In order to rescue Yevgeny, we all took enormous risks, and some of us were even shot in the process.
The first message Yevgeny sent us was that Wei Shengnan and her group had already triggered it.
Upon hearing Zhou Peng's translation, I clenched my fist and looked at Zhou Peng: "Find out exactly what he said to those people."
Yevgeny looked at our injured man with a hint of fear in his eyes: "You're not journalists at all, who are you then?"
Having his identity exposed, Song Laosan stopped pretending and pointed his gun at Yevgeny: "Damn it, I'll make you answer my questions!"
Yevgeny was intimidated by Song Laosan and repeatedly shouted at him not to fire: "Last night those people found me and said they were your colleagues. They tricked me into coming out and promised to give me 20,000 rubles as payment to interview me."
Upon hearing Zhou Peng's translation, I impatiently yelled, "Get to the point!"
“They asked me about the items that the town had sent to the development memorial hall, and I told them about their origins.”
Yevgeny swallowed hard: "Those things were all found in the mountains back when we were quarrying stones."
Old Song pressed further, "Is it in the mountains around the farm?"
"That's right."
Yevgeny nodded: "Back then, it was the era of the collective economy. The town of Chikso was assigned a quarrying task, and my father, Zhukovsky, personally led a team to open up a quarry in the mountains. During the quarrying process, they discovered some ancient buildings in the mountains, which had collapsed due to their age."
By the time Yevgeny finished speaking, I already had a general idea in my mind.
Ancient tombs were mostly divided into two parts: above ground and underground. The above-ground part of the tomb was used to temporarily place the body during burial and for later generations to pay their respects. The underground tomb was the burial chamber or underground palace where the body was buried.
The above-ground structures discovered by Zhukovsky are very likely the mausoleum above the tomb.
Yevgeny continued, "The ancient buildings that were discovered were within the planned area of the quarry, surrounded by weeds and trees. My father sent people to inspect them and found that there was nothing inside the buildings, and they were dilapidated, so he ordered them to be blown up."
I pressed further, "Were the items you handed over to the memorial found in those buildings?"
“I don’t know the specifics because I had just started working and didn’t participate in the quarrying. But later, according to my father, they found a lot of treasures in the pile of rocks after the blasting.”
Yevgeny recalled: "It is said that there were many swords, jewels, and gold bowls, chopsticks and plates inside. When people saw those things, they thought that the original owner of the house had exposed the property buried in the yard, and they looted it like madmen."
Song Laosan asked, "During the Soviet Union's era of large-scale collectives, it should have been stipulated that everything belonged to the state, right? Where were these things handed over to?"
"Those items were not handed over."
Yevgeny shook his head: "At that time, it was during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, and everyone was having a hard time. Moreover, quarrying stones was also voluntary labor. My father was afraid that handing over the materials would cause dissatisfaction among the people and delay the construction period, which would lead to his punishment. So he took it upon himself to distribute the materials to everyone and asked everyone not to spread the news. Our family even received a golden bowl as a result."
A few years later, the Soviet Union collapsed, and my father was still the town mayor. At that time, someone leaked the story and revealed what had happened back then. Not long after, a city development memorial hall was established, requiring each town to hand over items that could reflect the progress of urban development. My father was worried that what had happened back then would be discovered, so he handed over the family's gold bowl and then led people into the mountains to bring back a lot of patterned stones.
At the time, I was working as the town's archivist, responsible for registering the items handed in. Seeing what my father had pulled out, I curiously asked him what it was, and he told me what had happened back then. According to him, those patterned stones were probably the remains of the ancient buildings they had destroyed, piled up in the quarry for years. If it weren't for the establishment of the memorial hall, he would have almost forgotten about them.
Having discussed this, I now have a complete understanding of the whole story.
When Komsomolskaya Pravda wanted to erect a stone statue of an official, it ordered the town of Chikso, located in the mountains, to provide the stone.
The then-mayor, Zhukovsky, designated an area as a quarry, which was located on the site of a gold tomb.
Because the Soviets had little understanding of Chinese culture, they did not recognize the mausoleum at the Jin cemetery. In addition, due to its age, the above-ground structures had long been emptied and had little value, so they regarded these structures as abandoned residences and blew them up as well.
Judging from the treasures these people were able to find, their blasting must have been very deep, even collapsing the tomb and exposing the coffin bed.
By a twist of fate, these people did not see the coffin inside, nor did they understand the burial culture. They mistakenly took the tomb above ground as the place where the ancients lived, and the burial objects as property buried in the yard of the indigenous people, without investigating further.
Later, the coffin bed and a small number of burial items were all sent to the City Development Memorial Hall. This kind of place was built to meet a certain policy requirement, and there were hardly any tourists all year round. The staff in the hall were not history researchers, and no one ever noticed the clues about the coffin bed pattern. They actually regarded it as the cornerstone of the ancient building, just as Zhukovsky had reported.
In this way, the existence of ancient tombs deep in the mountains was completely covered up.
If we hadn't followed Duan Jinyan to this point, this part of history would probably have been completely lost to the long river of time.
At this moment, I finally understood Guo Xiangbin's grief and indignation.
When our homeland is scattered and occupied by a group of people with completely different cultures and beliefs, it means the disappearance of history and that our culture cannot receive the respect it deserves.
Our cultural relics scattered abroad are merely exquisite handicrafts in the eyes of barbarians. They do not feel amazed or proud of our ancestors' skills, nor do they feel the profound sense of heritage.
The thought that ancient tombs that bear witness to Chinese history could be destroyed because of something as simple as quarrying fills me with immense heartache. I continued, "What else did you say to those people?"
“I didn’t say anything. That’s all I know about the things that were sent to the memorial hall. The people who arrested me originally promised to let me go, but when I asked for money, they suddenly changed their tune and locked me up.”
While cursing those people for their lack of integrity, Yevgeny continued, "This morning, they came to me again and asked about these things. When they saw that I said the same thing as before, that woman led most of the people away on motorcycles, leaving two people behind to be in charge of detaining me!"
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