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

Chapter 22 Hands and eyes open to the sky, tricks of ghosts and ghosts: Grave robber techniques (2)
Tu Fuzi came from a poor and humble background, without education.But he can also be the champion.The top grade of yellow mud - "glutinous rice mud" is the backfill soil (soil dug out when placing the coffin and then filled into the pit) in the tombs of the Tang and Song Dynasties in Changsha.For this reason, many "Tufuzi" went to the site of the tomb to dig up yellow soil.At first, I accidentally dug up some funerary objects from Tang and Song tombs and sold them to antique dealers for a few liters of rice and a few small coins.But occasionally there are some antiques that fetch a good price.The Tufuzi saw that it was profitable, so they made a career of digging ancient tombs.Gradually, he stopped selling yellow mud and simply robbed tombs for a living.

The soil masters have been digging yellow mud for many years, and gradually become experts in the soil layer. They can draw a conclusion after a little analysis of whether there is a tomb or not. "Tufuzi" identifies ancient tombs based on the color, rammed layer, and moisture content of the ancient tomb sealing soil (soil for piling up the tomb) and the backfill soil of the tomb.That is to say, "one look, two digs".

When building tombs in ancient times, special attention was paid to the sealing soil.As mentioned above, during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the soil was mostly blue paste mud; Tang and Song tombs were mostly "glutinous rice mud"; Ming and Qing tombs mostly used glutinous rice sweat mixed with lime.Due to the different properties of the soil used, not only the color is easy to distinguish, but also the soil smell emitted by it is easy to identify.In addition, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, people were superstitious about the antiseptic effect of mercury, pearl sand, and jade. If they were used in large quantities in tombs, they would also affect the soil quality and emit a special smell. Experienced tomb robbers would know it immediately.In fact, the place where the bones are buried will have a different smell. After the bones and coffins rot, the soil will also be polluted. Even ordinary people can distinguish that smell.

Mr. Shang Chengzuo's "Changsha Excavation Notes": "Before liberation, Changsha tomb robbery was very popular." The ancient tombs in Changsha "were excavated by Tu Fuzi, and the damage cannot be counted."According to investigations, some Warring States tombs were "stolen six times before and after" and "the damage was so severe that it is really heinous." There is also a relatively close relationship between merchants.These "Tufuzi" made some small fortunes in Changsha by virtue of their "skills", but at the same time they caused damage and loss of cultural relics.The famous Changsha Bullet Bank Chu silk script was unearthed in 1942 by Changsha "Tufuzi", and was later deceived by the American Kirkus, and it is still living in the United States. (now in the collection of Asian Art Museum, USA)

In September 1942, a group of local masters robbed a tomb of Chu in the middle and late Warring States period in a place called bullet warehouse in the eastern suburb of old Changsha City. In May 9, the Hunan Provincial Museum carried out a second remedial excavation of the tomb, which was carried out according to the description of "Tufuzi" at that time.The archaeological report afterwards stated that this tomb of the Warring States Period was a tomb with two coffins in one coffin and was not large in scale, and the tomb was sealed with blue-gray plaster.

The owner of the tomb is a male about 40 years old. The stolen relics include pottery such as tripod, Dun, and pot, bamboo and wood lacquerware, silk and linen fabrics, jade walls, silk books, and silk paintings.Since there were no bronze vessels in the funerary objects, it shows that the tomb owner's status was not high at that time.But the accompanying silk books and silk paintings are quite precious.The silk paintings are hidden in the interlayer between the coffin cover and the partition below. The "Tufuzi" at that time was not found, but was obtained by the official secondary archaeology.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in view of the superb skills of these "Tufuzi", the Cultural Management Committee at that time hired some outstanding people as excavators.Their "earth" method has brought great convenience to the archaeological excavation work.Known as "earth experts".Observing soil samples to judge the depth and age of ancient tombs is one of the specialties of "Tufuzi".Especially in the scientific excavation of the Han tombs in Changsha, they guided the way and saved a lot of inconvenience, because these Han tombs were out of ten and nine were empty, and many of them were done by them.This time it is considered to have made up for it.It is said that when the Mawangdui Han tomb was excavated, the thousand-year-old female corpse was difficult to remove from the coffin. The "Tufuzi" came up with the idea to insert five wooden boards obliquely, lift the coffin sideways, and carefully remove the female corpse, so it was preserved.

