Those Strong Men (Part 1)
F**k, this girl deserved to be XX by others. Zhou Jian’s heart cursed. He didn’t bother to pay any more attention to Linda but went to consult the manager on the jewelry auction matter. The answer he received was that in half an hour later, the manager in charge of underground exchange would come over.
At this time, Linda began to pester Zhou Jian with a problem. She’d read various history books on China, but she still couldn’t figure out how China calculated that it had 5000 years of brilliant civilization history.
For this issue, Zhou Jian had a little headache. To the impatient Linda, he just bite the bullet and said: “The Xia dynasty was more than 4000 years ago. In addition to that, from Emperor Huang until Da Yu, there’s also several hundred years. Added together and rounded up should be almost 5000 years.”
“Rounding up? My G.o.d. History is very strict.”
“Come on. At that time, there wasn’t any text handed down. It’s all speculation. If you want to be strict about it, you also can’t. Even the ancient Egyptian civilization 3500BC was just a ceiling projection.” In any case, there’s nothing to do for the next half an hour. So, Zhou Jian continued to discuss this with Linda for a very long time in the rental car.”
“Alright. But you didn’t say clearly. From Emperor Huang up till Da Yu, how many hundred of years was it?”
“Er….Probably more than 400 years.”
“From what I know, the Xia Dynasty was more than 2000 years. Adding these 400 years together, at most is just 2500 years. Moreover, from Emperor Huang all the way up to Da Yu, there’s altogether only seven generations of emperors. How did they live that long for 400 years? As far as I know, the average reigning time of your country’s Qing dynasty emperor was only more than 20 years. Furthermore, this is because the Qing dynasty had Qianlong and Kangxi these two monarchs who reigned the longest. This is in the modern time. In fact, the ancient people usually died young in comparison.”
Zhou Jian was speechless, this girl knew too much. She did indeed study archeology.
Furthermore, as far as I know, China didn’t unearth any bronzeware earlier than the Shang Dynasty. From the texts and city ruins, there’s none earlier than 1600BC of civilization relics left behind. Then, how can Xia Dynasty existence be proved? In the writing records that certain Shang Dynasty scholars left behind, they didn’t expressly mention about knowing an earlier dynasty. For records and books about the Shang civilization, I’d looked into books like the “Book of History of Xia”, as well as the “Bamboo Annals” that’s already in during the Warring States time. Of course, what I read was the translated version.”
Zhou Jian retorted: “Who told you that the Xia Dynasty’s earliest historical record was from the Warring States. There was a record on an oracle bone that Tang, who’s also the Shang Dynasty founding monarch, appointed someone who was of slave background to gather intelligence to progressively attack an old dynasty city. The dynasty that he overthrew was probably not the Xia Dynasty.” (tl: Chinese history is not my forte. I might get some facts mixed up here.)
“Alright, even if it’s a sign of the Xia dynasty. But the universally recognized symbol of civilization was: writings, bronzeware, city. Are you going to oppose this?”
Zhou Jian tacitly approved. Although these three type of civilizations symbols were established by the Western foreigners, but there was still some truth to it. Actually, there was jade carving that appeared in China very long time ago. But jade carving is just a simple physical processing. It’s not as complex as a bronze chemical changes. Therefore, it couldn’t be regarded as a sign of civilization. The same goes for pottery.
The Western girl continued: “Good, how do you prove that the Xia Dynasty has writing and bronzeware to show that it’s a civilization and not just a large late Neolithic patriarchal tribe by the Wen river mouth? The Wen river mouth ruins over 4000 years ago also overlapped with the time of Emperor Huang. At this time, ancient China had many similarities with the culture of the Wen river mouth tribes like the Liangzhu culture, Longshan culture, and many other Neolithic Age cultural sites. Does this mean that over four thousand years ago, the tribal form was a widespread phenomenon in that era in China?”
Zhou Jian said: “The Wen river mouth, Longshang or Shandong, was not the place of origin of the Yellow River Valley, which was the birthplace of the Chinese civilization. At that time, the Yellow River Valley referred to was Shanxi, Gansu and the Jin area, which was where the Emperor Huang tribe was.”
“Then, the Majiayao culture, the Henan’s Longshan culture, and the Keshengzhuang culture was in the Shanxi’s Gansu province. At the same, more than 4000 years ago, appeared a unified Xia Dynasty of the Yellow River Valley as well as the primitive Neolithic Age cultures. Do you really think this pa.s.s as an explanation? Moreover, those extremely small cultures still managed to preserve some ruins until the present day, with the exception of the Xia Dynasty which didn’t has any. The only thing that can prove the existence of Xia Dynasty is the Erlitou (tl: Xia dynasty archeological site) ruins that existed between late Xia and early Shang, and this only contained stoneware and potteries. This also proved the lack of civilization in Xia Dynasty because the 3-4 ruins that have bronzeware were obviously Shang’s Dynasty. There wasn’t any relic that was unearthed older than 1600BC in China. Was this because of the lack of protection. But Eygpt which was more than 3000BC managed to unearth a lot of civilization’s remains. For example, that Meyer Palette, but there’s none for China.”
Zhou Jian had a little headache (tl: so am I!!!). Some of the ruins that Linda mentioned, he’d never even heard before. After all, his interest in archeology was only a hobby, he’s inferior to Linda who’s a professional. But, he still paced himself to reply: “Egypt has a tropical desert climate, whereas China’s Yellow River Valley has an East Asian monsoon climate. Since the olden times, it’s humid and rainy. The rate of the cultural relics decaying speed couldn’t be compared.”
“Oh please. That’s just in other places in Egypt. The Egyptian civilization was in the Nile Delta. The climate there is Mediterranean. Its winter is moist and rainy. And, are you sure that the Shanxi, Gansu in the Yellow River Valley had the humid and rainy East Asian monsoon climate? Furthermore, why did those Wen river mouth cultural sites managed to leave behind so many amount of relics?”
“Nonsense. Those in the Wen river mouth are potteries. Naturally, they won’t decay.”
The foreign girl was angry. When talking about history, she must first looked at the relic evidence, and not the cultural fables. If China couldn’t prove that its civilization existed before 2500BC, then, it can’t be called the world most ancient civilization. That’s because the Greek civilization of Aegean Sea, the Mitanni Empire of the Mesopotamian plains, the Hitt.i.tes of Asia Minor were all in almost the same period as Shang Dynasty. Earlier than these were the Minoan civilization, the ancient Indian civilization, and the Mycenaean civilization. There’s even those who went up to 3500BC, the ancient Egyptian civilization, and the Sumerian civilization.
“Noted, these civilizations that I mentioned had managed to unearth civilization relics to prove their existence. Then, what’s the basis of Mr. Liang Qichao proposing the concept of four ancient civilizations? I don’t mean to deny Xia Dynasty, and also don’t mean to target China, but I respect facts and evidence. If all the written records were considered true. Then, I’m afraid that the legendary Atlantis would be more famous than China’s 3 Sovereigns and 5 Emperors.”
Zhou Jian discovered that when this Western girl was talking about archeology, she was like a different person. She’s far more than incessant and was just simply insane. She spoke out those facts and ancient civilization names in English, that Zhou Jian couldn’t even catch it properly.
At this time, Zhou Jian really wanted to refute this Western girl until she was speechless. But in such a short time, he couldn’t think of anything. And this Western girl only recognized facts, but he couldn’t produce any facts. Moreover, based on historical knowledge, this Western girl’s a professional and was far knowledgeable than Zhou Jian, an amateur. Just then, Zhou Jian saw a man walked over behind the Western girl, and put out his hand to pat her a.s.s…..