Chapter 35 Those Men (Part 1)

  Serves that damned horse right, being screwed by someone else. Zhou Jian cursed in his heart and didn't bother to pay attention to Linda anymore, instead he went to ask the hall manager about the auction of the jewelry, and was told that the manager of the underground trading house would come over half an hour later.

  At this time, Linda began to pester Zhou Jian with a question, that is, she had read various historical books of Huaxia and still couldn't figure out how Huaxia calculated its brilliant civilization history of 5,000 years.

  For this question, Zhou Jian also felt a headache and was annoyed by Linda's entanglement. He had to force himself to say: "It was more than 4,000 years ago during the Xia Dynasty, and adding the period from Huangdi to Yu, it's about several hundred years. Rounding up or down, it's roughly 5,000 years."

  "Rounding up or down? Oh heavens, history is very strict."

  "Anyway, back then there were no written records passed down, the dates are all inferred, even if you want to be rigorous it's still not possible, isn't the upper limit of ancient Egyptian civilization around 3500 BC also an estimate? Anyway, since we have nothing better to do for this half hour, Zhou Jian again brought up this topic that they had already discussed extensively in the taxi."

  "Alright, you still haven't made it clear, how many hundreds of years was it from Huangdi to Da Yu?"

  "Uh... probably over four hundred years."

  "As far as I know, the Xia Dynasty was a little more than 2000 BC. Adding these four hundred years, it's at most around 2500 BC, which is less than five thousand years. Moreover, from Huangdi to Da Yu, there were only seven emperors in total. How could they have lived for over four hundred years? As far as I know, the average reign of Qing Dynasty emperors was just over twenty years, and this is also because the Qing Dynasty had two emperors with the longest reigns, Qianlong and Kangxi, which was in modern times. In fact, people in ancient times usually had shorter lifespans."

  Zhou Jian was speechless, this big ocean horse knew too much, no wonder he studied archaeology.

  "Moreover, as far as I know, the Xia Dynasty has not unearthed any bronze artifacts, written records or city sites earlier than the Shang Dynasty, that is to say, there are no civilized remains left before 1600 BC. So how can we prove the existence of the Xia Dynasty? Some scholars of the Shang Dynasty also did not explicitly state in their written records that they knew of any dynasties earlier than themselves. The books recording pre-Shang civilization, such as "Shu Jing" and "Bamboo Annals", were already written during the Warring States period. I have read these books, of course, in modern Chinese translation."

  Zhou Jian retorted, "Who told you that the earliest historical records of the Xia Dynasty came from the Warring States period? The oracle bones have records of 'Tang', which is actually the founding monarch of the Shang Dynasty, Cheng Tang. He appointed a slave-born official named 'Yi' as his minister and gradually conquered the cities of the old dynasty by gathering intelligence. The dynasty he overthrew was probably not the Xia Dynasty."

  "Alright, even if it's the Xia Dynasty, the universally recognized signs of civilization are: writing, bronze tools, and cities. You don't disagree with this, do you?"

  Zhou Jian defaults, although the standards of these three civilizations were set by foreigners, but in all fairness, there is still some truth to it. In fact, Huaxia had already produced jade artifacts very early on, but jade products can only be considered simple physical processing and have not undergone complex chemical changes like bronze artifacts, so they cannot be counted as civilization, and the same goes for pottery.

  "Okay, then how do you prove that the Xia Dynasty was a civilized dynasty with writing and bronze artifacts, rather than just a patriarchal clan society like the late Dawenkou Neolithic period? Speaking of which, the Dawenkou site is over 4,000 years old, roughly overlapping with the era of the Yellow Emperor. Apart from this, during this period, there were also other Neolithic cultures in Huaxia, such as the Liangzhu culture and the Longshan culture. Does this mean that in 4,000 years ago, the phenomenon of clan societies existing in Huaxia was universal?"

  Zhou Jiandao said: "The Dawenkou and Longshan cultures are in Shandong, not the birthplace of Chinese civilization in the Yellow River Basin. At that time, the Yellow River Basin referred to Shaanxi, Gansu, and Shanxi provinces, which were also where the Huangdi tribe was located."

  "So, the Majiayao culture, Henan Longshan culture, and Kexingzhuang culture were in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Henan? In the same era, that is to say more than 4,000 years ago, Henan simultaneously saw the emergence of a unified Yellow River Valley slave kingdom Xia Dynasty, as well as backward primitive societies' Neolithic cultures. Do you think this really makes sense? And why do those small cultural sites have things passed down to the present, but the unified Yellow River Valley's Xia Dynasty does not? The only possible proof of the existence of Xia civilization is the Erlitou site, which is between the end of Xia and the beginning of Shang. However, only the third and fourth periods of Erlitou discovered bronze artifacts and palace ruins, which precisely proved that Xia did not have a civilization, because the third and fourth period sites are clearly from the Shang Dynasty. The Huaxia region has no civilized relics dating back to before 1600 BCE, is it just due to poor protection? In Egypt, many civilized relics from around 3000 BCE have been unearthed, such as the Narmer Palette, but Huaxia has none."

  Zhou Jian was getting a bit of a headache, and some of the sites Linda mentioned he had never heard of. After all, his interest in archaeology and history was just a hobby, not as professional as Linda's. Still, he spoke slowly and calmly: "Egypt has a tropical desert climate, while our Huaxia Yellow River basin has an East Asian monsoon climate, with plenty of rain and moisture since ancient times, so the rate of decay of artifacts is incomparable."

  "Excuse me, is the Nile River Delta in Egypt where ancient civilization was located a Mediterranean climate? Winters are humid and rainy. And are you sure that the Yellow River Basin in Shaanxi and Gansu has always been a humid and rainy East Asian monsoon climate? And even if so, why did the Dahe culture site leave behind a large number of artifacts?"

  "Nonsense, those things from Dahe Village are all stone tools and pottery, they won't rot naturally."

  The Pacific Horse was furious. Once the history is mentioned, she first looks for physical evidence rather than historical legends. "If the Huaxia civilization cannot be traced back to before 2500 BC, it cannot be considered one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Because the Aegean Greek civilization, the Mitanni kingdom on the Mesopotamian plain, and the Hittite civilization in Asia Minor are all roughly contemporaneous with the Shang Dynasty. Not to mention the earlier Cretan civilization, ancient Indian civilization, Mycenaean civilization, and even the ancient Egyptian civilization that can be traced back to 3500 BC, as well as the Sumerian civilization."

  "Note that the civilizations I mentioned all have unearthed relics and truly existed. So, what basis does Mr. Liang Qichao's concept of four great ancient civilized countries have? I did not deny the Xia Dynasty, nor was I intentionally targeting Huaxia. I simply respect factual evidence. If we consider all written records to be true, then the legendary Atlantis is probably more famous than Huaxia's Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors."

  Zhou Jian found that the ocean horse suddenly changed into a different person when it came to historical archaeology, not only was it eloquent, but also seemed to be crazy, a string of historical facts and ancient civilization names spoken in English made Zhou Jian unable to get a word in edgewise.

  At this time, Zhou Jian really wanted to shut up the big ocean horse's dumb mouth, but for a while, he couldn't think of anything to say. The big ocean horse only recognized facts, and he couldn't come up with any facts. Moreover, in terms of historical knowledge, as an amateur history enthusiast, he was obviously not as good as the professionally trained big ocean horse. Just then, Zhou Jian saw a man walk behind the big ocean horse and pat its butt...