, there were more than a dozen.
Dangxiang people are a horse nation, and this kind of copper flat kettle is hung on horseback. Because it has the style of the nomadic people in the northwest, a complete copper flat kettle can be sold for five to six thousand yuan. Of course, the price is The price we ship to middlemen, if it ends up in the hands of ordinary collectors, the price must be over 10,000 yuan.
There must be more than a dozen people in this pit, and there must be tens of thousands of them. We all praised Aji and said that he was very talented in tomb robbing.
A total of sixteen Xixia copper flat pots were finally cleared out of this pit. One of the sixteen flat pots was handmade. On the front, a white horse was engraved with gold and silver and bas-relief technology. The white horse's front hooves were raised high, and the horse's head was carved. Swing to the left, the muscle lines on the horse's body are vividly displayed, giving people a strong sense of movement when viewed directly.
The scientific name of this thing should be, "Xixia bas-relief copper flat kettle with staggered gold, silver and white horses for storing water."
It was only later that I learned that there is a copper flat kettle of this kind in the Ningxia Museum, and the size and craftsmanship are exactly the same as ours. Maybe they were both made by the same Xixia craftsman back then. The only difference may be that the one in the Ningxia Museum is not for sale. We'll sell it, as long as you pay a good price.
However, this flat pot later caused trouble and attracted the attention of some people. We will talk about this later.
If we don't say that Aji is a lucky star, this is not the end.
Because the flat pots have been buried under yellow sand all year round, the pots are basically filled with sand. Xiaoxuan is responsible for pouring the sand. When she poured one of the flat pots, she poured out more than thirty copper coins. The sand has good drying properties. The copper coins are in very good condition. Both the leader and I know that there are not many Xixia copper coins in the market outside and the prices are high. Before the Qing Dynasty, collectors did not know Xixia coins, and those scholars did not even know that Xixia was a country before. They call this kind of money Sanskrit money, and Xixia money is classified as privately minted money of local ethnic minorities.
The dozens of coins we have are all small flat coins made of Guangding Yuanbao. The price at that time was about 500 yuan a piece. The price should have doubled now.
With these goods, my hard work for several days was finally not in vain.
Nowadays, there is a thing called a treasure detector, which is very effective in detecting metal objects in the ground. This thing was not popular more than ten or twenty years ago. It would be great to have this thing at that time. (For those who want to try it, forget it, this place is designated as a protected area.)
After packing up, we left here on the sixth day and continued walking deeper.
On the way, my boss asked me to put down a few Luoyang shovels from time to time. Kozlov had found three underground palaces nearby. The quality of things in the underground palaces must be better than outside. I put down Luoyang shovels dozens of times, but it was a pity. Not a single underground palace was found for several days.
The food and water we brought can probably last for about a week. We can't survive without water in the desert. After the three and a half days of the return trip, the remaining water can probably last four days. The camels' predictions were very accurate before. No wonder they drank so much dirty water at that time. It turned out that there was really no water nearby.
Tuotou paid attention to the overall situation. He judged when we should leave and when we should return. We all listened to him. Tuotou said that if we could not find a replenishing water source within three days, we would go back home.
