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

Chapter 50 Resurrection, reheating: major tomb robbery incidents since the new era (2)
Afterwards, the cunning criminals did not rob the tomb immediately, but concealed the entrance of the cave, and then disappeared into the vast night.The next night, they came to the scene and dug the hole, but were disappointed to find that the explosion did not reach the expected depth. After discussion, they decided to continue the explosion on the tomb of Queen Ai.

A few days later, Zhang Shaoxia and others came to the tomb of Empress Ai again and blasted the pothole for the second time.

The tomb passage was severely damaged and the tomb pit was exposed.Zhang Shaoxia and others gathered Huang Jiangang, Yang Qingbin and others to help with the excavation. At about 4 o'clock in the morning on the [-]th, Zhang Shaoxia suddenly let out a crazy low roar in the silent night: "I got it! I got it!" All the tomb robbers gathered around to watch, and a clear blue color shone in the night, although Zhang Shaoxia didn't know What a treasure it was, but he stuffed it into his arms right away.

Seeing this, the other tomb robbers also began to lie on the ground and frantically paw and pull, and finally unearthed big treasures that made their hearts unbearable, such as painted pottery figurines, porcelain pots, porcelain jars, etc., and they hurriedly removed the tomb of Queen Ai. As many as 60 pieces of national treasures were packed in woven bags that they carried with them, and they fled the scene in a hurry.

On the morning of February 1998, 2, when the amateur protector of Gongling Mausoleum was inspecting, he found traces of white ash on the south side of the tomb of Empress Ai. .

The protector felt that it was a big deal, and quickly reported the situation to the Yanshi Cultural Management Committee.Fan Yousheng, Director of the Cultural Affairs Commission Office, and Guo Yinqiang, Deputy Director of the Luoyang Cultural Relics Bureau, who was inspecting in Yanshi, went to the scene to learn about the theft of cultural relics and reported the case to the Yanshi Public Security Bureau.Comrade Li Tieying, who was the State Councilor at the time, learned of the theft of the Gongling Mausoleum, and made important instructions on the materials reflecting the circumstances of the case, requiring Henan to solve the case as soon as possible, recover the cultural relics, and restore the impact.

You know, the tomb of Empress Ai was almost ransacked at this time, and only some remaining pottery figurines and fragments of Tang Sancai remained in the tomb.

On February 2, after inspecting the scene, the Luoyang police immediately decided to control customs exits and investigate quickly, focusing on those who had a history of smuggling cultural relics and suddenly became rich in the surrounding areas, and carried out blanket investigations.

It's a race against time, and apparently the criminals are faster.

On the fifth day of the investigation, the investigation of the villages and towns near the tomb of Empress Ai was basically completed, and there were still no clues.But at about 7:[-] that night, the phone in the office of the Yanshi Criminal Police Brigade suddenly rang. , please immediately arrange police support!"

At 2:19 pm on February 7, during an investigation, someone revealed to Li Quan'an that in a township in Luoyang City, two brothers became rich overnight.A person who suddenly becomes rich, no matter how he hides it, it is still difficult to calm down the convulsive joy on his face, and it is difficult to restrain the desire to show it to others.

In less than half an hour, Li Quan'an had arrived at the insider's home. During the conversation, the police obtained important clues to solve the "2" major case. The "informant" revealed that brothers Liu Jianghai and Liu Kejun from Tangquan Village, Shanhua Township, Luoyang City had asked insiders about the market for cultural relics before and after the Spring Festival.During this period of time, they were arrogant and generous, and their spending was obviously abnormal.

Upon learning of this important clue, Li Quanan immediately reported to the headquarters, and the leader in command immediately instructed Li Quanan to lead two scouts into Tangquan Village to secretly verify the clues and conduct on-the-spot investigations.In the end, Liu Jianghai was arrested and brought to justice, which became the key to solving this shocking tomb robbery case.

According to Liu Jianghai's account: On the day of the tomb robbery, Zhang Shaoxia and others sorted and packed 64 national treasures, including blue glazed lamps, into boxes.After everything was ready, Zhang Shaoxia transferred and hid the cultural relics, and then contacted the sale of cultural relics.Among the ancient porcelains unearthed by them, there is a porcelain lamp with a round tray on the top and bottom, which looks like a lamp holder, and the porcelain lamp is blue all over.After Zhang Shaoxia dug out this piece of porcelain, he put it in his arms, and often took it out to play with when he was free.

