Chapter 418 An unexpected surprise
Many details show that the Horton family lacks foundation.

First, the villa was built in the Victorian era and has only a hundred years of history. Compared with the old castles and manors of the old aristocrats, it seems like a new object.

Second, the loyalty of the servants in the manor is average, unlike the loyal servants in the old nobles' houses, many of whom are either house-born children or people of the territory.

Finally, there were no guards in the manor. The guard dogs outside the villa and the living people inside the villa could probably only prevent minor thefts. For organized and planned intruders like Da Yanming and his group, the manor was almost a skinned lamb to be slaughtered.

Therefore, not only was the break-in successful, but it also took little effort to get into the Horton family treasure room.

This room used to store family treasures was not built underground, nor did it have any high-tech security measures, such as a bank's safe door, or any sensor alarm devices in the room.

Perhaps they never thought that they would be targeted by thieves, so the treasure room is just a modified large compartment with no windows and only a thick iron door.

An ordinary person might be helpless against this iron door which is 30 to 40 centimeters thick. However, it is not difficult for the electrical team, as they are specialized in opening doors and picking locks.

Not to mention this kind of iron door with a traditional combination lock with a complex metal structure, even if it is an electric door with an independent power supply system, Xu Cansen and the other two have a way to open it.

It only took about ten minutes for the electrical team to open the iron door from the outside.

Dayanming only let one person from the firearms team guard outside the door, and took Xu Cansen and the cultural relics experts into the treasure room.

Only after entering can you directly see the strength of the Horton family, a small noble family in the British country.

Compared with those old aristocrats or big families in Britain and France that have been passed down for hundreds of years, the treasure room of the Horton family can only be described as shabby.

The main reason is that there are too few treasures here. The cultural relics experts only took a quick look and estimated that there are only more than a hundred pieces.

Maybe the Horton family has other good things in the bank or some secret place, but there are only these few things in the treasure room of more than 300 square meters.

There are oil paintings, ancient maps, gold and silver coats of arms, ancient coins, sculptures, ancient utensils, armor, swords, and long and short muskets.

It sounds like there are many types, but in fact there are not many of each type. The most numerous are various coins, sculptures, swords and muskets.

Moreover, all the laymen present except the cultural relics experts could see that the Horton family seemed to have a special fondness for objects with "gold" in them, and on the contrary, they failed to discover treasures with more cultural heritage, such as ancient Chinese paintings and calligraphy, and jades.

We did see a few pieces of Chinese porcelain among the vessels, but they were mostly brightly colored, like the Tang Dynasty tri-colored colored glazed horses, the Qing Dynasty gilt-patterned copper incense bottles, and the gilt-enamel vases.

As for the celadon and blue-and-white porcelain from the Song Dynasty and the blue-and-white porcelain from the Yuan Dynasty, there was not a single piece left, probably because the Horton family considered them worthless.

Not to mention calligraphy and Chinese painting works that can only be appreciated by the Chinese cultural circle. Even if you tell them about them, they won't understand.

It was only the 80s, the mainland had not yet risen, and the international antique market, especially Chinese cultural relics, could not be sold at high prices. Naturally, these white Europeans did not understand their value.

So it is not difficult to understand why they are more interested in antiques that look shiny or golden.

With his bright eyes, he looked carefully and finally saw the most important goal of this trip - the Yongle Sword, which was placed on a Lanqi stand in the corner.

He patted the shoulder of the cultural relic expert who was admiring the treasure with fascination, and asked him to identify it to see if it was authentic. This expert was also very famous. His name was Chen Geng. He was born into a family of cultural relics. His father's generation was a well-known antique collector in the Republic of China.

By the time his generation started to learn, it was already the 60s.

In the first few years after arriving in Hong Kong Island, Chen Geng worked as an appraisal expert for Hong Kong antique dealers for several years. Later, he left the industry in anger because he was dissatisfied with these people selling national treasures and cultural relics to foreigners for money.

When Da Yanming found him, he had opened a small antique shop on Temple Street. His business mainly involved buying and selling items such as copper coins, small copper pieces, small jade pieces and foreign antiques.

Promised a high salary and inspired by the action of the richest man in the country to bring back national treasures from abroad, Chen Geng agreed without hesitation.

Of course he knew that the so-called welcoming back of the national treasure might not be done with glorious means, but he was not a pedantic person. As long as the goal was achieved, the means were not what he should consider.

When he turned to look at Dayanming, the other party had already handed the Yongle Sword to him.

Chen Geng excitedly took the sword with both hands. He first touched the gilded patterns on the scabbard with trembling hands, then carefully observed all the decorations and details on the entire sword, nodded, and finally slowly drew out the sword.

There was no flash of cold light. The blade of the Yongle Sword had already shown slight surface rust and was not reflective like stainless steel.

The Horton family probably knew that they couldn't mess around with it, so they didn't do anything with it after buying it from Seymour's descendants.

Chen Geng flicked the sword with his index finger, then put his ear close to it and listened. He finally breathed a sigh of relief, smiled at Da Yanming who was waiting nervously, and said:
"The genuine Yongle Sword!"

Hearing this, Big Eyes Ming was delighted at first, then he took out a leather sword sheath with a drawstring closure from his backpack and carefully inserted the sword into the sheath.

Now that they have obtained the Yongle Sword, their mission is mostly completed, and they can just take whatever other things in the treasure room they want.

At this time, Xu Cansen reminded, "There is a good discovery here," and then Dayanming and Chen Geng looked over.

You don’t know until you see it. Once Chen Geng saw it, he couldn’t move his eyes away.

I saw a golden object quietly placed on the display stand blocked by a Roman sculpture.

Xu Cansen naturally didn't know what this thing was called, but Chen Geng recognized it at a glance.

He was 100% sure that this was a golden sword handle with coiled dragon pattern from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.

Since the iron blade had long since corroded and disappeared, the treasure, which was originally a golden sword, now only had the hilt left.

The hollow carving of the golden hilt is very perfect and the details are very rich. Even ordinary people can see that it must have taken a long time to make this thing.

Chen Geng's lips began to tremble with excitement. He felt that this time when he came to Horton Manor, in addition to taking back the Yongle Sword, the golden hilt in front of him was definitely an unexpected surprise.

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(End of this chapter)