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

Chapter 21 Hands and eyes open to the sky, tricks of ghosts and ghosts: Grave robber techniques (1)
The method of tomb robbery has been innovated repeatedly

Folk tomb robbery activities for the purpose of robbing cultural relics are very secretive. This industry has existed since ancient times, and its activity level has also fluctuated with the rise and fall of the collection trend.In recent years, tomb robbery activities have become more and more rampant with the long temperature of antiques.

Compared with the state's organized protective digging, tomb robbers are extremely clever.Archaeological excavations organized by the state are meticulous, even working with brushes.In terms of methods, almost all of them are "big uncovering" (except for the huge Ming and Qing tombs in the underground palace), and there is no "technical" problem.Not so with Tomb Raiders.All dynasties have imposed severe legal punishments on tomb robbery, especially in modern times, so the concept of "time" and "concealment" are very strong.The brushes and wooden shovels that are most used in archaeological excavations organized by the state are useless to grave robbers.

For tomb robbers, preparatory work is very important.One of the most important steps is to determine the location of the tomb and how to plan the robbery.

Tomb robbers generally determine the location of the tomb in three ways:
Check the shape of the soil seal on the ground to judge the rough information such as the level and age of the tomb. It is said that the places where there are ancient tombs are destroyed during the burial due to the natural geological five-flower soil, and the growth of crops is generally worse than that of the surrounding areas;
Find traces of ancient tombs from local documents and folklore;
What is more credible is to use Luoyang shovel and other tools to dig soil samples to see whether it is Wuhua soil or raw soil. The ancient tomb will inevitably leave traces in the soil layer during the construction process, and the buried soil layer will be different from the original one. relatively obvious difference.According to the pottery, wood, copper, gold and other metal fragments found in the soil layer taken out, the tomb robbers can not only judge the exact location of the tomb, but also know the scale of the tomb and the location of the coffin chamber, and then drill the robbery hole directly into the tomb chamber to go.

Now that the location of the mausoleum has been determined, the next step is how to rob it.For those who have been tomb robbers for a long time, this is not difficult.These people have been tomb robbers for a long time, have accumulated rich experience, are good at disguising, and have a set of methods to deal with the anti-theft agencies in the tomb.After they determined the target of the robbery, they naturally rushed to take away the treasures overnight when dealing with small-scale tombs, and disappeared before dawn, making quick and clean decisions.To deal with large-scale burials, a protracted war must be adopted. At this time, the following methods are adopted:

One is to open up wasteland and farm around the tombs, sowing corn, sorghum and other high-stalk crops.After they grow taller, use the green gauze tent as a cover to dig out the tomb. (To be safe, you have to wait for the crops to grow taller, which requires patience.) The second is to build a house next to the tomb to hide the eyes and ears, and then dig a tunnel from the house to lead to the tomb. There is no problem from the outside, and the tomb has been looted.The third is to build a fake tomb next to the ancient tomb. During the construction, tunnels were secretly dug to enter the tomb and steal property.

However, the "most advanced" method of tomb robbery is Luoyang shovel plus directional blasting.The tomb robbers first used a Luoyang shovel to determine the location of the tomb, and then used directional blasting technology to easily rob the tomb.

A Guo State tomb in the Sanmenxia area of ​​​​Henan Province was robbed by this method.It took the tomb robbers 4 months to dig a 2-kilometer tunnel.From a grocery store to the center of the Guo State Tomb.Then, the tomb robbers used directional extrusion blasting to open a 40-meter-deep hole at once, allowing them to directly enter the core of the ancient tomb.

In addition, there is a similar method called "Guanzhong-style tomb robbery", that is, first dig a square hole in the ground, the size can only be operated by one person, and it is also dug vertically.Before liberation, after the tomb robbers confirmed the tomb, they usually chose to dig holes in remote corners, even a few kilometers away from the tomb. They lived in the hole, and the construction period could be as long as half a year. Once successful, the entire tomb would be swept away. And empty.

There is an old saying in the folks, sell what you sell.A tomb robber, to put it a bit exaggerated, is an expert in tomb robbery.They really know what they are working on.

Tomb robbers are very targeted. For example, when entering the tomb, they will dig directly to the position of the coffin, first look for things on the "left shoulder and right foot", and then search in the ear chamber (East warehouse and West warehouse). As for other locations, it depends on the time It depends on the length, and if the time is short, it will be discarded. There are also many "experiences" in "looking at the terrain", such as "Qin Buried Mountains and Han Buried Slopes" and so on.In ancient times, the pits dug by the tomb robbers were "square" pits, and in modern times they were "round" pits. This is the so-called "ancient square near round".

A modern tomb robbery gang generally has three to four members, not less than three, and is unlikely to exceed five.These people have their own division of labor.Some dig the soil, some watch the wind, some are responsible for the use of modern equipment, and some are responsible for selling stolen goods.Some gangs even added a lot of high-tech components to the traditional experience skills, such as ground penetrating radar, metal detectors, gas analyzers, etc., which greatly shortened the previous work time of finding tombs and dating by experience. Tomb robbery caused even greater losses to the country, almost catastrophic.Therefore, tomb robbery is the most brutal damage to human cultural relics.

