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The scale of digging of course varied considerably from years to year; some of the landlords were prejudiced against such digging which is a very important restrictive influence.  It is only under exceptional circumstances that large scale digging was successfully organized; otherwise they were carried on by a gang of only 2 or 3, underhand.  The large scale digging that occured 1904 to 1909, as noted above, were ended in mob-fighting.  It was in 1920, when North China was suffering a dry famine, that a similar attempt was again made; but for all that is known, it seemed to be an ill-fated one.  In 1923, a new locality was discovered in the vegetable farm of Chang Hsüeh-hsien, by Hê Kuo-tung(何國棟), one of the leading gangsters of the village, who made large profit by this trade,  He noted this place down carefully.  According to his own version, it was responsible for the 1926 digging.  But before this occurred, other villagers discovered in 1925 another great hoard very near to the village road.

In 1926, Chang Hsüeh-hsien was taken captive by bandits and held for ransom; the sum dictated to his family by these bandits  is a very large one.  So the villagers bargained with his family and obtained their consent to dig in his vegetable garden, with the understanding that the profit is to be divided between the landowner and the diggers on a fifth-fifty basis.  Evidently everybody was satisfied with this arrangement.  The finds had all passed, according to the villager, into the hands of the Canadian Missionary in Chang-te, James M. Menzies.  Two years later in the spring, when the village was made a battleground, and planting season was delayed; villagers again gathered to dig on the road.  The finds filled many baskets and were all sold to curio-dealers from K'ai-feng(開封) and Shanghai.  It was in Autumn of this year that the National Research Institute of History and Philology began to take up this work.

Transcription Notes:
chinese characters need to be added Added Chinese characters.--lingwang