🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Found these at an estate sale, but have no idea what they were used for

[loveantiquing]

I found these two at an estate sale, one looks like it sits on a dresser with 2 doors and a drawer. The other is two pieces, a stand and box that sits on top. Both look to have Chinese or Japanese writing in them. tried to translate some of it and a part of was an account of a war. Any idea where they are from and what they were used for?

 

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[The Rebel]

My guess is they are tea chests.

 

[unclemac]

and chinese too not japanese

 

[loveantiquing]

and chinese too not japanese

Yeah we were able to translate some of the writing in one of them and seems like a history book of sorts, talking about a war.

 

[Joecoins]

Very cool I'd like to know what it says

 

[Hunter1805]

I just saw one yesterday. The box is very similar to a Chinese game that was loaded with stacked game pieces somewhat like dominoes. I would say a game box missing the bone pieces. The box did have the same scrip all over the inside.

 

[Bucket Lister]

Yeah we were able to translate some of the writing in one of them and seems like a history book of sorts, talking about a war.

About a war, or about The Art of War (a.k.a. Sun Tzu's Military Method)? 🤨🤓

I just saw one yesterday. The box is very similar to a Chinese game that was loaded with stacked game pieces somewhat like dominoes. I would say a game box missing the bone pieces. The box did have the same scrip all over the inside.

Mahjong? Which box? 🤓
Scrip appears (to me) to be old newspaper, BICBW.

 

[Yang Hao]

From what I can tell there are in classical Chinese and reference war and governance in the text. I wasn't able to ID what book/books it may have come from but they do reference Liu Bei and Cao Cao from the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms.

Some quick examples:
江推于深鄰戰爭于徐大 moving into the territories of ancient Xu
承郡戰争子徐台佈斯 deploying troops in ancient Xu

心民爭藏之下疑仰密熬而 "The hearts of the people are hidden/suffering beneath suspicion"

 

[Yang Hao]

As for the bigger box It's hard to read the text (image is pixelated when I zoom in). It's more than likely print that had mistakes and they reused it to line the box. It looks to be classical form. I was able to identify the structure. Where I circled in the photo is the middle part of the page. That area is called the 版心 banxin (print middle? not sure how to translate it) and there is text between the 鱼尾 yuwei fish tales (the black fishtail looking things). It looks like the print repeats as well. So it's copies of the same page that has been cut to fit etc.