Grave robbery technology is gradually mature
With the evolution of history, tomb robbery technology has also been greatly developed in the process of tomb robbers, and the tools of tomb robbers are constantly evolving and updating.Tomb robbery tends to be more and more professional, and the formation of tomb robbery teams has made the technology of tomb robbery unprecedentedly developed.

At the beginning and early days of tomb robbery activities, there were no professional tomb robbers.At that time, the excavation of tombs was mostly accidental, so there was no professional tomb-robbing technology.Later, with the popularity of the thick burial system, tomb robbery activities gradually developed, and some professional techniques began to emerge.

Folk tomb robbers are the inventors of these professional technologies, because they have no advantage compared with official robbers, and can only succeed through continuous improvement of technology, while those official robbers backed by a large army do not need much technology You can open the mausoleum and take what you need.Neither the government nor the common people have any binding force on them, so there is no need to shy away from issues such as time.Folk tomb robbers are different. They are in the dominant position of society, have no rights, and are restricted by the emperor, the government and other upper-class society and relevant tomb robbery laws. Therefore, it is necessary to narrow the target and shorten the construction period as much as possible. Backed by technology.In addition, the number of folk tomb robbers is also very limited, generally between a few to a dozen people, and there is not enough labor force. Therefore, certain advanced technologies must be used when robbing tombs.

There are several organizational forms of private tomb robbery organizations, all of which are very particular.

First, "touching gangs", that is, in the long-term tomb robbery activities, according to the specific circumstances of the tomb robbery activities, such as the size and time-consuming, several professional tomb robbers spontaneously combine together to form a temporary gang.Carry out a detailed division of labor and set strict rules for everyone in the gang.With the concerted efforts of the gang members to rob the tomb, and then divide the loot.After a tomb robbery activity is completed, the gang will be disbanded accordingly, which is not stable.

Second, "grouping" is to find some scattered tomb robbers or strong people to form a tomb robbery gang under the leadership of one or two experienced professional tomb robbers.Among them, the professional tomb robber is the leader of the gang, responsible for searching for ancient tombs and leading everyone.After digging up the treasure, the leader will distribute the stolen goods according to the size of each person's contribution.Under normal circumstances, most of the stolen money was taken by the leader, and the others got only a small amount of money equivalent to wages.

Third, "pull gangs", that is, some powerful people, wealthy people and other powerful figures funded, recruited some professional tomb robbers as technical guidance, hired some manual laborers to form a large-scale tomb robbery gang, stole treasures, and distributed them. Take stolen money.Investors get the most income, followed by professional tomb robbers, and manual workers get less stolen money.

In addition, there are some large-scale professional tomb-robbing gangs formed temporarily for large-scale tombs of emperors and generals, ranging from dozens to hundreds of people. This kind of tomb-robbing gang is called "Jian Da Gang"; , They are led by experienced professional tomb robbers, and their subordinates have worked in this gang for a long time, which has strong stability. The members of the gang even have a master-student relationship. This kind of tomb robber gang is called "hard gang".

With the formation and development of professional tomb robbers, tomb robbers have accumulated a lot of experience in finding and detecting tombs.

Many mausoleums in our country have some iconic things on the ground, such as tombstones, sealed trees, and ground buildings.These ground marks become the coordinates for tomb robbers looking for ancient tombs.However, with the rampant activities of tomb robbery, there are fewer and fewer ancient tombs with a large number of ground signs.Later, many emperors and generals no longer set up ground signs in order to prevent theft, and even set up many suspicious graves when they were buried.For example, during Cao Cao's funeral, 72 teams came out from the four city gates at the same time, running in different directions, and there were no seals or trees, which made his mausoleum a historical mystery.There are also some ancient tombs that have been damaged by nature and war due to their age, and no more ground buildings remain.For such tombs, tomb robbers need some professional experience and technology to find them.

Tomb robbers either collect some clues from various historical materials, local documents and other books, or folklore or even songs, and then go to the field to check after they have a target.Some experienced professional tomb robbers have also summed up a set of rules, which is very similar to the process of finding the cause of disease in traditional Chinese medicine, which can be summed up as "look, smell, ask, and cut".This set of rules is mainly used by southern tomb robbers. (About the specific content of "look, smell, ask, and cut", Chapter 5 of this book has already elaborated in detail, so I won't repeat it here.)
Smell the soil, distinguish the taste and know the ancient tomb

Among the tomb robbers in ancient China, the Changsha tomb robbers were second to none. In the process of dealing with the soil for a long time, the "soil masters" used the traditional Chinese medicine "look", "smell", "ask" and "smell" to carry out tomb robbery and eat with their noses. "Tufuzi" was originally a common name for those who sold yellow mud in Changsha for a living, because at that time in Changsha, Hunan, coal was mainly burned, and yellow mud was put into the coal to increase the fire resistance delay. Therefore, there is a great demand for yellow mud, so a profession was born that sells yellow mud by dragging carts for a living—Tufuzi, mostly male and strong laborers, and most of the land acquisition sites are near the edge of the city. .

(End of this chapter)