Chapter 245: One Step at a Time

Mist shrouded the stream, and the wild grass, half a leg deep, was lush and verdant.

Several cars drove into the Village Committee, and seven or eight people, both men and women, stepped out.

Seeing Ren Xinbo, Tian Jie walked up to greet him.

"Director Tian, this is Division Chief Shi from the Provincial Cultural Relics Management Division, and this is Director Zhang from the Cultural Heritage Center... The Expert group from the National Cultural Heritage Administration is expected to arrive this afternoon; we've come ahead to do some preliminary work!"

"Hello, hello..."

After the introductions, Ren Xinbo looked left and right: "Where is Teacher Lin?"

Tian Jie turned around and pointed behind him: "Over there!"

Several people followed the direction of Tian Jie's finger: not far away, about a hundred meters from the Village Committee, stood a church. On the terrace nearby, a figure stood vaguely.

"So early?" Ren Xinbo remarked with emotion, "Teacher Lin must be observing the terrain, right?"

Tian Jie paused: "Just about!"

In truth, he was feeling a bit depressed; he had gone over there to ponder aimlessly.

It wasn't just Lin Sicheng; even Tian Jie, Gao Zhangyi, and even Wang Qi Zhi, Zhao Xiuneng, and Shang Yan were all feeling a bit depressed:

From the very beginning, that is, when they invited General Manager Zhuang Zijing to collect Cultural Relics, Lin Sicheng's goal had been a Song Kiln or a Jin Kiln.

But after more than a month, they did find a porcelain kiln site, which was the Lao Yaotou in Xiahua. But there was one point: it was a Qing Dynasty site, hundreds of years off from the Song and Jin periods.

No matter, let's keep looking.

After searching for another half a month, they basically had no leads. Fortunately, they were lucky enough to meet General Engineer Shui, who confirmed the location of the second kiln site: Beiwuqin.

After that, there were negotiations, cooperation, and the establishment of a Sub-center. After about another month, they did find a site, but it wasn't from the Song or Jin dynasties, but from the earlier Tang Dynasty.

But it didn't matter; by comparison, at least the Tang Dynasty was closer to the Song and Jin periods.

At this point, Lin Sicheng was more confident and his goal was clearer: with a Tang Kiln and a Qing Kiln, and the craftsmanship being passed down in one continuous line, it was impossible for there to be no remains from the Song, Jin, Yuan, and Ming periods.

He could even narrow the scope further: the Lao Yaotou Ruins served as the late-stage anchor for the Hejin Kiln, so the Beiwuqin Site was the early-stage anchor for the Hejin Kiln, or even its place of origin.

Coupled with four Ceramic Clay Mines (Ganjian, Beiwuqin, Guzhen, and Yincun) and three rivers (Zhemayu, Guayu, and Shenyu), whether it was a Song-Jin kiln or a Yuan-Ming kiln, it absolutely could not escape this ten-kilometer radius.

With such a small range and such a clear goal, it certainly wouldn't be hard to find.

But it was all in vain; no one expected that they wouldn't find the Song or Jin porcelain kilns, but would instead find several Neolithic Age pottery kiln sites first?

When was the Neolithic Age?

Even counting by the latest Longshan Culture (Yellow River Basin), it was at least two thousand years BC, about four thousand years from today.

It is no exaggeration to say that at the time, Tan Wu was grinning so wide his back teeth were showing.

If you ask why: this was the second relatively complete Neolithic culture site discovered in Shanxi to date.

Narrowing the map down further, it was the first in Yuncheng.

Shui Jisheng, Deputy Mayor Jiang, and Deputy Bureau Chief Zheng of the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau called Lin Sicheng one after another, and the leaders of Hejin City even rushed to the scene.

One was to verify, the other was to offer congratulations.

Lin Sicheng forced a smile, but his mood was a mess.

In the words of Zhao Xiuneng: Junior Brother Lin, you never thought about changing jobs; no matter how many sites you find in Shanxi, the effect is limited.

Moreover, since the Beiwuqin Tang Kiln Jiao Tan Site had already been discovered, its level was already considered top-tier; another Neolithic site would just be icing on the cake.

If it were just that, it wouldn't matter; like the Tang Kiln in Beiwuqin, he would at most just have his name attached, and the local Cultural Relics departments would organize, plan, and excavate as they should.

But as luck would have it, Lin Sicheng drove an Exploration Probe down and probed out a Pottery Carved Silkworm Pupa.

It looked like this:

If you ask what it's for?

Just three points: to revise the temporal and spatial framework of the origin of silk, to reconstruct the development context of Chinese agricultural and sericulture civilization, and even to explore the origin and path of Chinese civilization.

