Fan Shouxuan was an antique dealer who often traveled between Beijing and Tianjin in the late Qing Dynasty. One day, Fan Shouxuan came to Wang Xiang's house in a hurry and said that he saw a kind of keel engraved with ancient characters in Henan and asked him if he wanted it. Hearing this, Wang Xiang was very interested. Meng Guanghui happens to be here. Meng Guanghui is a famous calligrapher in modern Tianjin. I heard that there were ancient Chinese characters, and the two quickly urged Fan Shouxuan to buy them. Due to the inconvenient transportation at that time, it was not until a year later, that is, 1899, that Fan Shouxuan returned to Tianjin with the keel purchased from Henan. It turns out that in the late Qing Dynasty in China, men had to wear long braids and shave off the first half of their heads. At that time, hairdressing tools were sharp razors. If you are not careful, you will scratch your scalp. Therefore, hairdressers must always keep some hemostatic drugs. This hemostatic is made by crushing the keel. But Wang Xiang is not interested in these. He saw that these keels were large and small, with different shapes, some like tortoise shells, and some like ordinary animal bones. He carefully pondered these keels under the lamp and found many carved paths on them. He made two or three tortoise shells by putting together the big and small keels. He carefully wiped off the soil on the tortoise shell and found that these "keels" were of great research value. He bought these "keels" from Fan Shouxuan, who claimed to be a rare commodity and charged Wang Xiang a high price. Wang Xiang was unable to pay a huge sum of money, so he had to buy small pieces, but failed to get large tortoise bones.
According to Xiaotun Village, Anyang, Henan Province, where Oracle bones were unearthed, Wang Xiang later concluded that these Oracle bones were relics of Yin Ruins. Later, I learned that there were two kinds of ancient things, tortoise shells and animal bones, which were used for divination in the Shang Dynasty. The words carved on tortoise shells and animal bones were the result of divination.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions is a divination script used by the royal family and nobles in the late Shang Dynasty, which was named after it was engraved on the tortoise shell or the shoulder blade of a cow. The "Yin Ruins" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed in Anyang, Henan Province is the earliest known writing in China. In the history of China's book development, Oracle Bone Inscriptions's books are regarded as the earliest books. It records the life segments of our ancestors. From the perspective of human civilization, the excavation of Oracle Bone Inscriptions is as important as the discovery of cuneiform characters in the two river basins, Egyptian papyrus documents and Greek linear characters. From the aspect of academic research, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, together with the Dunhuang suicide note, Han bamboo slips and the archives of the Forbidden City in Ming and Qing Dynasties, was praised by the world as the four major academic discoveries in modern China.
At the same time, Wang Xiang and Wang are one of the earliest appraisers and buyers of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins in China. Although Wang first identified and purchased Oracle bones, he committed suicide in 1900, so he didn't have time to conduct a comprehensive study on the collected Oracle bones, so he didn't leave a discussion on this subject. Wang Xiang not only made great achievements in identifying and purchasing Oracle bones, but also wrote handed down books, which made certain contributions to the study of Oracle bones.
After Eight-Nation Alliance entered Beijing, Tianjin also fell. Fan Shouxuan sells a large number of Oracle bones at a low price. Wang Xiang spent all his money and bought a lot of tortoise bones.
1934 when Wang Xiang returned to Tianjin from Hubei, he asked the railway bureau to box the Oracle bones and other things and transport them back to Tianjin. However, when he picked up the goods in Tianjin, he found that all the boxes were there except the one containing Oracle Bone Inscriptions. These "treasures" that have been condensed for many years are missing, which really makes him anxious. After searching for more than 50 days, I finally found this box of Oracle bones at Zhangjiakou Station. It turned out that the person in charge of checking luggage on the railway contained priceless treasures in this box, but when I opened it, it was a skeleton and a broken turtle. Fortunately, they didn't know the value of Oracle Bone Inscriptions, so they abandoned it, and Oracle Bone Inscriptions survived.
1937 after the outbreak of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, Wang Xiang was unemployed at home and lived in poverty. Tianjin antique dealers often go to his house to lobby him to sell Oracle bones to the Japanese, but Wang Xiang argues that Oracle bones have been stored in the mainland. In order not to let the precious documents of the motherland flow abroad, he prefers the clothes and things in the seller to make a living rather than the high price of the Japanese. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the owner of Zaoyutang Bookstore in Beijing and the heads of several universities went to Tianjin to pester him for more than a month to buy his collection of Oracle bones. Although the price soared at this time, he was still unmoved by the heavy money and flatly refused. Wang Xiang later said, "Oracle bones are the treasure of the motherland. There are no new discoveries now, and there won't be many in the future. They are all sold to those universities, which are all established abroad and will lose foreign aid in the future. It is difficult to wait until China people want to study them. "
In the early days of liberation, until 1952, families in Wang Xiang were still in difficulties. Dong Zuobin once wrote from the United States asking if he was interested in selling Oracle Bone Inscriptions to American universities, and Wang Xiang flatly refused. 1953, Wang Xiang became the director of Tianjin Literature and History Museum, and he dedicated all the Oracle Bone Inscriptions he collected and collected in his life to the country.