Shadow of the Tomb Raider: A Complete Record of the History of Tomb Raiders in China

Chapter 18 Those who come are not good, but those who are kind do not come: Secrets of the motives of the tomb robbers (3)
Mr. Feng Shui may want to say more auspicious words and ask for more rewards, but such words are not a joke.If it is said that the Yang family wants to produce a prime minister, a general, or a queen, no one will trouble you.But to speak out about the emperor would be tantamount to treason, and it would be tantamount to driving the current emperor out of power. If such words were spread, not only would the Yang family be extinct, but the nine clans might also be exterminated.

Hearing this, Yang Hu's face turned pale with fright, the matter has come to this point, even if the Yang family is really going to die, it doesn't matter.Never mind.Without further ado, Yang Hu ordered the family servants to dig open his father's grave with hoes, shovels and other tools, and cut off the dragon's veins in two or three blows.The fortune teller saw that the reward money was wasted, but he still didn't give up. He looked at the cemetery for a while, and then said to Yang Hu: "Even if you dig out the dragon's veins, there will still be a Sangong with a broken arm in the future."

In the Jin Dynasty, Sangong was a top-notch senior official, and it was a symbol of honor, equivalent to the emperor's confidant.To be an official until the end, if you are named Taifu, or Taibao, or Taizai, it means that your official luck has come to an end and you cannot be promoted any more, and you will be the emperor if you go up.To sum it up in one idiom, he is an extremely human minister.

After such a toss, Yang Hu escaped the risk of losing his head.Before long, he fell off his horse and broke his arm.Later, as Mr. Feng Shui said, Yang Hu had no heirs during his lifetime. Due to his outstanding achievements, he was named Taifu by the court after his death.

Zombie medicine is very alternative

There are many strange and unimaginable reasons for ancient people to rob and dig tombs, and some even used mummified corpses as medicine.Due to the special burial conditions, the corpses in some tombs will form mummies.According to legend, the mummy used as medicine can treat fractures and other diseases. This kind of mummy used as medicine is called "Muffled Fragrance".This special medicinal material has attracted many grave robbers.

The special pursuit of burial objects is a factor we have to consider when analyzing the motives of grave robbers.Yu Yue of the Qing Dynasty wrote about the tomb of Tao Hongjing, a famous scholar in the Southern Dynasties, who was robbed and excavated in the article "Tao Hermit Tomb" in "Tea Fragrance Room Three Notes":
Ming Li Rihua's "Liuyanzhai Notes" says: Song Yuanyou, Zhonggui Luo Chunyi, who learned Taoism in Huayang, and Yi (Tao) lived in seclusion. There are different books on cinnabar. There is only an empty coffin hanging on an iron rope in the tomb of the day cave. Written, said: "Huayang lived in seclusion in a secluded hall, Shengli Bodhisattva sacrificed his life. A disciple of Sakyamuni Buddha, a minister of the Supreme Taoist monarch. Cultivate the six ways of the superior vehicle,... travel to space to imitate the gods." The script is wonderful, it is (Tao) Reclusive handwriting.After the tomb was opened, I copied this article to pass it on.The meaning of this passage is: In the early years of Song Yuanyou, a man named Luo Chunyi went to the mountain to practice Taoism.He often heard Maoshan Taoist priests discuss in private: "Tao's secluded house has a lot of treasures, including cinnabar and strange books!"As soon as Luo Chun heard the news, he couldn't bear it anymore, so he imitated the trick of the tomb robber.One day he actually opened the tomb passage of the secluded hall, drilled into it and observed it carefully with a kindling: he saw an empty coffin hanging on iron chains, a storage pot and a mirror, all of which are necessary for Taoist priests to rest in. Look at the surrounding of the tomb again, and it is written next to each other.The inscription on the hidden wall said: "Huayang lives in a secluded hall, Shengli Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva who sacrificed his life, disciple of Sakyamuni Buddha who sacrificed his life, minister of the Supreme Taoist monarch, cultivates the six perfections of the superior vehicle, the three truths of ..., Xilingyue With the scriptures, travel to space to inhabit the gods!" The handwriting is quite magical, so I copied it and passed it down to future generations.The purpose of Luo Chunyi's robbery and excavation of Tao Hongjing's tomb was originally to search for "Cinnabar and Strange Books", and the miraculous calligraphy he got was also called an anecdote in the history of tomb robbery.