The police immediately contacted experts, who analyzed that the stolen tomb of Empress Ai belonged to the tomb of the Tang Dynasty. The blue cultural relic Zhang Shaoxia loved so much was likely to be a burial lamp holder. If the whole body was blue, it was likely to be an extremely rare blue-glazed artifact , quite precious.Zhang Shaoxia's favorite blue ceramics are probably the blue glazed lamps that are only recorded but never real.The cobalt, the coloring agent for firing this blue-colored utensil, is likely to be a decorative material introduced to the Tang Dynasty through the Silk Road.Not only that, the firing and coloring of blue-glazed utensils are also extremely difficult, which has extremely high artistic value.If the blue-glazed lamp in Zhang Shaoxia's hand is indeed as analyzed by experts, it will be the first all-body blue-glazed utensil discovered in the country.

Based on Liu Jianghai's clue, the police successively designed and arrested major suspects such as Zhang Shaoxia Xu Erxing, and arrested A Ran, whose real name is Chen Zhengxian, a veteran reselling cultural relics many times.

After several hours of interrogation, Chen Zhengxian confessed that through his contact with "Old Yu", the cultural relics had been resold to Beijing, and the blue glazed lamp was also quickly sold, with a total of 36.6 Hong Kong dollars in stolen money.

In this way, the whereabouts of the national treasure blue glaze lamp and many cultural relics are basically clear.

According to the analysis of the police, since Chen Zhengxian received Hong Kong dollars, the blue glaze lamp and many cultural relics are likely to have left the country.The special case team rushed to Beijing immediately and asked the Ministry of Public Security to assist in finding clues and recovering the national treasure!
On February 2, the leaders of the Luoyang Municipal Public Security Bureau went to Beijing to report the case, and asked the Ministry of Public Security to coordinate with relevant units to arrest "Old Yu". On the morning of the 26th, with the great assistance of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, it was found out that "Old Yu" was originally named Yu Runming and his mobile phone was registered in Tianjin.

The arrest team acted immediately and rushed to Tianjin to arrest Runming and bring him to justice.Yu Runming explained that he bought the batch of cultural relics in a certain hotel in Beijing. Most of the cultural relics were sold to cultural relic dealers in Beijing and Tianjin. Only the national treasure blue glaze lamp and some more valuable cultural relics were sold to Zhai in Hong Kong. .

Subsequently, after consulting the Ministry of Public Security and mobilizing Interpol, after seven days of arrests, 7 stolen cultural relics were recovered from Beijing and Tianjin, and several suspects were arrested.The news quickly reached the ears of Zhai, who was far away in Hong Kong.Zhai knew that the case was serious and not comparable to ordinary cultural relics, so he sent people to move around, even across oceans, trying to recover the sold cultural relics at high prices.Finally, Zhai entrusted an intermediary to return the cultural relics purchased one by one, and sent a special plane to send the national treasure blue glazed lamp to Beijing.

After the national treasure was recovered, many cultural relic experts were invited to the scene to identify it. Looking at the exquisite and many never-before-seen cultural relics, the experts couldn't help exclaiming: National treasure!All are rare national treasures!This batch of cultural relics represents the highest level of ceramic art in the early Tang Dynasty in China!
The value of these cultural relics has actually declared the end of the 11 suspects. On October 1998, 10, in front of Gongling Mausoleum, 1 tomb robbers were executed on the spot.

Among the 61 recovered cultural relics, there are 19 national first-class cultural relics, 30 national second-class cultural relics, and 12 national third-class cultural relics. Institutions, costumes, and precious materials of sculpture, firing, glazing, and painting techniques have high historical and artistic value.But these cultural relics are only a drop in the bucket compared with the burial objects of Tang Gongling's tomb.

The value of this batch of stolen cultural relics, among them, only one "horseman" colorful figurine is worth more than 1000 million yuan on the black market.When the stolen cultural relics were appraised by experts in Beijing, the experts had never seen such beautiful and precious cultural relics before. They were amazed and shouted "all 61 cultural relics are national treasures".

The thousand-year-old corpse was poisoned

In our country, there are many museums that collect ancient cultural relics.Most of the cultural relics in these museums come from formal channels, such as donations from folks, archaeological excavations, etc.However, there are also some cultural relics with unusual origins, which were discovered because of tomb robbers.The "Warring States Ancient Corpse" collected in the Jingmen Museum was discovered because of a world-shocking "China's No. [-] Ancient Corpse Case".

