The nose wings swayed slightly, sucking the refreshing fragrance of books. Lin Yi used to wipe his nose, and then followed the fragrance of books to search along the bookshelf. Soon, Lin Yi found a roll of old brocade in a shabby cardboard box below the bookshelf.

The brocade silk was old and exuded a strong and simple atmosphere, which made Lin Yi couldn't help but exhale a few breaths, and was almost choked by the spiritual energy emitted by this scroll of things.

In fact, the brocade is piled in the old books in this cardboard box, and it looks like it is broken. It should have been deliberately put away by Mr. Ito, who planned to deal with it.

Lin Yi gently picked up the roll of brocade and broke it, it was really too broken.

It looks like it is about to be smashed. If it were a paper book, it would have been crushed to pieces long ago. Fortunately, it was written in brocade and silk. Looking at the handwriting on it, it is very handsome and elegant brush calligraphy, and looking at the content, it is Taotao, very Tao, very name, very famous... It turns out to be the famous "Tao Te Ching"!

In Chinese culture, Taoism is complementary to Confucianism. The ancestor of Taoism was Lao Tzu, whose Bible was called "Laozi", also called "Tao Te Ching". It is said that Lao Tzu's surname was Li, and Lao Tzu was a respectful title, which means Lao Tzu; it also said that his surname was Lao Tzu, and he was respectful titled Zi. It is also said that he was the director of the National Library of the Zhou Dynasty and was very knowledgeable; Confucius once came to ask for advice. The whole article we can read now has only 5,000 words in total, but its influence is beyond the reach of search.

It is often imagined. Some people say that among the works translated into many different characters in the world, the Christian Bible has the most languages, ranking first; the second is the Tao Te Ching. The accuracy of this statement is unknown; another very accurate statistics are: in ancient China, three emperors signed and published the "Imperial Annotation Tao Te Ching", they are: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, and Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty. This situation is quite good.

However, strictly speaking, the current knowledge about Lao Tzu and his books is not very reliable. Moreover, not only now, when Sima Qian wrote the "Records of the Grand Historian" to write a biography of Lao Tzu, it was no longer so reliable. In the short 500-word Biography of Lao Tzu, Sima Qian brought out three names, and it is difficult to determine who is the right person: one is Lao Tzu, who had a return to Confucius, "written the first and second chapters of the book, and said more than 5,000 words of morality"; the other is Lao Laizi, who wrote fifteen books, talking about the use of Taoism at the same time as Confucius." Another is Taishi Dan, who met Qin Xiangong 129 years after Confucius' death, "Some say Dan is Lao Tzu, some say it is not, no one knows whether it is true." "It is because Lao Tzu is over 160 years old, and some say it is over 200 years old, and he cultivates his life by practicing Taoism."

Some modern scholars believe that they can figure it out. In the 1920s and 1930s, they all expressed their own views. Some say that the five thousand words of "Laozi" passed down from generation to generation are not quotations in question and answer, but specialized writings, so they should come from the Analects of Confucius and Mencius. Because they did not have the habit of writing books in personal books at first. Some people proved from some terms in "Laozi", such as "kings and princes", "kings and kings", "ten lords and kings", etc., that it was not like the works of people in the Spring and Autumn Period, and could only be released later. From this, they naturally turned to Laozi.

Some people deny that Lao Tzu was born with Confucius, deny that Confucius asked about etiquette for Lao Dan, and believed that it was a rumor created by Taoism to suppress Confucianism. Most people tend to think that Lao Tzu should be separated from Lao Tzu's book: Although the book "Lao Tzu" was completed late, Lao Tzu lived in the past, because there were also stories about Confucius asking about etiquette in Confucian books. As for when the book "Lao Tzu" was late, some said that it was in the early Warring States Period, some said that it was in the late Warring States Period, and some said that it was in the Qin and Han Dynasties and even during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han, and there were no consensus.

Lin Yi likes to read and collect books. Therefore, he also dabbled in the "Tao Te Ching".

In Lin Yi's collection, the most precious one is a book called "Imperial Notes on Tao Te Ching" from the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. In Taoist theory, such versions of the Qing Dynasty are already a precious version, and many people cannot buy them even if they spend money.

Because the Tao Te Ching is so famous, there are all versions and styles. Engraved books, printed books, and some are written on bamboo slips, on metal utensils, on brocades, and on gold foils... Some are even written in some incredible places - such as on human skin.

This is definitely not alarmist.