Is the topic big enough, is the level high enough?

The leader in charge of culture in Hejin was grinning from ear to ear, and reported it to the city and province that very day. The next day, the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau booked a flight, preparing to take the silkworm pupa to Beijing, first to report, and second for testing.

Unsurprisingly, the National Cultural Heritage Administration would definitely conduct an on-site inspection, send people to guide the work simultaneously, and establish an excavation team.

For Lin Sicheng, it could indeed only be considered icing on the cake, but no matter how indifferent he felt, this was still a National Level project.

Therefore, whether it was Wang Qi Zhi, the school, or even the Xijing City Cultural Relics Bureau, they were all a bit hesitant: after all, the site was discovered by Lin Sicheng, should they take the opportunity to get him in to do some Artifact Restoration?

To say nothing else, at least Wang Qi Zhi could guarantee that if Lin Sicheng joined the team, he could at least be in charge of a sub-group: either on-site excavation or experimental analysis.

The problem is, once he joins the team, the excavation cycle will be at least a year or more, and it's hard to say if it won't take two or three years. And since it is a National Level project team, it is impossible to let Lin Sicheng roam freely, disappearing for ten days or half a month at a time.

He could forget about looking for any porcelain kilns, and he would even have to remote-control the Restoration Center at Xida.

If he doesn't join, it would mean missing a prime opportunity.

Lin Sicheng was quite calm, saying he hadn't even graduated yet, so there was no need to join in the excitement.

What he was hesitant about was: the project level is so high that the local area will definitely concentrate its forces to cooperate with the superior department's excavation plan, which will certainly affect the subsequent survey and excavation of the Hejin Ancient Kiln.

To put it another way: for any porcelain kilns he finds later, he will have to work alone. It will be impossible to have the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau attach great importance to it and have the city and county levels cooperate unconditionally like before.

But Wang Qi Zhi advised him not to make any final decisions yet; he would go to Beijing first to test the waters, and then he accompanied Deputy Bureau Chief Zheng to Beijing.

Counting the time, it has been half a month already...

In a flash, Ren Xinbo led those people out of the Village Committee.

Approaching the terrace, the walkie-talkie let out a "hiss," and Lin Sicheng came back to his senses and walked down to meet them.

As they got closer, the expressions of those accompanying him gradually became strange.

It can be said that nowadays in the Shanxi Cultural Relics and archaeology circles, Lin Sicheng's name is quite "deafening."

First, he found the Lao Yaotou Ruins, filling the historical gap of "no complete and systematic craft-type ceramic kiln sites in Shanxi." Then he found the Beiwuqin Site, advancing the history of porcelain making in Shanxi from the Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty.

Especially the Jiao Tan Site, which caused an earthquake-like sensation in the Shanxi historical circles.

And then, in less than a month, he surveyed a Neolithic site that could rank in the top three in the province?

And no matter which one it was, it could be called a major discovery that rewrote history, let alone three of them?

Calculating the time, from start to finish, it was only about three months.

To say that he alone is worth an entire province's cultural relics system might be a bit of an exaggeration. But to say that in three months, he found enough work for the entire provincial archaeological department to last ten years—that is not an exaggeration at all.

Therefore, their curiosity about Lin Sicheng was no ordinary curiosity.

Hearing of someone is not as good as meeting them; even with mental preparation, when they saw the real person, the group was still shocked: so young?

There were barely any whiskers on his face; he clearly looked like a student.

Thinking secretly, the two sides walked together, with Ren Xinbo introducing them from the middle.

Young as he was, the respect due to him was not lacking in the slightest; whether it was the Division Chief or the Director, they all shook hands with both hands and addressed him as "Teacher."

After a good while of pleasantries, the group went up to the Taidi.

The one closest to them was the pottery kiln that Lin Sicheng had discovered first.

The circular ring was the kiln chamber, the hole was the firebox, and the two branching holes in the middle were the ring-shaped fire channels.

It was not deep, roughly one meter below the surface. The area was also not large, less than four square meters.

They had brought a camera when they came, and Director Zhang circled the barrier rope, snapping away with a "Click, click, click."

Division Chief Shi sighed with emotion: "Teacher Lin, there were no remains left on the surface; how did you discover it at the time?"

Lin Sicheng tilted his head and recalled: How did he discover it?

He couldn't very well say it was because his hands were idle, could he?

At the time, Tian Jie was leading people to look for the ancient riverbed of the ancient Jianhe (Zhemayu), and Lin Sicheng couldn't sit still, so he took a probe rod and wandered around.

As he poked, one thrust brought up a piece of lime an inch long.

Lin Sicheng thought his luck had exploded and he had poked a kiln site, so he immediately had the team members scrape the surface (scraping the soil layer by layer to find the relic layer and cultural layer).

