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

Chapter 67 The Ancestral Grave Digging Event in the History of Chinese Tomb Raiders (1)
digging one's own grave by mistake

The reason why the bad habit of digging ancestral graves has been repeated in history is mainly due to the superstition of Feng Shui.Most people believe that the prosperity of a family is largely due to the fact that their family was buried in a place of good geomantic omen.Correspondingly, for the imperial family, they also believed that if their ancestral tombs were buried on the dragon veins, then under the blessing of the dragon veins, their family's throne would last forever.If the dragon's veins are broken, or the ancestral graves are dug, it means the decline of one's family and country.Therefore, in ancient times, both princes and dignitaries, or ordinary people, believed in the existence of feng shui in mausoleums.

It is precisely because of this psychological basis that there have been many incidents of digging ancestral graves in history, the purpose of which is to make the family whose ancestral graves were dug ruined.Of course, the political purpose of digging the emperor's ancestral grave is also obvious: to attack the emperor he wants to oppose politically and psychologically.It is undeniable that the behavior of digging ancestral graves is inconsistent with the moral values ​​advocated by the emperor, but under the complex historical background of ancient China, it seems to have some rationality.

Guo Pu, a native of Jin Dynasty, wrote "The Book of Burial", saying, "The burial person rides on the breath, and the scriptures say that the breath rides on the wind and then disperses, and the boundary water stops. The ancients gathered together and did not disperse, and when they walked, they stopped, so it is called Fengshui."

Fengshui and tombs have always been linked together.

In the past, after a person died, a geomancer (gemologist) had to be asked to choose the tomb site. If he was buried in a geomantic place, his descendants would be prosperous, his official fortune would be smooth, and he would be honored forever.If it is buried in the cave of the True Dragon Emperor, it will be a disaster, and the emperor will be born.Although Feng Shui is said to be superstitious, the ancients believed it.

Therefore, the ancients were most afraid of digging up their ancestral graves, which was a big taboo in Feng Shui.

The ancients took care of the ancestral tombs very seriously, and the new tombs also had to observe filial piety for three years.From today's perspective, this is the ancients' emphasis on filial piety and respect for the elders.But the ancients believed that this matter is related to family luck and feng shui, so don't be careless, and you can't move any grass or tree on the grave.

"Baixia Suoyan" (Volume [-]) stated, "The brothers of the Rui family are all born. Geng Yin, the heather tree on the tomb of his ancestors, which is more than a hundred years old, was robbed by the tomb guards and seriously injured. , both father and son died of illness." It was just a century-old pomegranate tree growing on the ancestral grave, which was robbed and felled by the tomb guards, which caused the tragedy of family ruin.The matter was too strange to be believable.

There are also people who spoil the feng shui of their ancestral tombs because they are too greedy for the "geomantic treasure land".

"Zibuyu" (Volume [-]) "Jiexi Tomb", Yan Jiexi buried his wife Ouyang, called dozens of Fengshui guests, and said: "I am rich and honored, so what else can I look forward to? The king chooses the land, and he will be willing to have children and grandchildren who can be like me again." All guests are the only ones.In the next month, a guest came and said: "There is a cave in a certain mountain. Bury it, and your descendants will have a long life, and you will live with your father." Jiexi ordered the group of guests to look at it.A guest alone said: "If you bury this, the descendants will be expensive, but the pulse is too late, and I am afraid that they will be behind the ears of the sixth and seventh generations."Jiexi bought it.Open the hole, there is an ancient tomb epitaph in it, and you can see it, that is, the seventh ancestor of the Yan family.Jiexi was horrified and urgently sealed.However, Yan's family has declined greatly since then, and his family has disappeared.This is what Yan's descendant named Binglian said.

After Yan Jiexi's wife died, he wanted to find her a piece of land with good geomantic omen so that his descendants would be as rich as him in the future.So he found dozens of Fengshui masters under his door to divination and choose treasure lands for him.There was a Fengshui master who found a treasured land for him in less than a month. Yan Jiexi asked everyone to have a look and give advice together. Everyone said that this land is good, but the disadvantage is that it will take six or seven generations before it can make a fortune.Yan Jiexi believed this and bought the land.However, an epitaph was found during the excavation of the tomb, which is still known to be the ancestral tomb of the seventh generation of the Yan family.Yan Jiexi was greatly surprised, and hurriedly ordered people to bury the soil.But it was too late, the earth's air leaked out, and the Yan family fell into ruin.

It was a coincidence that this kind of digging up the family's ancestral grave in search of a treasured land of geomantic omen caused the geomantic omen to be ruined by accident.

Unify the world and occupy Zhou's tomb
Qin State was originally an inconspicuous small country in the west, why did it rise to dominate the world?It is said that it is touched by the light of dragon veins and feng shui.This statement may not be accepted by everyone, but there is an even more bizarre statement: King Qin occupied the tomb of Emperor Zhou, which made Qin State lucky and finally able to rule the world.There is also a "theoretical basis" for such a statement: when archaeologists inspected the "Zhou Tomb" on the Xianyang Plateau, they discovered that the tomb of the king of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the tomb of Qin Jun in the Warring States Period were in the same cave!
"Zhouling" is located in Zhouling Middle School, Zhouling Township, Weicheng District, 6 kilometers north of Xianyang City.The outer garden wall of the Zhou Tomb, the cemetery garden wall shared by the Southern and Northern Tombs, and the respective tomb passages of the two tombs, 6 architectural sites, 27 external burial pits, and 161 accompanying tombs were also discovered.There are two mausoleums in the south and north. The shape of the south mausoleum is a truncated cone (that is, "covered bucket shape"), and the plane is basically square.Beiling is 145.8 meters away from Nanling in the south. The shape is basically a truncated cone, the square cone is slightly round, and the plane is basically square and slightly round.The two tombs are both in the shape of "Ya", with a tomb passage in the middle of the four sides of the seal, and the plane is trapezoidal.