Sifang Township, Jingmen City is located in the west of Jianghan Plain, and its southern end is adjacent to Jinan City, the ancient capital of Chu State.Because the local area is located in the south of the Yangtze River, with developed transportation and suitable climate, it has been a prosperous place for my country's economy and agriculture since ancient times.With the prosperity of the economy, those rich princes, generals and dignitaries will also be buried with many funeral objects after their death.That's why the area has many ancient tombs and treasures.On this 108 square kilometers of land, there are more than 300 Chu tombs, including the tall tombs of the Chuzhuang king and concubine tombs, and it is impossible to count the unsealed and piled flat tombs.

Jishan ancient tombs have experienced the vicissitudes of life and the tragic replacement of historical dynasties one after another.It remained largely intact until the early 20s.Although there have been tomb robbers in all dynasties who coveted the treasures in it, and there were also unworthy descendants who "made small troubles", but none of them formed a "climate".According to historical records, when the Qin army attacked Jinan City and failed to break it, the Qin army vented their anger and "burned Yiling". They once burned some trees and superficial buildings in the cemetery of the royal family of Chu, but did not excavate the tomb.

However, in the 20s, some villagers in Sifang Township became restless as the "God of Wealth" (relic dealer) carried bundles of banknotes in boxes to lobby and lure the countryside. "I want to get water (to make money), find dead ghosts (to dig ancient tombs)"; Whip up here!
The robbery of "Guojiagang Tomb No. [-]" was a tomb robbery event involving many people, and it was carried out by several groups of people.

The "Guojiagang No. 1994" ancient tomb was stolen in the first month of [-]. There was a lot of spring rain in that year, and it fell continuously for nearly half a month.This morning, Li Taibiao, a cultural security officer of Guodian Village, Sifang Township, Jingmen City, Hubei Province, drove several miles with muddy legs to report to the Sifang Police Station, claiming that there was a huge ancient tomb in Guodian Village (later designated as "Guojiagang No. [-] Ancient Tomb") was stolen.When Wang Hailin, director of the Sifang Police Station, heard that the ancient tomb had been dug up, he thought of the rampant theft of cultural relics recently. He immediately invited township officials and policeman Dai Qingtang to go straight to the scene of the tomb robbery.

The "Guojiagang No. 207" ancient tomb is located in a rapeseed field about four kilometers south of Sifangpu and one kilometer west of National Highway 1. In the middle of a piece of golden rapeseed, a large hole with a diameter of more than [-] meter was dug artificially.The cave is dark and daunting, and the excavated streaky clay is scattered around the entrance of the cave, covering more than one cent of the ground.In the newly dug up grave soil, there are some fragments of black lacquered coffins dug out from the tomb.

Cultural security officer Li Taibiao, police officer Dai Qingtang, and director Wang Hailin were successively suspended by ropes into the tomb for investigation.When they checked the mausoleum with flashlights, they were all shocked by the sight in front of them.A large hole with a diameter of more than two meters was dug out of the middle of the five-meter-high tomb, which is enough for three or four people to move at the same time.Both the head chamber and the side chambers of the tomb have been destroyed by tomb robbers.The coffin placed in the main room was dug a hole less than one meter by an ax and other sharp tools.There was no body in the coffin, nor a complete funeral object, only broken pottery and clothes fragments were found.There was deep water in the tomb. They fumbled in the water for a long time, trying to find some clues, but they couldn't find anything except a few pieces of clothes.Tomb Raider really did a clean job.

Since ancient tombs are often stolen in this area, the director Wang Hailin has acquired a lot of knowledge about tombs in the process of solving cases for many years.According to the specifications of the tomb on site, he judged that this tomb should be a very luxurious tomb, and many funerary objects inside must have been stolen.

While the police seized the time to solve the case, many people were busy secretly.While trying their best to sell the stolen treasures, they covered up the crime of tomb robbery.The number of people participating in this tomb robbery is very large and complex, and the process of tomb robbery is also very complicated.The first to discover this tomb was Hou Chuanzhou, leader of the sixth group of Guodian Village, and Feng Wei, a villager of the ninth group of Zhuanqiao Village.

These two people are very good at robbing tombs, and they often rob some ancient tombs in the local area, but they have never encountered any large tombs. In February, the two of them met again to go out to search for ancient tombs. After some serious exploration, they finally discovered a large ancient tomb located in the rapeseed field between Ren Dazhongzi and Guo Dazhongzi.Both of them were very excited about the discovery of this large tomb.That night, they invited a group of people to come and steal the excavation.But before they dug to a depth of one meter, they were chased away by Guo Xiaoping and several villagers in his group.The next day, curious villagers rushed to the scene to watch the fun, and Guo Xiaoping and others began to plan to rob and dig the tomb.