It is said that in the late Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng attacked Luoyang three times, and King Fu Zhu Changxun called on the suicide squad to resist, announcing that if one kills a thief, he would be rewarded with 100 taels of silver, so that there were many responders, causing great losses to Li Chuang.

But King Fu did not have mountains of gold and silver. In order to raise military funds, he sold a special edition of the Tao Te Ching he had collected to the rich man in Luoyang City, and raised more than 100,000 taels of silver... This special edition of the Tao Te Ching is the only Taoist classic written on human skin in history.

It is said that the human skin was a master who was enlightened and asked a famous scholar to write it before he died, so that "even though he died, Taoist classics will be passed down for generations." Because of this, this human skin "Tao Te Ching" is extremely precious.

Unfortunately, Luoyang City was eventually captured by the thieves, and King Fu Zhu Changxun was eventually distant. Some people said that he was made into a "Fulu Tang" by the King of Killing, and was eaten by the thieves to all his subordinates in order to relieve his hatred. Some people said that he fled into the Taoist temple and was captured alive and finally beheaded in public. In short, he died so much that he could not die again. The rich man who bought his "Tao Te Ching" at a high price did not escape the fate of being captured alive by the thieves, and his family was also captured to the sky. It's a pity that most of the thieves were rough people, only recognized gold, silver, treasures, pearls and agates, and had no interest in those ancient books at all, so that the human skin "Tao Te Ching" was burned down by fire. Until the high-ranking official Niu Jinxing of the camp learned about this, he was extremely upset and thought that this was a waste of resources...

Because Lin Yi often reads books, he knows this extremely obscure rare story.

However, the volume of "Tao Te Ching" in front of me is also extremely strange, first of all, belongs to the category of "silk books".

Lin Yi clearly knew that the earliest use of the "Silk Book" to record the "Tao Te Ching" was the two volumes of "Laozi" unearthed from the No. 3 Han Tomb of Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan in 1973.

This silk book is copied from small seal script and official script with official script brushwork, and is named "Laozi's A version of the silk book" and "Laozi's B version of the silk book". The silk book is the earliest version of "Laozi" that can be seen in the 1970s and 1980s. The biggest difference from the popular version of the world is that it has no chapters, and the popular version is divided into 81 chapters.

The unearth of Laozi in the silk book overturned the hypothesis that Laozi was written after Qin. Because the order in which "de" was compiled in the previous "Tao" was compiled in the previous "Tao" was compiled in the next, which was exactly the order in which Lao Lao was written in the "Han Feizi" and the "Mei Lao" were written in the past; it shows that this version had already existed in the Han Fei era. In addition, in some words, the silk book and the popular version were occasionally different, and they had a higher or lower level. This is a common phenomenon in the popularity of ancient books, which is not surprising. As for the question of "de" being compiled in the first place or "Tao" being compiled in the first place, when the silk book was unearthed, it was regarded as the top priority, saying that "de" being compiled in the previous place was a copy of the Legalists, and "Tao" being compiled in the first place was a secret book of Taoism to confirm the significance of the struggle between Confucianism and Law, etc., it seems that it is all nonsense.

Twenty years after Laozi was unearthed in the silk book, in 1993, Laozi was unearthed from the Chu tomb of Guodian, Jingmen, Hubei. This is the earliest "Tao Te Ching" that can be seen so far. The total number of words accounts for about one-third of the silk book or the popular version, which means that they are not full versions. Despite this, although they are not a full version together, their existence is enough to show that the completion of Laozi or the preliminary book of Laozi was also a matter of the middle of the Warring States Period, and it was much older than Mencius and Zhuangzi.

In order to successfully figure out where the silk book "Tao Te Ching" came from, Lin Yi looked around and saw that Mr. Ito was busy helping him organize and pack the books. So Lin Yi felt relieved and released a trace of spiritual energy from his body to explore the true history of the silk book.

As the wisp of spiritual energy came into contact with the silk book, the spiritual energy contained on the silk book immediately "dripped sparks" with the spiritual energy released by Lin Yi.

A vast historical scene suddenly appeared in Lin Yi's mind.

Golden swords and iron horses, drinking horses and ice rivers.

In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, An Lushan rebelled. The Tang Dynasty was in danger, and a common man assisted Suzong in quelling the rebellion and supporting the world.

During the war, people's livelihood was withered, and many people were homeless and displaced.

Thieves are rampant, and humans and ghosts are not distinguished.

The originally glorious Tang Dynasty may collapse at any time.

People in common labor hard and plan.