More than ten people spent half a day scraping out a pottery kiln chamber about one square meter in area and only ten centimeters high, about one meter below the surface.

That was that ring-shaped circle.

The next day, they scraped for another half day and excavated the firebox and fire channels.

But the area was too small, totaling only about three square meters, and there were basically no cultural relics, just a few pieces of black pottery shards. Lin Sicheng didn't pay much attention to it and had Dan Wu report it to the Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau.

When the city heard it was only three square meters and had no cultural relics, they didn't take it seriously and told them to handle it as they saw fit.

Tan Wu's opinion was to bury it and be done with it, but Lin Sicheng thought that it was, after all, a Neolithic site, and a pottery kiln at that. If they discovered a Song Dynasty porcelain kiln nearby, they could verify each other and trace the origin of the site back to prehistoric times.

At the time, he even joked: If we can find the first one, maybe we can find the second. And maybe, like the Beiwuqin Tang Kiln, we could turn up another major discovery.

It was just a joke; Tian Jie continued to lead people to look for the ancient riverbed, and he took a probe rod and poked around nearby again. As a result, on the third day, about thirty meters east of the pottery kiln, he poked out a pottery carved silkworm cocoon.

How rare is this thing?

To date, this is the first one discovered in the whole country.

Lin Sicheng hadn't seen one before, but at least he knew what this thing was used for: sacrifice.

It shows that this place began sericulture and silk weaving in the Neolithic period and formed a primitive religious belief.

Further speculation suggests that at least four thousand years ago, the southern Shanxi region had already mastered skilled sericulture and silk weaving techniques. If traced back, it might be possible to trace the agricultural civilization of the southern Shanxi region back to five thousand years ago.

If this isn't a major discovery, what is?

Well, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Lin Sicheng felt something was wrong and transferred Gao Zhangyi's team over to expand the scope of the survey.

It took two days, and not only did they find three more pottery kiln sites, but they also found two house sites.

The area of the ruins was pitifully small: including the pottery kilns and house sites, it was just over two thousand square meters, barely over three mu.

There were not many remains either: four small pottery kilns, the largest being eight square meters and the smallest being just over two square meters. There were only five house sites; in modern terms, that's five households, five courtyards. None were large, the largest being over seventy square meters and the smallest less than fifty square meters.

Therefore, the excavation was extremely fast; two teams of thirty people, plus more than thirty villagers recruited, took about two weeks to excavate the entire surface cultural layer of the site.

But two of them were preserved extremely well: semi-subterranean, walls, doorways, fireboxes, post holes, living surfaces... it was equivalent to having doors, windows, pillars, roofs, stoves, pits, and even bedrooms and kitchens all complete.

Adding the ash pits outside the house, it was equivalent to having both a storage room and a toilet.

Is there such a complete and well-preserved Neolithic site in Shanxi?

Yes.

The Yicheng Zaoyuan site excavated in 1990, the so-called "Neolithic Zaoyuan Culture," was named after it.

So, this is the second one in all of Shanxi, but the Zaoyuan site didn't find pottery kilns, let alone silkworm pupae.

Well, now, how could they still care about finding any Song kiln?

Thinking secretly, Lin Sicheng sighed: "Luck!"

Division Chief Shi was stunned for a moment, and Ren Xinbo smiled silently.

How could it be luck?

If it were three months ago when he first arrived, if Lin Sicheng said that, someone would definitely believe him.

But the first time, he poked the wood ash pool of the Lao Yaotou Ruins with one probe. The second time, he just walked around the mountain and mapped out the specific layout of the Beiwuqin Tang Kiln without a single error.

Who would dare say he relies on luck?

Just assuming Lin Sicheng was being modest, Division Chief Shi squinted and looked again: "Teacher Lin, this should be a superimposed relic, right? Why not continue digging down?"

Lin Sicheng was noncommittal: "The level is too high, and our technical capabilities are limited, so it's better not to cause damage!"

Actually, it was because he didn't dare to dig down anymore: in the half month that Wang Qi Zhi had been away, he had excavated many more things.

Six stone carved silkworm pupae, five stone carved small balls, one turquoise pendant, and one flint pendant.

Plus painted pottery jars, sand-tempered jars, patterned jars, and a considerable number of painted pottery and black pottery fragments.

The later pottery could be ignored, but the key was the first three types: in terms of craftsmanship and exquisiteness, let alone the Neolithic period five thousand years ago, even if one said they were from the Qin and Han Dynasties two thousand years ago, people would believe it.

Lin Sicheng was afraid that if he kept digging, he would end up in that group...