On the night of February 2, Guo Xiaoping and Li Hua, a villager in his group, invited six other people to quietly go to the rapeseed field to dig graves.When they dug to a depth of more than one meter, Li Lixin, a young man in this group, came with several other villagers, vying to dig.The two parties quarreled on the spot, and finally broke up with "no one can dig".

On the evening of February 2, the township party representative and village leader Suo Zucai, his younger brother Suo Zugui, villagers Li Lixin, Yi Shiwu, He Zhongyuan, Liao Qifa, and Yi Shixiong and other criminal gangs braved heavy snow to kill The "Guojiagang No. 23" tomb was excavated. At dawn, the outer coffin was pried open, the head compartment of the tomb chamber was opened, and 9 precious cultural relics including tomb-suppressing beasts, bronze tripods, and lacquered wooden cups were stolen.Decided to sell these funerary objects as soon as possible, and finally only sold more than 205 yuan.

After Guo Xiaoping failed in the first tomb robbery, he never took his eyes off the tomb.However, seeing so many people going to rob the tomb the next night, and with the backing of powerful village leaders, they didn't dare to go. In the middle of the night of February 2, Guo Xiaoping couldn't wait to invite four villagers including Pang Qinglong, Liu Heqing, Guo Yongcheng, and Yang Lianfa to drill into the tomb again.This time, without any effort, they enjoyed the results of the previous batch of tomb robbers.Seeing that the front compartment of the tomb had been stolen, they went straight into the side compartment of the tomb, and stole a pair of wooden barrels, a leather drum, a copper bird, three ancient thurs, a spear, two A copper mound.These cultural relics were bought by a cultural relics dealer contacted by Guo Xiaoping, who received a total of 24 yuan.When these tomb robbers left, they filled a lot of soil in order to cover up their tomb robbery crimes.

After these two tomb robberies, the story of the ancient tomb being stolen quickly spread quietly in the local area.Many people have fixed their eyes on this ancient tomb, waiting for the opportunity to steal again.

On the night of February 2, it rained heavily.Villager Guo Yongchang invited Chen Bihua, Guo Yongcheng, Guo Yongquan, Liu Xingming, and Li Yihai, a veteran tomb robber from Zhuanqiao Village, to bring shovels, axes, mud sticks, ropes and other crime tools to the "No. 27" tomb again to "resuscitate" ( re-loot).It was not until 4 o'clock in the morning of the next day that the soil in the backfilled hole was exhausted.Several of them went down to the tomb to salvage in turn. They only found a wooden barrel about 40 centimeters long from the outer coffin, but they never found anything of value.They were very angry when they saw that there was no harvest, so they decided to open the coffin to get the funerary objects inside.Under a flurry of axes, the inner and outer coffins, which had already been opened, were dug a big hole for people to enter and exit not long after.The few people rushing to the front hurriedly took flashlights to shine inside, and after seeing the scene inside the coffin, they all backed away in fright.It turned out that there was a complete female corpse lying in the coffin.They were terrified and withdrew their hands one after another.The daring Li Yihai saw that there was a hairpin on the corpse's head, and the hair was still intact.So, while saying that this lock of hair might be sold for a high price, he ruthlessly tore off the thousand-year-old lock of hair.At this time, someone among them suddenly reminded, "If you destroy the ancient corpse, you will be beheaded!" A group of thieves including Li Yihai hastily covered the coffin with straw, threw some soil into the hole, and fled the scene in a hurry.

However, Li Yihai who returned home was very unwilling.He felt that it was not worthwhile to spend so much effort to get only a handful of hair, so he thought about robbing the tomb again.In view of the lesson that others were afraid of in the tomb robbery last time, he found Guo Xiaoping, who was as experienced as himself, in an attempt to form a strong alliance. On the afternoon of March 3, tomb robber Li Yihai came to Guo Xiaoping's home.Guo Xiaoping said: "I heard that there is still a corpse in the big tomb in the rapeseed field. I don't know if there are other valuable things." If it doesn't die, there must be some treasure in the dead ghost's mouth." Li Yihai's eyes lit up, and he speculated mysteriously.Guo Xiaoping felt that his words made sense, and because he was a greedy person, he immediately agreed to Li Yihai's request to steal again.

(End of this chapter)