A treasure-appraisal maniac

After sending Duan Yanhong away, Qiulong boss Yang Zhenhuai got into Lu Fei's tent again.

Yang Zhenhuai, unlike Duan Yanhong, went straight to the point and asked Lu Fei to help prepare meals for the Horned Dragons.

Duan Yanhong's generous gift served as a backdrop, but Yang Zhenhuai's empty-handed tone made Lu Fei very unhappy.

Just when Lu Fei was about to refuse, Yang Zhenhuai pulled out an object from his waist and threw it directly in front of Lu Fei.

Seeing clearly that it was an extremely gorgeous Damascus sword, Lu Fei's eyes instantly bloomed with two greedy gleams.

Speaking of the reputation of the Damascus knife, it is too great.

In fact, the name Damascus knife is what Europeans call it.

In Europe, the Damascus sword is simply a symbol of a magical weapon.

There is also a legend that has been passed down to this day about this magical weapon.

On September 3, 1191 AD, the main force of the Third Crusade, led by the King of England, Richard the Lion-Hearted, gradually approached Arsuf near Jaffa.

There will be the meeting and collision of two romantic legendary heroes.

Another protagonist of the legend is an equally powerful Kurdish Muslim king.

His name was Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty.

The greatest king and general in the Islamic world led his army against Richard.

The two sides entered the battlefield one after another on September 4 and immediately began to set up their formations. For a while, the two armies were in battle formations. From a distance, they could see flags like a sea, spears like reeds, and shields like heavy walls.

At this moment, Saladin's envoys rushed to the Crusaders' formation and shouted, inviting Richard to come out and meet Saladin.

Richard happily rode out to meet Saladin, and the two apparently had a heated argument over the ownership of the Holy Land.

In order to demonstrate to Richard, Saladin took out a veil and threw it into the air.

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Then he pulled out his sword and swung it at the gauze scarf, cutting the almost weightless gauze scarf floating in the air into two halves.

This spectacle greatly surprised Richard and the accompanying knights, who had seen countless famous swords in their lives.

So from that day on, a legend spread in Europe that there was an unknown metal material in the East, and the knives forged from it were extremely sharp.

And triggered the endless desire of European knights for this kind of sword.

This magical sword came from Damascus, so European knights named it Damascus sword after the place of origin.

The material of this magical sword is called Uzi steel, and Chinese people call it Uzi sword.

However, this kind of knife spread to China more than a century later than Europe, so there is only one name recognized in the world, and that is the Damascus knife.

In the 13th century AD, the Mongolian army invaded the west and Damascus and many surrounding cities suffered heavy losses.

The Mongolian army ordered the massacre of the city. Only skilled craftsmen could save their lives, but they must follow the Mongolian army back to Beijing.

In this way, a large number of skilled craftsmen were kidnapped and returned to the capital Yuandadu, which is today's Tiandu City.

At the same time, the Yuan Dynasty ordered the construction of a city about three hundred miles south of Dadu and named it Baoding, which means "defend Dadu and stabilize the world."

This is the origin of today's Baoding City.

Many craftsmen captured from Damascus were classified as "craftsmen" and placed in Baoding, where they specialized in creating luxury goods for the palace nobles in the capital and weapons for the army.

Craftsmen are subsidized by the government, but they must "pass it on from father to son, and be craftsmen from generation to generation."

The production process of Damascus steel was introduced to China and began to take root.

It is worth mentioning that before the Yuan Dynasty, Damascus knives occasionally flowed into China as trophies or commodities.

However, the large-scale introduction of Damascus knife making technology and the production of Damascus steel began in the Yuan Dynasty, with Baoding as the starting point.

Since "craftsmen" are prohibited from moving and the uses of Damascus steel are relatively limited, this craft has not been widely spread in China to this day.

The craftsman household system was not officially abolished until the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. The craftsmen households regained their freedom and lost the support of the government. Most craftsmen households turned to other industries, and only a few families continued the craft from father to son.

Although the craftsmanship has been passed down, the sharpness and toughness of the Damascus knives produced cannot be compared with those in the heyday of the Yuan Dynasty.

Therefore, the price of Damascus knives after the Yuan Dynasty is completely different from that of the Yuan Dynasty.

In 2003, a Damascus knife from the Kangxi period was auctioned at Poly. The transaction price was NT$1.06 million including commission.

Thirteen years later, the knife was auctioned again, and the final transaction price was only a premium of 20,000 yuan.

In 2005, a 12th-century Damascus knife appeared at a private auction in the UK, and the final transaction price reached an astonishing 335 pounds.

In 2015, the knife appeared at Sotheby's autumn auction in Hong Kong, and was immediately snapped up by wealthy people.

After more than twenty bids, the deal was finally settled at 53.7 million.

This is the most obvious gap.

This Damascus sword is a little over forty centimeters long. About five centimeters above the handle naturally curves inward to form an arch, and the widest point is more than four centimeters.

Although this knife is not long, it is very heavy on the hand, weighing at least two pounds.

The handle of the knife is made of Asian rhino horn, and the tail of the handle is inlaid with a pure gold carved tiger head.

The tiger head's eyes are made of red coral, and its shape is almost exactly the same as the tiger head of the Qixing Town National Treasure Sword.

In the middle of the handle is a row of Mongolian characters in staggered gold.

This string of Mongolian characters is surrounded by a week of Quranic verses inlaid with silver.

The outer periphery of the sutra is inlaid with sapphires, and the handle is staggered with gold unicorn beasts and fire cloud patterns. It is simply gorgeous.

The inside of the scabbard is made of iron pear wood, and the outer cowhide is sewn with three layers of gold wire.

The corners and tip of the scabbard are decorated with various gold patterns, and the middle part is fully inlaid with red coral, gold amber and turquoise, which is the ultimate level of luxury.

The sword was unsheathed, and under the illumination of the emergency light, Wu Qiqi's blade glowed with a dazzling blue light, making people shudder.

What a knife!

There are various irregular patterns all over the knife seedlings.

This is a unique feature of Damascus swords, called Mohammed pattern.

This kind of pattern can only be forged from wootz steel.

Various lines complement each other, and the angle of the blade is changed with the help of light, making it as dazzling and unparalleled as the sun changes the third eye.

Although it has gone through thousands of years, there is no rust.

The blade was extremely sharp, and when I gently blew on the blade with the back of my hand, a piece of hair was actually cut off.

This kind of sharpness is comparable to Lu Fei's demon dragon. It is definitely a rare and rare sword.

Lu Fei couldn't put it down and looked at it for a long time before returning the sword to its sheath.

"Boss Yang, do you know what kind of knife this is?"

Yang Zhenhuai rolled his eyes at Lu Fei and said.

"Nonsense, of course I know my knife."

"As long as you agree to help, this knife will belong to you, Instructor Lu, from now on."