Taking the mobile phone from Kong Jianwen's hand, Chen Han saw some black and white photos of bamboo slips.

"Which spectral imager was used to take this picture?" Chen Han asked curiously.

According to the restoration process of bamboo slips, the batch of slips and slips sent to Jingzhou Cultural Preservation Center should have just finished cleaning and are just about to be decolorized. It is still at least half a year before they are completely restored.

And it’s the Spring Festival now, so the Cultural Preservation Center shouldn’t be working either.

Then these photos must have been taken using that magical spectral imager.

As long as the bamboo slips are cleaned and blackened by carbonization, the handwriting can be restored using a spectral imager.

"Yes, this was sent by Minister Rong a few days ago. Everyone was on holiday before, so I didn't notify you." Kong Jianwen explained simply.

In fact, these photos have been in his possession for seven or eight days.

Just now when everyone was gathering together, Kong Jianwen remembered this matter.

He remembered that his disciple was very good at reading seal script.

"Come, take a look to see if there are any important records in this."

"Okay." Chen Han nodded and looked through the photos carefully.

Not many slips and slips were unearthed from tomb No. M168.

There is only one bamboo slip, which is the notice to the ground.

There are only more than sixty bamboo slips, one with a small number has only 2 characters, and a large number has only 14 characters. The total does not add up to a few hundred characters.

Chen Han quickly read through most of it and confirmed: "Teacher, this should be a volume of "Dispatch Book"."

In fact, when these bamboo slips were unearthed, Professor Li could tell from the remaining rope marks on the slips that they were composed of fine linen ropes divided into upper and lower sections in order to form a volume.

However, when they were unearthed, the bamboo slips were sorted out in random order because the braided ropes had decayed.

After reading it carefully, Chen Han reported back to his instructor: "Teacher, the contents of this volume include records of the names, sizes, and quantities of the utensils, as well as the names, quantities, and locations of the utensils."

"This will make it easier for us to name the unearthed cultural relics."

The names of most of the unearthed cultural relics are actually not their original names, but renamed by modern people.

For example, the Simuwu Ding was named Simuwu Ding just because there were three characters "Simuwu" on the tripod.

And now it has been corrected that the oracle bone inscription is not the word Si, but the word Hou, and the official name has been changed to Houmu Wuding.

As for what this tripod was named when it was cast by King Zugeng or Zujia of the Shang Dynasty, it has long been unknown.

Maybe it doesn't have a name at all, maybe it's just called "Sacrifice Ding".

Generally speaking, after cultural relics are excavated, they are named according to the characteristics of the cultural relics themselves.

For example, the pair of exquisite three-fish-ear cups unearthed in Tomb No. 168 were simply and crudely named three-fish-ear cups when they were registered and named.

But now the dispatch list has appeared.

In the dispatch register, there is a record of this pair of three-fish ear cups. The accurate record is "a pair of lacquer ear cups with painted three-fish patterns."

If nothing else goes wrong, as long as the cultural relics unearthed in Tomb No. M168 have accurate names in the dispatch list, they will be named according to the dispatch list.

Kong Jianwen shook his head with some pity: "The cultural relics excavated from the Fenghuang Mountain tombs have been sent to the Jingzhou Museum and Cultural Preservation Center. They will organize them according to this dispatch list. We don't have to worry about this."

"It's a pity that this is just a dispatch volume, and there is no other content recorded."

"But in addition to the dispatch list, there is also an unexpected surprise. Please turn to the last page and take a look."

An unexpected surprise?

Chen Han turned to the last page with some confusion.

A three-sided scan of a long bamboo piece appeared in front of Chen Han.

Isn’t this the same piece of bamboo that Chen Han found at the bottom of the bamboo basket before?

After restoration by the spectral imager, the words that Chen Han had not had time to see reappeared on the bamboo surface.

On one side of the bamboo slip it is written: "It is called Qian Heng for the Ying family of Shiyanghu."

On the other side, it is written: "If you are burdened by money, you will be impeached (engraved) with the word 'Four Zhu (baht)', and the two ends are equal to ten. If you dare to choose the weight, weight, and use, you will be impeached and punished, and the family will be punished for ten days."