Geomancy and Feng Shui become the basis

In ancient my country, Fengshui was very particular. The ancients believed that there would be a kind of "Qi" in the tombs buried on the land of Fengshui. Most of the tombs with auspicious clouds appeared in the tombs of emperors, and the above Qi was called "Wang Qi".If you "look" carefully, you will find something.

There is a story about "Dai Xi" in "Yi Yuan". Dai Xi's ancestral tomb was buried in a geomantic treasure.The "wangqi" here means this, and it provides the possibility for the "hope" when robbing the tomb.

Because people in different periods have different pursuits and preferences for burial places, we can also find out the trick of "looking" from the perspective of ancient Chinese burial laws.Behind the tomb is the Xuanwu Mountain, which is the best geomantic omen in the eyes of the ancients.For example, people in the Qin Dynasty often chose the land of Gaoling as their tomb. Han Xin, one of the founding heroes of the Western Han Dynasty and a native of Huaiyin, Jiangsu, did this when he buried his mother.According to the "Han Shu Han Xin Biography" (Volume 34), Han Xin was "poor and unable to do anything, so he could not choose to be an official, and he could not manage his life as a merchant, so he often sent food from others. His mother died without a burial, but went to camp. High-dry land." The "high-dry land" here refers to relatively high mountainous land, that is, places that are not low-lying and waterlogged.People in the Han Dynasty liked to build their tombs on the southern slope of the mountain facing the sun. "Qin buried mountains and Han buried slopes" comes from this.During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, many tombs were built on the ground, and exquisite brick tombs were built; the Tang people set up the mausoleum halfway up the mountain, and even hollowed out the entire mountain. become.

The selection of tombs should be spacious and have "earth atmosphere"; the requirements for royal tomb sites are more stringent, and there must be Zushan, Chaoshan, and Anshan, which must have the potential of "Zuofu" and "Youbi". burial.Except for the mausoleums of the Song Dynasty, which were chosen in the shade, generally the tombs of the Chaoyin were chosen.

The imperial tombs of the Northern Song Dynasty are located in the present-day Gongyi City, Henan Province, mostly in the northwest of the mountains, with shade.According to the "New Book of Geography" compiled by Song Renzong, Zhao Zhenshi, Wang Zhu and others, the surname Zhao of the country is best in terms of yin and yang geography. For the land of the corner...the south is high and the north is going down to the land for it, and the surname of the corner can also live in it."

Therefore, experienced tomb robbers can easily find the location of ancient tombs from the "feng shui" phenomenon worshiped by the ancients and the preferences of people in various dynasties.It seems that the ancient Chinese geomancy theory, the so-called Feng Shui, has become a "guidance of tomb robbery theory" in the eyes of tomb robbers.

During the period of the Republic of China, there was a Mr. Cai in Changsha. He was very good at Fengshui. If he went out to choose a spot, he would follow the crowd.Once he went to visit relatives in Ningxiang County. When he came to a place with a very beautiful scenery, he pointed to a paddy field and said to his fellow travelers that there must be a big tomb under this field.The companions were half-believing that Mr. Cai might want to show his hand in front of the boys, so he made a bet: if he finds out that there are no ancient tombs and treasures, he will lose [-] U.S. dollars;

The people gambled heavily, so they secretly asked dozens of villagers to dig at night. In the middle of the night, they dug out a large brick tomb. The walls of the tomb were painted with pictures of the deceased's life. Hundreds of gold cakes, inkstones, bamboo tubes, etc.

Divination can also be

Like geomancy and geomancy, "divination" is also one of the far-reaching alchemy techniques in ancient China.

"Zhan" means to observe, and "Divination" means to burn the shell of a tortoise, and it is believed that the shape of the cracks can predict good or bad luck.It judges unknown things or predicts the future by studying the incomplete basis obtained by observing various signs.In many societies, divination is simply a behavior in which the operator seeks information or answers with the help of certain instruments or phenomena due to uncertainty when he is about to do something, thereby satisfying psychological needs.The material materials needed for divination are divided into two categories, one is the carrier used to display divination and engraved words, namely tortoise shells, animal bones, etc. Carving knife and so on.Divination is practiced in cultures of all ages around the world and in a variety of ways.Early divination was closely related to religion, and its development was influenced by cosmology and national psychology.Common divination methods include inquiry divination (such as Chinese folk divination), chicken divination, bird divination, bird divination, water divination, astrology divination, card divination, etc.