There is a very strange case of tomb robbery, which is mentioned in Volume [-] of "Yiyuan" by Liu Jingshu of the Southern Song Dynasty:
In Yuanjiazhong, the slaves of the Hu family in Yuzhang opened the king's tomb in Changyi, and the Qingzhou people opened the tomb of Duke Xiang of Qi, and got the golden hook, but the corpses were exposed in the rocks.It may not be justified here.The Jingfang corpses were still complete in Yixizhong, and the human flesh of the zombies could be used as medicine, so the soldiers divided them up.It is appalling that grave robbers cut up "zombie flesh" and used it as medicine.Similar records include the legend that "mummy" can cure "broken limbs" in the Yuan Dynasty, which is exactly the same as the superstition that "zombie flesh can be used as medicine".

The motives for robbing tombs are different, and the reasons are also various. It is precisely because of people's greed, hatred, or ignorance that the phenomenon of "there is no undiscovered tomb in ancient and modern times".

Drought bone piles to pray for rain

As for sending tombs to pray for rain, it is a purely superstitious activity.According to literature records, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such a strange custom was prevalent in Shandong and Henan. Whenever there was a severe drought, the villagers would dig out the corpses that had just been buried and mutilate and insult them.The local people believe that the reason for such a severe drought is that the corpse turned into a bá.Beating, dismembering and burning such corpses can pray for rain and alleviate drought. This witchcraft of using corpses in the tomb to pray for rain is called "drought bone pile".It can be seen that this method of tomb robbery for the purpose of praying for rain is full of mystery.

The so-called drought demon is a legendary monster that can cause drought. It can easily make a state and a county desolate for thousands of miles without a drop of water. In the "Shen Yi Jing" when describing the drought, it said: "There are people in the south, two or three feet long, naked, with eyes on the top, walking like the wind, the name is Yan, the country I see is severely drought, the red land is thousands of miles, a drought mother .” Folks believe that Hanba is a change from a corpse within a hundred days of death.The corpses of dead people who have become dry demons will not rot, no grass will grow on the graves, and water will seep from the graves, and the dry demons will carry water to their homes at night.Only when the Hanba is burned will it rain.

In the past, if there was a long drought and no rain, and there was moist soil on the head of someone's new tomb, it would be said that there was a drought in this tomb.It is said that Hanba can drink all the water in the world and feed on live chickens.Therefore, not only the head of the new tomb with drought is wet, but also many chicken feathers can be found around the cemetery.Once this happens, it is necessary to fight the Hanba: first dig up the sealing soil of the tomb, and immediately use a large fishing net to catch the coffin after it is exposed, so as to prevent the Hanba from escaping.Cover the net, drill a round hole in the coffin, put the soil gun filled with medicine and sand into it, and with a "boom", the coffin was blown to pieces. Broken, dragging these fragments to run around, wherever you drag the fragments of Hanba's corpse, it will rain.

When catching drought demons, people still sang the following ballads: "Burn your drought demons to death! Burn your drought demons to death! The seedlings in my fields will grow, and the trees on my mountains will line up! I want the livestock to prosper and be free of locusts! I want clouds, rain, and good weather! I want to eat and drink and fill the tank with clean water! The descendants of my village pray for rain and the Dragon King, and I offer pigs, cows, and sheep...

This custom of "drying bone piles" lasted from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.Yuan Mei once recorded a complete story of robbing a tomb in order to pray for rain in "Zi Bu Yu":

In the 26th year of Qianlong (AD 1761), the capital suffered a severe drought that had not happened in decades.There was a postman named Zhang Gui who delivered official documents to a certain capital on a fast horse.When he came to the border of Liangxiang on this day, Zhang Gui was only on his way, but missed the lodging, and unknowingly came to a barren mountain.While walking, a black wind suddenly blew up and blew out the torch in Zhang Gui's hand.Immediately afterwards, the pouring rain poured down, Zhang Gui had no choice but to get off his horse, and went to a post box on the side of the road to find a place where he planned to spend the night.At this time, a beautiful woman about eighteen or nineteen years old came lightly with a lantern. The girl was beautiful and charming, and when Zhang Gui saw it, he felt that half of his body was crisp.The strange woman gently opened her red lips and invited Zhang Gui to her home for a talk.Zhang Gui led the horse and followed the woman, and soon came to a mansion.The woman served tea, tied Zhang Gui's horse to the pillar, and expressed her willingness to sleep with Zhang Gui in the same bed.Zhang Gui was overjoyed, and spent the night with the woman.

