Zhou Yongle, 38, lives in Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, Chongqing. He is a Tujia businessman and likes to collect local ethnic and cultural relics. In 2006, Zhou Yongle went to Youyang, a livable town, to buy secondhand goods and bought a bunch of old books from a rural farmer. When he went home to tidy up, he came across a thread-bound book, which was very special.
The paper of this book is the "leather paper" commonly used in the history of Wuling Mountain area, with more than 20 pages, neat and powerful handwriting, similar to traditional Chinese characters. But from the cover to the text, Zhou Yongle didn't know all the words, which made him blindsided. Looking carefully, Zhou Yongle found that there was an inconspicuous Chinese character next to every word in the text, which was similar to translation. Where do these words come from? Zhou Yongle consulted books such as Shuowen Jiezi, Zhong Dingwen and Kangxi Dictionary, and consulted cultural research experts of the County People's Religious Committee and local elderly people who are still alive, but there was no result. No one can explain these words.
In the spring and summer of 2007, Zhou Yongle went to an old house to buy old things. Suddenly, an old book with no cover made him shine: the words on this book are exactly the same as those on the book he brought back earlier! After buying home, Zhou Yongle studied it carefully and found that it was an ancient dictionary. The big characters are mysterious characters discovered before, and the small characters immediately below them are Chinese character notes. Comparing the two books, Zhou Yongle found that the two books are written in the same way, and the Chinese characters are annotated in the same way, so it can be judged that the two books use the same language.
Zhou Yongle said: "It is universally acknowledged that Tujia people, as a minority, have only language but no writing. If we can solve the mysterious characters written in these books found in the Wujiang River basin and confirm that they are Tujia characters, it will be a major discovery in Tujia culture, thus rewriting the history of ethnic minorities in China. " ?