Tomb robbers often have to try their luck, so the tomb robbers thought of divination and asking divination.Zhu Mou, the protagonist in the story of "Excavating Tombs" in Yuan Mei's "Zi Bu Yu" (Vol. [-]), made his fortune by divination and robbing tombs: "Hangzhou Zhu started his business with a hair mound and gathered six or seven disciples. , Every dark night, I would go out with a hoe. I thought that the excavated old man had too many bones and little gold and silver, so I set up a phantom plate to predict its hiding place."

In fact, "divination" and "feng shui" have always been compared in the past.The ancient Feng Shui master called "Bu Ze" when choosing the tomb. The "Burying Sutra" states, "The burial is hidden, and those who want others can't see it." There is also the saying "divide the tomb of his house, and put it in peace".This method of "acupuncture" combining divination and feng shui has been used by royal families throughout the dynasties. "Sui Shu" (Volume 78) has such a text, "And offer the empress to die, and Shangling Jibu chooses a burial place."

In Chapter 3 of this book, we have learned that the author of "Funeral Sutra" was Guo Pu in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.He himself is an expert who is not only good at Feng Shui, but also knows about divination and geomancy.

"Book of Jin Guo Pu Biography" (Volume 72) records that after Guo Pu's mother passed away, she was "buried in Jiyang". This place is close to the water, but only a hundred steps away.At that time, people saw it and said it was too close to the water.Guo Pu replied, "It will be land immediately." Sure enough, not long after, this place was silted up by the silt brought by the river to form a beach, and the radius of Guo's mother's tomb was turned into mulberry fields.

Guo Pu once showed Zhang Yu, the prefect of Song Kuaiji in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the ancestral tomb. "Southern History · Zhang Yu Biography" (Volume 31) records that Guo Pu saw two places at that time, one was "over a hundred years old, and he was in the third division, but his descendants were not foreign", and the other was "half the age , the position of cutting officials and schools, and the nobles for many generations."The ancestors chose the latter, and Zhang Yu became a high official because of the good geomantic omen in his ancestral tomb.From the records of Guo Pu's selection of geomantic treasures, it can be seen that divination was used to rob tombs, which is quite reasonable in the eyes of the ancients.

Listen to the wind and rain to know the tomb

As mentioned earlier, there are tomb robbers who have used traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment methods flexibly and transformed them into tomb robbers.There are many subjective factors in this stunt, which is completely different from the resignation of "divination and tomb robbery". Tomb robbers rely on intuition, or experience.

In the history of tomb robbing, there are many people who have succeeded in robbing tombs with superhuman intuition and rich experience.

A cave dug by tomb robbers.Tomb robbers can always find hidden mysterious tombs with their rich experience.

Xu Ke, a native of the Qing Dynasty, recorded in his compilation of various anecdotes, notes, and rumors of the Qing Dynasty "Qing Barnyard Banknotes" that a Guangzhou tomb robber named Jiao Si miraculously judged the cemetery skills.Jiao Si's way of robbing the tomb can be used as a wonderful practice of this "listening". Its exquisite technique and magical tricks are amazing.

Jiao Si gathered dozens of accomplices to rob ancient tombs everywhere. The reason why they were so successful in robbing tombs was because Jiao Si had a unique skill. He could judge tombs by listening to the rain, the wind, the thunder, the color of grass, and the traces of mud. where.One day, Jiao Si and other tomb robbers went to the suburbs to search for tombs.It was noon, but the sky was thundering and lightning.Jiao Si hurriedly dispersed his subordinates to observe the thunderstorm and lightning in different directions, remember the characteristics, and report back to him.Jiao Si stood watching from a high place. After a while, the rain stopped, and a man came back and reported that when the thunder struck, he felt that his feet were floating, and there was an echo in the ground.Jiao Si said excitedly: "There is an ancient tomb there." The tomb robbers rushed over to dig, and there was a large tomb underneath.

(End of this chapter)