When the rooster crowed, the woman put on her clothes and got up to leave, but Zhang Gui couldn't keep her.After sending the woman away, Zhang Gui felt tired and fell asleep on the bed again.In my sleep, I feel the cold dew is cool, and weeds puncture my nose and mouth.When he woke up and saw that the sky was bright, but he was lying among the graves in the wilderness, he couldn't help but turn pale with shock.Zhang Gui stood up, got on the horse and set off hastily, at this time he had already missed the time to deliver the documents.When Zhang Gui came to the yamen with a face full of embarrassment, Du Tong had long been impatient, and he ordered his subordinates to hold Zhang Gui to the [-]th board, but Zhang Gui had no choice but to tell the truth in detail.After hearing this, Du Tong was dubious, and sent people to the tomb to check, and visited nearby homes, and learned that a woman surnamed Zhang was buried there.This woman had committed adultery before she got married, and she hanged herself in shame after the incident was revealed. After becoming a female ghost, she often seduced passers-by.Someone said: "This is a drought demon. Those who are shaped like monkeys, with disheveled hair, and walk on one foot are called beast demons; zombies that hang themselves to death and come out to deceive people are called ghost demons. Capture the drought demons and burn them to death to eliminate them." Drought caused rainfall." After obtaining the consent of the superior, the coffin was opened, and sure enough, I saw a female zombie with white fluff growing all over her body.So everyone burned it, and it rained heavily the next day.

Similar primitive forms of witchcraft remain in the rain-seeking customs of different nations.British anthropologist, ethnologist, and historian of religion James G. Fraser writes in The Golden Bough: A Study in Spells and Religion, "Sometimes rain magic is performed with dead bodies. For example, In New Caledonia, rain seekers paint themselves black, dig up a corpse, bring its bones into a cave, join them in the shape of a human body, and hang the skeleton on some taro leaves, Sprinkle the skeleton with water, and let the water run over the leaves." "Peasants in some parts of Russia, when they were in the throes of a drought, used to dig up the dead body of a drunken man and sink it in the nearest swamp or lake. "There are even acts similar to "mutilation of its limbs". "In 1868, due to the long-term drought, there were signs of a bad harvest. Residents of a village in Tarashinsk Township dug up a dead body. Some people whipped the body or The remaining part of the corpse, while shouting 'Give us rain!' near its head." The "drought bone pile" in Chinese rain-seeking folklore is likely to have some original motives for the practice described by Fraser. something in common.

"Drought bone piles" mutilate the body of the tomb owner and hurt the feelings of the tomb owner's family, which is obviously against human relations and indecent.The "evil" of this custom doesn't stop there. What's even more outrageous is that some people actually use the "name of fighting a drought" to avenge their own personal revenge.Under the banner of eradicating the drought, they incited the superstitious and ignorant masses, dug up the tombs of their enemies, and destroyed their corpses to vent their anger.In the fourth year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty (AD 1491), officials in Henan, Shandong and other places carried out vigorous rectification, and punished the leaders.Despite this, the "drought bone pile" praying for rain has been banned repeatedly among the people, and it will often be revived.

Mystical concepts such as dry bone piles can cause rain can be inherited for such a long time, which is a kind of folklore worth studying. Perhaps this folklore contains some mysterious cultural information that helps us understand history.Of course, from a scientific point of view, it is impossible for this kind of folklore to have the magical ability to call wind and rain.

Pathological tomb robbery becomes a hobby
The phenomenon of taking tomb robbery as a hobby, an earlier example, of course, is the so-called "King of Guangchuan (Liu) went away in Volume [-] of "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes", he likes to gather rogue youngsters, hunts without limits, and excavates all domestic tombs and treasures", And the records of "the tombs of the king are innumerable, and the strange ones are hundreds of them".

There are many ancient tombs in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in the fiefdom of King Liu Qu of Guangchuan. Liu Qu usually likes to gather some boring teenagers to play and hunt together.He has excavated all the ancient tombs in Feng's country.Liu's tomb robbery doesn't always come back with a full reward, and sometimes the gains are very small.But he only cared about the process of the tomb robbery game, and he didn't care much about the result.