The general trend of the world is gradually becoming stable.

An Lushan died and Shi Siming was defeated.

More than ten years have passed and battles have been fought on the battlefield.

He was originally spotless and devoted to the Tao, but he couldn't help but have a premature birth, and his fatigue became ill.

During the rest period, one night, the stars hang high.

He put on his clothes and walked out of the dormitory, looking up at the starry sky, to see the world's complexion.

I couldn't help but feel more than ten years of hard work and suffering among the people. I lamented that the peace and prosperity were hard-won, so I turned back to my house and wrote this volume of "Tao Te Ching".

Take Tao as the world and help all things with virtue.

With moral evidence, peace can be achieved in the world!

...

Lin Yi took back his mind. At this moment, he already knew the origin of this silk book, and also knew who the Taoist master in the world was.

He is Li Mi who helps and saves the world.

Li Mi was a veteran of the Xuan, Su, Dai and De dynasties of the Tang Dynasty, but he advocated the way of Lao Zhuang, who was born in the world and was regarded as a waste of fame and wealth. Therefore, in Su, the two dynasties resigned from the position of prime minister several times, and eventually stayed away from the court, and lived in seclusion in Hengshan for many years. For some reason, in June of the third year of Zhenyuan, he finally agreed to Dezong's request to become prime minister, but he was already 67 years old at that time. Even though he wanted to contribute all the wisdom and strength that Suzong and Daizong could not get to the lucky Emperor Dezong, God did not give him and Dezong more time. In March of the fourth year of Zhenyuan, Li Mi passed away. Although the rule was very short, Li Mi did many important things during his tenure, thus ensuring the peace and stability of the overall situation of the empire during the Zhenyuan period to a considerable extent.

He participated in the palace plan, assisted the court, planned strategies, planned strategies externally, and cooperated with the pace of various generals such as Guo Ziyi to achieve success. It can also be said to be an important figure in the world of Suzong, Daizong and Dezong. It was just because he loved gods, Buddhism and Taoism all his life, and was abandoned by the subjective self-views of great scholars who had always been Confucian and wrote history. It was really unfair to gently pass it over in a history of the chaos in the Middle Tang Dynasty. Speaking of his indifferent and clear ambitions, tranquility and far-reaching actions, and good at using Huang Lao's way of rectifying the chaos, he really looked like a god among immortals.

Thinking of this, especially when Lin Yi was particularly excited when he thought that this silk book was written by the legendary Tang Dynasty god-like figure Li Mi, who wrote the "Tao Te Ching" by himself.

As an ancient book collector, Lin Yi clearly knew that the Song and Yuan versions in this world are hard to come by now, and even the Ming Dynasty versions are pitiful, not to mention the ancient books from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms before the Song Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.

Ancient books are divided into engraved books and manuscripts, among which the manuscripts are unique and have great collection value. Many large collectors like to collect manuscripts from famous masters. For example, the volume of "Diamond Sutra" handwritten by Master Song, Su Dongpo, which Lin Yi spent millions to buy last time, can be worth at least tens of millions if it is obtained in the real auction market.

Now this volume of "Tao Te Ching" is even more amazing. It turns out to be a handwritten book by Li Mi, the legendary god and prime minister of the Tang Dynasty...

Just thinking about it can make people startle.

If such treasures are taken out, they will definitely shock the world and completely subvert the entire collection world.

...

Lin Yi tried hard to suppress the excitement in his heart, and he took a deep breath. It happened that Mr. Ito helped him wrap all the old books he selected.

Lin Yi pretended to be very relaxed and asked him: "Mr. Ito, do you sell the old books in this cardboard box?"

Ito was stunned for a moment and said, "Those are broken old books, and the collection value is not very good. I originally collected them to find someone to repair them... I didn't plan to sell them."

Lin Yi smiled and said, "I like these books very much. Can you sell them to me?"

"This..." Mr. Ito hesitated for a moment, "It's so broken, I'm a little embarrassed---I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Actually, I know a little repair technique. Moreover, although these old books are broken, the paper inside is very good. Even if they are not repaired well, they can still be used as repair paper."

"Oh, I didn't expect that the sir still knew the repair skills. This is rare... If you really like it, just sell it to you."

"Then this price---" Lin Yi asked in a deep thought.

"The price is easy to say, if you think it is acceptable, all 100,000 yen."

Lin Yi smiled and said, "Trade."

One hundred thousand yen is only 6,000 yuan, which is absolutely cost-effective.
Chapter completed!