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

Chapter 60 Murder Intent Hidden in the Darkness——Anti-Tomb Raider Technology (5)
After the death of Qin Shihuang, Qin II not only ordered countless women to be buried on the grounds that it was inappropriate for barren women to go out of the palace, but also ordered all the craftsmen who built Qin Shihuang's mausoleum to be buried. When the weight is heavy, it is vented. After the big event is over, it has been reduced, and the Zhongxian is closed, and the gate of the outer Xian is closed, and the craftsmen are all closed, and there is no return."The reason why Qin II ordered all craftsmen to be buried was that the craftsmen who were familiar with the internal structure of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum would leak the secrets about Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum, so they simply killed them all, leaving no one alive.

The underground palace in the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang recorded in the literature is large in scale and has many organs. It "passes through three springs and is extremely deep." Where is Qin Shihuang's hiding place within the scope of the Qin Dynasty?With such a painstaking design, even Xiang Yu, who burned Xianyang for several days, could not open the gate of the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum.However, once the craftsmen who are familiar with the internal layout of the cemetery, and even the layout of the underground palace, leak the secrets about the cemetery, can the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang remain intact after more than 18 years?Qin Er Shi felt the threat of the craftsmen who repaired the tomb, so he ordered all the craftsmen to be buried.

Legend has it that after the death of Qin Shihuang, Qin II sent someone to secretly transport the coffin of Qin Shihuang into the tomb, and then asked the builders to come to the tomb to receive the reward.As soon as those craftsmen, conscripts, and criminals entered the tomb, Qin II ordered the closure of Xianmen and Waixianmen, trapping all the craftsmen in the tomb, and no one was spared.

After the death of Emperor Yuan Xianzong of the Yuan Dynasty, in order to prevent the secrets of the tomb from leaking out, not only a secret burial was carried out, but also a bloody massacre was carried out.In 1259 AD, Emperor Xianzong of the Yuan Dynasty died in Hezhou (now Hechuan County, Sichuan). The ministers carried the body of Emperor Xianzong on a donkey and transported it to the cemetery of Genghis Khan.In order to keep the secret, the guards killed everyone they saw, and as many as two people were killed along the way. The atrocities were heinous.This is the same purpose as the massacre of servants, both to prevent grave robbers.

It is said that when Empress Dowager Cixi was buried, the minister in charge selected 81 craftsmen to be responsible for closing the tomb passage, and told the masons to go out from another pre-dug tunnel after finishing the work.The craftsmen knew in their hearts that this was to kill them.Among them was a stonemason whose wife had just given birth to a son for him and did not want to die.He deliberately lost his mind while working, slipped on his feet, and the stone hit him, and he passed out on the spot.The overseer thought that the stonemason was really dead, so he had his body thrown into a pile of corpses on the barren hillside.In this way, the mason recovered his life.

However, do all sacrificial burials ensure safe burials?In fact, it is not the case. The story recorded in "Zi Zhi Tong Jian" about the death of King Qi Xianwu of Qi State during the Southern Dynasties killed all the craftsmen who repaired the tomb and participated in the burial. "Jiashen falsely buried King Xianwu of Qi in the west of the Zhangshui River; he submergedly dug a hole next to the Buddha's top in the Angushan Grotto, took his coffin and stuffed it, and killed his group of craftsmen. As for Qi's death, the son of a craftsman knew it. He sent stones and took the gold and fled.” After the burial, King Xianwu of Qi killed all the craftsmen, but he didn’t want the sons of the craftsmen to know where the tomb was.A series of anti-theft measures such as the false burial of King Xianwu of Qi and the martyrdom of artisans were in vain, and the tomb was eventually robbed.

anti-theft non-toxic

The ancients used a variety of means to counter tomb robbery. Tombs such as virtual tombs, cliff tombs, quicksand tombs, and fire pit tombs have relatively high chances of success. However, there are also problems, that is, the design is too complicated, and it is difficult for ordinary people to do it.But there is a relatively simple method-putting poisonous substances in the tomb to form a poisonous tomb; or coating special substances on the corpse to create corpse poison.Tomb robbers who rashly enter this kind of poisonous tomb will be poisoned and die, and the light ones will also become useless people and suffer the so-called retribution.

In ancient books, there are many records of "poison tomb".When Liu, the king of Guangchuan of the Han Dynasty, went to excavate the tomb of King Wei Xiang, an ancient tomb of the Warring States Period, he found that the tomb was irrigated with iron juice, and after opening it, he also found a surprising discovery. A poisonous gas was emitted from it: "Yellow gas is like mist, touching people's noses." The eyes are exhausted and cannot be entered. Guard them with soldiers, and they will rest for seven days." The gas coming out of the tomb is yellow, and the smell is hard, irritating to the eyes and noses, making it impossible to enter. Liu Qu sent people to wait outside for seven days. The gas just dissipated.It is certain that these gases are not simply carbon dioxide and other gases accumulated in the tomb for many years, but poisonous gases.