"Wang Xuanmo Biography" records that Wang Xuanxiang, the prefect of Xiapi in the Southern Dynasty and Song Dynasty, "likes to make tombs, and there is no end to the earth." "Biography of the Kings of the Chen Clan, Shixing King Shuling" records that "(Chen) Shuling is also easy to develop tombs,... The sun and the moon are connected. Day and night travel," the situation, the tomb robbery is not for property, otherwise it would not steal human bones back and play with them day and night.Therefore, it is said that this kind of tomb robbers are not aimed at making money, but to satisfy their morbid addiction. (About the content of Liu Qu’s tomb robbery, this book will give a detailed introduction in Chapter 10, and here is just a reminder.)
Whipping corpses and smashing bones to vent anger

Burial is the eternal destination of soul and body after death. Chinese people have attached great importance to funeral since ancient times. The greatest disrespect to a person is to release his grave, and the greatest insult to a person is to flog the corpse and smash the bones.Therefore, in ancient times, excavating the graves of enemies and insulting their corpses was an extreme and common means of revenge.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo, a warlord, was brutal. In the first year of Chuping (196 A.D.), Emperor Xiandi of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo entered Chang'an.He Miao, the younger brother of General He Jin, once had a grudge against Dong Zhuo. At this time, He Miao had already been killed, but Dong Zhuo still did not let him go. According to historical records, Dong Zhuo "delivered He Miao's coffin, took out his corpse, and discarded all the details in the funeral room." Side", to vent the hatred of the year.

During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, Qianyan in the north was close to the State of Zhao, and they fought endlessly all year round.Once, Murong Jun (jùn), the former lord of Yan, dreamed that Shi Jilong, the lord of Zhao, bit his bones. In a rage, he ordered the grave of Shi Jilong to be dug up, and his body was whipped and dumped in Zhangshui.

Digging graves only to recognize blood relatives

This is a rather special motive for tomb robbery.Recognizing relatives through blood leakage belongs to the same principle as the ancient "recognizing relatives by dripping blood", and it is a means for the ancients to conduct "paternity testing". The "Bone Recognition Method" recorded in "Washing Injustice Collection" is the best explanation for blood oozing and recognition: "A person is a father or mother, and there are bones, so how can B come to recognize his father and give birth to a boy or a girl?" What? Try to order a person B to prick one or two drops of blood on the bone, if it is his own, the blood will seep into the bone, otherwise it will not enter. The common saying is "dripping bone relatives", which is what Gai calls it."

"Paternity test" has existed since ancient times. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Liang Yuzhang Wang Xiaozong once dug up the grave of his own father to identify his ancestors.

Xiao Zong's mother, Wu Shuyuan, was originally the favorite concubine of Xiao Baojuan, Marquis of Eastern Qi.After Liang Wudi Xiao Yan became emperor, he brought Wu Shuyuan into the harem.At this time, Wu Shuyuan was pregnant with Xiao Baojuan's child, and she concealed the matter.Seven months later, Wu Shuyuan gave birth to Xiao Zong. At that time, everyone thought Xiao Zong was Xiao Baojuan's son.When Xiao Zong grew up, he was named the King of Yuzhang, and he really wanted to find out his life experience.He had visited Qi's ancestral temple and the private server of the Qi Ming Emperor's Mausoleum, but he still hadn't figured out his own life experience.He heard that there is a method of "seeping blood to recognize relatives", which is to drip the blood of the living onto the bones of the dead. If it seeps down, it is a family and has a blood relationship.

Therefore, Xiao Zong secretly dug Xiao Baojuan's tomb, took out Xiao Baojuan's bones, and confessed his relatives through bleeding, and it turned out that he was Xiao Baojuan's son.

What happened later was beyond the imagination of normal people.Xiao Zong, in order to verify the accuracy of blood oozing and kinship recognition, even killed and buried his second son who was just over a month old, and then asked his subordinates to dig out his son's bones overnight, and conducted a "blood oozing kinship" experiment with himself. The final result is "everything has experience".When Xiao Zong learned that he was not Xiao Yan's biological son, he often harbored different ambitions. Soon he joined the Northern Wei Dynasty, changed his name to Xiao Ji, and said that he would mourn for Donghunhou for three years.Xiao Zong served successively as Sikong, Situ, Taiwei and Hushi General in the Northern Wei Dynasty. He died of illness at the age of 31. After his death, the Northern Wei government buried Xiao Zong according to the etiquette of princes.In 538 AD, Xiao Yan ordered Xiao Zong's tomb to be robbed and his bones taken away.Xiao Yan was still kept in the dark at this time, and firmly believed that Xiao Zong was his son, so he buried his bones in the family cemetery.

(End of this chapter)