On the thin side, there are three characters written on it, but the first character is completely blurred and cannot be seen clearly, leaving only the two characters "Huang Lv".

After reluctantly recognizing the characters on the bamboo fragments, Chen Han was shocked.

"This, this is a balance pole?!"

Kong Jianwen nodded: "Yes, this is a balance pole. To be precise, this should be a weighing scale."

What do the two sentences carved on the bamboo slices mean?

The first sentence "We are calling Qian Heng for the Ying family of Shiyang household." is obviously an introduction to the maker and user of this balance.

"Zheng" means being an official.

The name Yingjia, a household in Shiyang, shows that this balance was made and used by a family named Yingjia in Shiyang.

Moreover, since this "weighing money scale" can appear among Mr. Sui's burial objects, it is obviously something closely related to Mr. Sui's lifetime.

Maybe it's a family heirloom, maybe it's something he has used before.

In short, this "Ying family" must be Mr. Sui's family.

Mr. Sui's mouth contained a jade seal with inscriptions, and the seal had only one word for "Sui".

According to the Han seals unearthed in the past, if the seal contains one character, it is usually the name of the user.

In other words, Mr. Sui's surname should be Ying and his given name Sui.

Yingshi, after Ji Ying, a doctor of Jin Dynasty.

The surname Ying did exist in the Han Dynasty, and it was not considered a minor surname.

This is a relatively important discovery.

However, the next sentence on the other side of the bamboo piece is the real bombshell information!

Take money as a burden, and engrave it as four baht, with the two ends equal to ten. If you dare to choose the weight, the weight, and the use, you will be impeached and punished, and you will live in the house for ten days.

What does it mean?

"Using money as a weight" means using French money as a weight to weigh the four and a half baht used in transactions.

In "Hanshu Shihuo Zhi", Ying Shao has such an annotation. He said, "At that time, the weight of money was four baht, and a hundred pieces of legal money were equivalent to a catty of sixteen baht. At least, a few pieces of money would be sufficient to satisfy the level."

.

This passage is a good explanation of the use of legal coins as balance weights to weigh money in the Han Dynasty.

One end of the scale is placed with a hundred pieces of French money, and the other end is placed with a hundred pieces of four zhuan and a half taels of money used in transactions, so that the scale can be balanced.

If the four and a half baht used in the transaction is less than the official weight of four baht, a few more coins must be added to keep the balance balanced.

Judging from the text on the weight pole, the unearthed Qian Heng was used in a similar way.

The difference is that there are ten French coins and four and a half baht coins placed at both ends of the unearthed Qian Heng.

"Ten at both ends" is what it means.

In other words, this balance pole is used to weigh money. No wonder it is called "weighing money"!

Kong Jianwen smiled slightly and said excitedly: "When modern people mention balance, the first thing that comes to mind is the Egyptian balance."

"Indeed, according to papyrus records, the Egyptians were already using scales as early as 1500 BC."

“Some scholars even believe that the Egyptians may have used balances earlier than this time, and they may have been using balances before 5000 BC.”

"However, the balance is not an exotic thing to us Chinese people!"

"In ancient China, instruments with a balance structure also appeared, and they were produced very early!"

“It’s impossible to trace back when it first appeared.”

"However, at least in the late Spring and Autumn Period, our Chinese balance and weight manufacturing technology was already quite sophisticated."

"Historical books once recorded that the balance used bamboo pieces as balance poles, silk threads as handles, and a copper plate hung at each end."

"But later on, because it was troublesome to weigh things on a scale, I gradually switched to a scale, which is an old-fashioned manual scale with a weight attached to one side and a hook attached to the other."

“People of the older generation still use this kind of scale to sell things!”

"Of course, balances have not been completely eliminated. They are only used when weighing small things."

"In ancient China, when weighing money and silver, they always used scales to measure it."

"In traditional Chinese medicine stores, scales have been used to weigh things since ancient times!"

"It can be said that the Egyptians started using scales earlier than us, but it is absolutely impossible for us to learn them from the Egyptians!"

"The Chinese balance was invented and researched by our Chinese ancestors themselves!"
Chapter completed!