"Youyang Miscellaneous Zu · Corpse" records: "There is Qijing Cemetery in the northeast of Beiqiu County. In modern times, someone opened it, and it went down three feet. A goose was found in the stone box. The goose turned its wings to move the stone. Then it went down one foot. , there will be green air rising up, looking at it like pottery smoke, birds passing by and falling to death, so they dare not enter." The gas from the tomb actually poisoned all the birds flying in the sky. It can be seen that the tomb is poisonous. so powerful.The tomb robbers were terrified and never dared to enter the ancient tomb again.

Wang Chong's "Lunheng Death and Counterfeit Chapter" (Volume 21) "After the death of Emperor Fu of the Yuan Dynasty and the burial of Yuan Emperor Fu, his coffin was distributed, and the seal of the jade guard was sent to Dingtao for burial by the people. When the coffin was issued, the stench was in the sky. Cheng came to the coffin and died after smelling the stench." The officials who went to inspect the coffin were actually smothered to death by the stench coming out of the coffin, which shows that the smell is not stinky, but poisonous.Wang Chong speculates in the book the source of the "poisonous gas": "It smells in the sky, hides a lot of food, and rotten hair, people can't bear the anger of poison, but it's not a strange thing."

The special "poison" often used by ancient people is mercury.Mercury is a kind of liquid metal. It has many aliases in ancient China: lead essence, girl, mercury, flow beads, red mercury, sand mercury, spirit liquid, and living treasure. From these rich names, we can know that mercury is in position in the minds of the ancients.

Mercury has a wide range of uses, and it was also commonly used as a corpse embalming agent by the ancients.In the mausoleums of Qin, Han and before, there are many records of the use of mercury, and there is a "mercury pool" in the Qihuan cemetery.The poisonous gas formed by the evaporation of mercury caused a lot of trouble for the tomb robbers.

There is a record in "Kuo Di Zhi" quoted in "Historical Records of Justice": "Qi Huan's tomb is on Niu Mountain, 21 miles south of Linzi County, also known as Dingzu Mountain. It is named Niu Shougang and has two graves. , People made it, the first time I got the plate, the second time I got the pool of mercury, and I couldn’t enter it if I was angry. After several days, I led the dog into the middle, and I got dozens of golden silkworm foils, pearl jackets, jade boxes, Zengcai, and countless military weapons. The tomb of Duke Huan of Qi, the head of the Five Hegemons in the Spring and Autumn Period, was stolen in the last years of the Western Jin Dynasty. At this time, it has been nearly 900 years since Duke Huan of Qi died. There is still a heavy poisonous gas in the tomb, so that people cannot Entering, the tomb robbers had to wait outside the tomb for a few days, and then lead the way with their dogs before entering Qihuan Cemetery.The tomb poison in the Qihuan cemetery is the mercury pool.

Why is mercury often used as tomb poison in tombs?Since the poison was placed before the tomb was sealed, the safety of the construction craftsmen must be guaranteed, that is to say, the tomb builders will not be poisoned, but the tomb robbers will be poisoned.So, how can the poison in the tomb accurately "identify" the tomb repairers and tomb robbers who are also in the tomb?There is only one way, that is, the tomb poison was not poisonous when it was placed, or the poison did little harm to the human body at that time, and in the closed state for many years in the future, the toxin gradually volatilized and formed a deadly poison. The grave robbers who entered later.What kind of substance is highly toxic and highly volatile?Of course mercury is the first choice.To build a mercury pool is to use the volatile gas of mercury to poison the tomb robbers who tried to steal the burial objects in the tomb.

Mercury, whose chemical name is mercury, has a high density and is easy to evaporate. It is a toxic silver-white monovalent and divalent heavy metal element. It is the only liquid metal at room temperature. It exists freely in nature and exists in cinnabar, calomel and other in several mines.Mercury is often prepared by roasting cinnabar and condensing mercury vapor.Mercury is easily absorbed through the skin, as well as the respiratory and digestive tracts, and is a bioaccumulative poison that can cause brain and liver damage when ingested, inhaled, or contacted.The toxicity of pure mercury is lower than that of its compounds. The most toxic organic compound of mercury is dimethylmercury. As long as human skin is exposed to a few microliters of this substance, it will cause death.Therefore, mercury has become the most lethal weapon in the anti-theft measures of ancient tombs.

Among the tombs designed with Mercury Anti-Rooters, the most famous one is the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang. "Historical Records: The Benji of Qin Shihuang" (Volume [-]) records, "Mercury is used as the rivers and seas of all rivers and seas, and it is infused organically, with astronomy on the top and geography on the bottom." The amount of mercury used in the mausoleum is astonishing, filling the entire stratum in the mausoleum. It has become a terrible "underground poisonous river".Just imagine, in the sealed space, if a tomb robber invades, who can come out alive?
The Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang covers an area of ​​218 million square meters, and the area of ​​the cemetery is 22 square meters.The bottom of the sealing soil is nearly square, the existing height is 87 meters, and the circumference of the bottom is 2000 meters. In 2003, archaeologists conducted a non-destructive survey of the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang.