It was just a casual look; the main task was to receive the expert group. After walking around twice, they were just about to return to the Village Committee when Ren Xinbo's phone rang.

He glanced at it and hurriedly answered: "Director... Ah, the expert group has arrived, first to Guduo Village? Yes, okay, okay, I'll prepare immediately..."

He hung up the phone and walked downward while saying, "Division Chief Shi, Director Zhang, the Bureau Chief says the expert group has already arrived in the city and wants to come to Guduo Village first!"

The two were stunned for a moment: "Aren't they going to Beiwuqin first?"

"I don't know, I guess we are a bit closer."

It was indeed closer: following National Highway 209, one could go straight to Guduo Village. Then, one would have to take the township road and travel another six kilometers to the northeast to reach Beiwuqin.

The ruins were discovered by Lin Sicheng, and he was the one who led Tian Jie in the excavation; since the expert group had arrived, the two of them certainly had to follow along to receive them.

The two followed behind and returned to the Village Committee.

It had been arranged in advance; although the facilities were simple, everything necessary was there. Reception room, conference room, lounge... fearing there wouldn't be enough space, they had also borrowed two classrooms from the village primary school next door.

After about an hour, the motorcade drove to the entrance.

There were quite a few people, from the Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, YC City, and Hejin City, thirty or forty men and women in total.

The leader was in his early forties; he was introduced as having the surname Wu, the Deputy Director-General of the Archaeology Department of the Cultural Relics Bureau.

Wang Qi Zhi was also mixed in among them; seeing Lin Sicheng, he waved his hand, and Lin Sicheng deliberately fell to the very back.

Entering the conference room, the teacher and student sat in a corner.

Looking left and right, Wang Qi Zhi lowered his voice: "Previously, Deputy Director-General Wu was in charge of the National Cultural Heritage Administration's key scientific research base, and I was responsible for the unearthed metal Cultural Relics protection research group at that time... Deputy Director-General Wu was transferred to the Archaeology Department, and I was also transferred to Baoji..."

Lin Sicheng looked toward the podium: "An old superior?"

"Yes, our relationship is very good, and he has always taken good care of me!"

Lin Sicheng didn't speak and pursed his lips: Our teacher's wife's surname is Shan, how could he not take care of you?

Seeing at a glance what Lin Sicheng was thinking, Wang Qi Zhi glared at him.

"Before coming here, I specifically discussed it with Deputy Director-General Wu, and he said this: A golden phoenix cannot be kept in a chicken coop; since you have real ability, why not display it on a bigger stage? I think, it makes quite a lot of sense..."

No... Teacher, it's only been a few days, and you've already been turned?

Lin Sicheng looked as if he were stunned, his eyes wide open.

Thinking he was shocked, Wang Qi Zhi explained in a low voice: "Deputy Director-General Wu has known about you since last year, back when we were planning to research iron Cultural Relics, and I was asking him for data..."

"Afterward, he would call me from time to time to ask about the progress of the two projects in our laboratory; I didn't dare tell him that we were intentionally slowing down the progress. Even so, he said our research was much faster than the scientific research base..."

I am essentially copying from the answer key, how could it not be fast?

Lin Sicheng was suspicious for a moment: "Deputy Director-General Wu didn't object?"

"He is currently in charge of the Archaeology Department, not the scientific research base, so why would he object?"

Wang Qi Zhi didn't care: "This time, I mentioned to him again that you helped Shanxi find three kilns in three months, including this one from the Neolithic period, and then he asked me if I was interested in joining the group!"

Pausing slightly, Wang Qi Zhi pointed at himself and then at Lin Sicheng: "The old leader's meaning is that you and I join together!"

Lin Sicheng shook his head without even thinking: "Teacher, let's not join!"

He had stated the reason eighty times, but Wang Qi Zhi still wouldn't give up: "One year at most!"

"Teacher, what about the Center?"

"Deputy Director-General Wu said, you can ask for leave at any time, and you can withdraw at any time!"

How is that possible?

This is the National Cultural Heritage Administration, not Lin Sicheng's own family kitchen; can he just enter and exit as he pleases?

Furthermore, it's not like he hasn't been in before; to tell the truth, it is truly difficult to get by in the Ministry, even if your ability is great enough to pierce the sky.

Lin Sicheng also understood Wang Qi Zhi's thinking: what can be accomplished in Xijing can just as easily be accomplished in Beijing.

For example, the Restoration Center, for example, the World Heritage Application, and even more so, the Luanbai Jade.

Just as the old superior said: if you are gold, you will shine wherever you go.

And in Beijing, wouldn't his connections be broader than in Xijing, and his relationships more solid than in Xijing?

Since there is an opportunity, it is better to take the step all at once.