Chapter 22 Section VII

Time is like running water, and it has flowed through two springs and autumns in a hurry and carelessly.Eight-year-old Luo Yang is in the second grade of Xiangyang Primary School.It is also the season when elms are all over the branches, and the fresh spring light hits the streets and alleys of Ping'an County.Bullock carts, horse carts, and mule carts are busy coming and going on the street, and the creaking sound and the beat of the spring breeze are like an immortal ballad.After washing their winter clothes and cleaning the courtyard, the old women and daughters-in-law stood on tiptoes on the wooden stools and stood on the side of the street rolling elm coins. The air was babbling with their out-of-tune dramas and rippling with sweet elm coins. Son Sanzi's breath.

At this time, Lady Mai San, who lived in the east of the city, was walking along the street with a wicker basket on her shoulders.She changed her gentle and coy posture in the past, carried the wicker basket on her chest, and walked with her head high and fast, as if she was rushing to give birth. Mistress Mai San is indeed about to give birth. Mrs. Mai San is in her thirties. She has been married for seven or eight years. She has four or five children, but none of them are conceived.This time, she was pregnant again with great difficulty, and it was very difficult for her to come to fruition. For an elderly pregnant woman like her who is about to give birth to her first child, unless it is a last resort, her mother-in-law, Mrs. Mai, will never let her have a heavy belly Walk the streets.

Because an important guest came to the Mai family.Mrs. Mai San went to the butcher shop to buy a leg of lamb, went to the vegetable shop to buy cabbage, potatoes, shallots, and garlic sprouts, and bought two catties of highland barley wine at the grocery store. .The men who work on the street only focus on doing things with their heads down, and the women who roll elm money only focus on rolling elm money. No one pays attention to the inner quality and weight of Mrs. Mai Sanniang's wicker basket.She walked more than half the street without regret.After a while, her clumsy and frivolous figure fell outside the courtyard of Shiziguanluo's house, but she was already out of breath, and there were glistening sweat beads on her rosy cheeks, so she stood under the shade of a tree to rest.

Luo's mother was squatting in the yard washing clothes, and when she looked up, she saw Mrs. Mai San who was panting slightly, and said, "Such a big body, is it about to give birth?" "It's still early, the due date is in July. I don't know what folk recipe the old lady brought back. Seeing the sky stew an old hen, the child grows fast, and I have become fat like this." Mai San said, twisting Twist her waist.Probably because she was afraid of getting out of the way, she twisted very little, and her movements were very slight. It seemed that she was just swaying her round belly and buttocks.

"It's good for the child to grow up quickly, you have to pay attention to your body, don't lift things that are too heavy, be careful. Buy so many vegetables, do you have guests at home?" "Yes! Someone from the provincial capital came to appraise the pair of blue and white vases in our house. If they say they are true, they will be sent to the provincial museum!" When she said this, her voice was twice as loud as usual, as if to Everyone in the street can hear it. "Experts say that pair of vases is real!" Mrs. Mai San emphasized again. Mother Luo, who was washing clothes, stopped, and the neighbors who were working outside the yard also stopped, looking up at Mrs. Mai San.

"real!?" "The family heirloom of the Mai family, how can you tell it's fake? It's fake! The experts in the provincial capital are experts, authoritative figures, knowledgeable, and I heard that he is a doctor who has studied abroad..." After saying these words, Mrs. Mai San walked away with her basket in her hand, just like that, walking all the way down East Street with her head held high and her belly shy. Ping'an County is too small, and few things can become a secret among the neighbors.It also started from this ordinary noon, every household in the county wafted the fragrance of yuqian sanzi, and there were also discussions about Mai Jia's pair of blue and white vases and Dr. Liuyang.It is said that the higher-level cultural department investigated the "Xuande blue and white" vase as a historical issue, and sent an archaeological expert from the provincial capital to Mrs. Mai's home for re-identification.

The archaeological expert used to be a student of his grandfather. Later, he stayed abroad and returned to China at the beginning of liberation. He also brought back several precious cultural relics that were lost to foreign countries during the war.He came out from Mrs. Mai's house to pay a special visit to the teacher. At night, he shared the bed with his grandfather. The two talked until midnight, and made an in-depth discussion on the identification of cultural relics.In the end, they decided that the blue and white vase was a mistake of grandfather's judgment, and it was his only mistake.

In the early morning of the next day, the archaeological experts were going back to the provincial capital.Grandpa sent him out of the courtyard, stroked his gray beard and nodded, saying, blue comes from blue and is better than blue!It can be seen from his grandfather's expression that he is really pleased that he has such a student. Mai Jia's pair of blue and white vases were brought to the Provincial Museum by archaeological experts. Grandpa is really old.From this noon, even the eight-year-old Luo Yang clearly felt that his grandfather was not in good spirits. Grandpa put away the magnifying glass that had been with him for many years, and sat in the yard to bask in the sun when the weather was good, and sat for a whole day.Occasionally he also read, and began to write a book entitled "Iron Cavalry Shen Illness".According to my grandfather, he was writing about an ancient city called Liqian.However, my grandfather's reading and writing were very laborious and slow, and the misjudgment of the "Xuande blue and white" bottle in the early Ming Dynasty had already constituted a huge mental obstacle for my grandfather. He seemed to want to kill the extra time on purpose until the end of life.

Grandfather's writing may be a summary of his own life, with a bit of self-entertainment.However, the manuscript of "Iron Cavalry Shen Illness" was destroyed in a fire, and there is no possibility of it being published again.As for the ancient city of Liqian, there is one of the most common sayings: In 53 BC, the ancient Roman general Crassus led an army of more than 40,000 people to launch a war against the Kingdom of Parthia (now Iran).The following year, this army was besieged and annihilated by the Parthian army in Karlai (in today's Syria), and its commander, Crassus, was captured and beheaded.Crassus' eldest son, Publius, led about 6,000 people from the First Legion to break out of the siege. They traveled to the Persian Plateau and defected to Zhizhi when the Parthian army surrounded and blocked them and had no way to return home.In thirty-six years BC, Chen Tang, the vice captain of the Western Regions of the Western Han Dynasty, led his troops to attack Zhizhi Shanyu. When fighting in Zhizhi City (now Zhambul City, Kazakhstan), he surrendered a strange army of more than 100 people. They built The fortifications are "there is a heavy wooden city outside the earth city", and the "Jiamen fish scale array" is guarded.Chen Tang brought this army back to the Han Dynasty and placed them in Liqian, which belonged to Zhangye County, Gansu.In 592 A.D., the "Qin Hu" who was incorporated by the Han army merged with the Han people for more than 600 years. Their descendants and the ancient city called Liqian were merged from the map of the Western Regions according to the will of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty. Disappeared.The above historical events are recorded in many documents.