Through scientific exploration, archaeologists discovered a 1.2-square-meter strong mercury area above the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum. This strong mercury area is located in the central area of ​​the inner city of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum.Obviously, this is the hundreds of rivers, rivers and seas cast by mercury in the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum.There is so much mercury in the underground palace that it can still be detected on the sealing soil at a height of more than 80 meters.After careful analysis, experts deduced that the mercury in the underground palace was just as described by Sima Qian, based on hundreds of rivers, rivers and seas.

Some scholars speculate that the mercury in the underground palace may be as many as several tons or even hundreds of tons.So, where did these hundreds of tons of mercury come from?This will be another mystery of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum.

Compared with tomb poison, there is another poison that can kill tomb robbers even more unimaginably, that is corpse poison.Corpse poison, as the name suggests, is the poison in the corpse of the owner of the tomb.Why do the corpses of the dead tomb owners contain toxins, and how do these poisons hidden in the corpses play their magical role in poisoning the tomb robbers to death?In fact, these so-called corpse poisons are cinnabar.

Cinnabar, also known as cinnabar, cinnabar, red dan, mercury sand, is a natural ore of mercury sulfide, bright red, with diamond luster to metallic luster, and belongs to the trigonal crystal system.The main component of cinnabar is mercury sulfide, but it is often mixed with realgar, apatite, asphaltene, etc.Whether cinnabar has a sedative and hypnotic effect is not consistent; it has a detoxifying and antiseptic effect; external use can inhibit or kill skin bacteria and parasites.The mercury content in cinnabar is as high as 86.2%. It is the most important mineral raw material for mercury refining, and its toxicity is naturally high.Cinnabar is a compound of mercury. Mercury has a special affinity with sulfhydryl groups in proteins. At high concentrations, it can inhibit various enzymes and activities.Mercury entering the body is mainly distributed in the liver and kidneys, causing liver and kidney damage, and can pass through the blood-brain barrier to directly damage the central nervous system.Since the Han Dynasty, especially during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, many people have been obsessed with alchemy and taking elixir, thinking that taking this elixir made from cinnabar as the main raw material can lead to immortality.Especially when dying, it will be taken in large quantities. On the one hand, it can cure diseases, and on the other hand, it can play a role in embalming the body after death.After a person dies, the cinnabar that he took before his death is deposited in the bones. After a period of time, the deposited toxin is released, thus forming a corpse poison, which becomes a powerful weapon to prevent theft in tombs.

Corpse poison will not only volatilize deadly poison gas in the tomb, but also bring harm to the surrounding environment outside the tomb. "Taiping Guangji" records that once, when Cao Cao sent troops to conquer the Huns, he passed a high hill that was barren of grass. At that time, Wang Can, one of the famous seven sons of Jian'an, pointed out that this should be a large tomb. Stone, this is a poisonous substance. After the death of the owner of the tomb, this substance evaporates from the body to form toxins, resulting in no vegetation outside the tomb.Cao Cao ordered the mound to be dug open, and there was indeed an ancient tomb underneath.

If it is said that people took cinnabar in order not to rot after death, and it was just to prevent theft unintentionally, then there are also some tomb owners who have some poison in their mouths after death, specifically to deal with those who dare to steal burial objects. , Tomb robbers who desecrated the body of the tomb owner.Zhu Qimian, a famous tomb robber in the Yuan Dynasty, encountered such a corpse poison.

In order to prevent theft, the ancients would give the dead poisonous substances before burial.Several years later, when the tomb robbers entered the tomb to move the body of the tomb owner, the liquid in the abdominal cavity of the body was squeezed and ejected.The lucky ones are like Zhu Qimian, because of the age, the toxicity of the venom is greatly reduced or even non-toxic. The venom that was fatal enough only burned Zhu Qimian's skin.Those who are unlucky will be poisoned and die in the tomb.

Corpse poison is often combined with body embalming. Generally, antiseptic medicinal materials accumulate in the body for a long time to form toxins. Once grave robbers get close to the corpse, they will be poisoned or even killed by the toxin emitted from the corpse.Both tomb poison and corpse poison are extremely lethal anti-theft methods. This anti-theft method not only protects tombs from being robbed, but also severely punishes tomb robbers so that future generations will not dare to covet them.

No matter where the "poison" in the ancient tomb came from, "poisonous tombs" do exist.Therefore, future excavators or archaeological experts will be careful to prevent "poisoning".Under normal circumstances, when archaeologists design an archaeological excavation plan, they will consider whether there is poisonous gas or organs for high-standard ancient tombs, and prepare protective equipment such as gloves and masks with special functions in advance.Only after confirming that there are no life-threatening safety hazards will the tomb and coffin be opened. At the beginning of 2007, when archaeologists opened the No. [-] Han Tomb in Shuangdun, Lu'an, Anhui, they considered the possibility of poisonous gas or traps in the tomb, but because the tomb was severely damaged as early as the Tang Dynasty, no accident happened in the end. .

(End of this chapter)