In the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu, Wang, an official in Beijing, occasionally caught a cold and took medicine for a few days. A friend of Wang heard about his difficulties, found a famous doctor in the workshop, and heard that there was a medicine that could cure all diseases, so he went to the imperial doctor's office to prepare a medicine and sent it to Wang's home. After Wang accepted the medicine, he thanked his friend. Because Wang was very interested in pharmacy, he opened the prescription to find what his friend said was a mysterious prescription, and an unheard-of medicine came into view. What medicine is keel? Why have you never heard of it? ?
Wang opened the medicine bag before he understood? Keel? who is it? Because the herbs in the drugstore have been ground into powder, Wang managed to find a keel in the powder. Wang himself is also a epigraphist, so he habitually picked up textual research. It seems that this is an animal's bone, and what is even more strange is that there are some patterns similar to Xiao Zhuan on the bone. Wang thinks it is not simple, but this small piece can't prove anything. The next day, Wang sent a servant to the drugstore to buy all the keel that was not ground into powder in the drugstore, but the price was very cheap, only a few dollars. Wang's judgment is indeed correct. Keels bought by servants include tortoise shells and animal bones. It is engraved with the long-lost characters of the Shang Dynasty, the so-called keel, which is now the national treasure of Oracle Bone Inscriptions.
Realizing that this was a terrible thing, Wang Yirong rushed to the drugstore and asked where so many keels came from. The owner of the pharmacy said that these keels belong to Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province. Originally, the old farmers in the field didn't intend to dig when they plowed the fields. When I asked the drugstore, I found that it was a kind of medicinal material called keel, so the whole Anyang area knew that there were medicinal materials underground. A large number of farmers began to dig, digging for almost 20 years, grinding these dug keels into powder and selling them in pharmacies. After hearing the news, Wang told the drugstore owner with great heartache. In the future, as long as all the complete keels were sent to my house, Wang reached an agreement with the drugstore owner, and each piece was given two taels of silver. The drugstore owner was naturally extremely happy, because the price of keel powder was only five pence per catty, but Wang's bid was astronomical.
Stimulated by money, drug dealers all over the country sold the keel to Wang, and Wang also accepted it in full, and also entertained the drug dealers who sold the keel. In the eyes of drug dealers, this is only a medicinal material worth 220 silver, but in the eyes of Wang, it is a rare national treasure, and it is precisely because of Wang's collection during that time that the last batch of Oracle Bone Inscriptions was prevented from being crushed into powder. Because of Wang's high-priced recycling, many high-quality Oracle bone inscriptions can be studied by Wang, and the largest Oracle bone inscription is actually full of words, up to 52 places. These precious cultural relics happened to be acquired by the tomb owner Wang, which may really be fate. In the continuous research and scrutiny of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Wang concluded that it was written by ancestors of Shang Dynasty. Wang's discovery made people feel the mystery of Shang culture for the first time and shocked the whole capital.
But why are there so many Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang? Later, it was found that Anyang was the capital of the late Shang Dynasty, so it was at the center of Shang culture at that time, so it was not surprising that so many Oracle bones were unearthed. Wang's action also formed two new disciplines for China culture: one is Oracle Bone Inscriptions, and the other is archaeology of Yin and Shang Dynasties. Yin Shang culture was gradually studied by Oracle Bone Inscriptions, thanks to Yu Xiansheng's spirit of exploration. In the year of Gengzi, Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing, and the emperor and queen mother fled in haste, while Wang vowed to live and die with Beijing. The Lord worries about my humiliation, and the Lord humiliates me to death. Stop where you are. This is near. ?
In order not to be humiliated, Wang and his family committed suicide by taking poison, and what he was most worried about was the 1000 precious Oracle bones. Most of them were given to Liu E, another pioneer of Oracle Bone Inscriptions studies, and the rest were kept by his granddaughter. It is precisely because of Wang's careful consideration that these precious cultural relics escaped the disaster.
Most of Wang's precious Oracle bones were preserved in the war and became our precious national treasure, except a few left in the United States. Wang is also the first generation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions scholars in China. Now there is a memorial hall for Wang in Fushan District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, in order to remember the pioneer of Oracle Bone Inscriptions forever.