Gold-Seeking Captain: The Hidden Caverns of Guanzhong

In an age when people lived hand to mouth, famine was never far away. Whenever it struck, some people risked sneaking into the deep mountains to search for the so-called great tombs, hoping to dig up a few antiques and trade them for food. But of all those who went in for these treasures, how many ever came back out? The dangers of a thousand-year-old tomb are terrifying beyond measure, yet when you’re desperate for a bite to eat, you have no choice but to venture inside and steal its treasures. It was sheer desperation: people die for money, just as birds die for food. The tombs defied common sense, and the wisdom of the ancients was beyond anything modern people could match. They battled dangers and navigated deadly mechanisms, all for one or two rare treasures from a coffin that could be exchanged for food. It was both tragic and heartbreaking. Zhang Dachuan’s ancestors were feng shui masters, versed in yin-yang divination and geomancy. When Zhang Dachuan’s great-grandfather passed this knowledge on to Zhang Yingchuan’s grandfather, the War of Resistance against Japan was raging. To escape the brutal conflict, the books on yin-yang divination and geomancy were lost, leaving only the teachings passed down by word of mouth. By the time they reached Zhang Dachuan, the campaign to eliminate the Four Olds and overthrow all “demons and monsters” was underway. Zhang Dachuan’s grandfather and father were arrested and denounced as enemies of the revolution. After enduring one ordeal after another, Zhang Dachuan’s grandfather’s health gave out under the revolutionary struggle, and he died. When Zhang Dachuan’s father returned home after labor reform, he burned everything in the house connected to feng shui. The family lived quietly, until Zhang Dachuan came of age and answered the nation’s call to work in the countryside as an educated youth. Only then did he recall the long-buried knowledge of yin-yang and feng shui, which saved his life time and again.