For a long time, most people believed that "Zhou Tomb" is the collective name of the tombs of King Wen and King Wu of the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the tomb of King Wen of Zhou in the south and the tomb of King Wu of Zhou in the north.The circumference of King Zhou Wen's tomb is 310 meters and the height is 11.8 meters. In front of the tomb is a stele erected by Bi Yuan in the Qing Dynasty.100 meters to the north of the mausoleum is the Mausoleum of King Wu of Zhou, with a circumference of 285 meters at the bottom and a height of 12.3 meters.The two hills are basically well preserved, and the dedicated hall and wooden archway have been repaired and painted.

Not only that, archaeologists discovered the Zhougong Temple site group in 2004, and along with it, some oracle bone inscriptions were unearthed, which was of extraordinary value, and made the archaeological community more convinced that this place is the tomb of the Western Zhou Dynasty.

However, with the continuous discovery of new archaeological results, the previous inferences seemed to be shaken again.Because the archaeological team found a large number of scattered bricks and tiles on the surface of the cemetery, and also found thick rope patterns, thin rope patterns, basket patterns and plain surfaces on the surface of the residual tiles.According to the relevant data, it can be inferred that plain and round tiles existed in the early Warring States period, and there were very few of them in the middle and late Warring States period.Combining previous literature records and the results of this archaeological investigation, some archaeological experts believe that the so-called "Zhou Tomb" should be the tomb of a certain Qin Dynasty in the late Warring States Period, not the legendary Zhou Tomb.

The reasons for these archaeological experts are as follows:
First, historical archaeological records tend to indicate that this is the tomb of King Qin. "Ji Jie" quoted "Huang Lan" and said: "The tomb of King Wu of Qin is in Bimo, northwest of Anling County, Fufeng, and the big tomb is the same. People think that the tomb of King Wen of Zhou is not. The tomb of King Wen of Zhou is in Duzhong." "Justice" Quoting "Kuo Di Zhi" says: "The Mausoleum of King Wu of Qin Mourning is located fifteen miles northwest of Xianyang County, Yongzhou." King Wen and King Wu were buried in the mausoleum of today’s Xianyang, which is very clear in the early books, and the mistake began in the Song Dynasty.”

Second, according to the analysis of the layout of the cemetery, this tomb conforms to the regulations of Qin tombs.Because the tomb is oriented east-west, the character "Asia" in the east-west direction conforms to the characteristics of the Qin king's tomb in the late Warring States period.In addition, judging from the chaotic order of the objects displayed in the burial pit, the tomb should not be from the Western Han Dynasty.Moreover, more importantly, some bronze wares were also discovered during the archaeological process, which were identified by experts as artifacts of the Warring States and Late Qin period according to their texture and other characteristics.

In view of the above reasons, these archaeological experts believe that the so-called "Zhou Tomb" should actually be the tomb of "King Qin Mourning Wu or King Qin Huiwen".Since "Zhou Tomb" is not the tomb of King Zhou, where is Zhou Tomb?

Generally speaking, mausoleums after the Zhou Dynasty are usually sealed with soil, and there are many records of this in historical documents.However, the tombs of the King of Zhou are neither tree nor seal, and there are few records about it in the literature, so it is very difficult to find it.Therefore, based on a comprehensive analysis of these situations, the greatest possibility is that the original site of the tomb was the mausoleum of the king of Zhou. It has caused the unique historical phenomenon of the same point.

As the problem became clearer, the saying of occupying the tomb for luck came into being in the mouths of some Feng Shui magicians.Moreover, the development trend in the later period of the Warring States period also seems to confirm this point. The Qin State, which was in a corner, did not occupy the right time and location, and even wiped out other countries in one fell swoop and unified the world.If it is really because of the feng shui of the mausoleum, then Qin Shihuang's credit for unifying the six countries may be inseparable from the choice of the mausoleum by his ancestors.

Emperor Qin changed his name to Duanwangqi

As the saying goes, big rivers and mountains are easy but rivers and mountains are difficult.After Qin Shihuang unified the world, he also had such worries. He was always worried that the country he had worked so hard to win would be robbed by others.When the first emperor heard the saying that those who ruled the world were buried in the veins of dragons, he was moved.In order to make his rule last for thousands of years, so that the descendants of his family can be emperor forever, Qin Shihuang tried all kinds of tricks to dig dragon veins all over the country, so as to prevent someone from proclaiming himself king again.But things backfired, resulting in anger and resentment, and chaos in the world.Soon, people rose up against Qin, and the Qin Dynasty became the first short-lived dynasty in the history of our country.

So, what measures did Qin Shihuang take to break the dragon's veins and make people rise up to resist?Please read below.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Danyang was a territory of the Chu State.In 222 BC, Qin Shihuang pacified the Jiangnan area of ​​Chu State and set up Kuaiji County, which governs the southeastern part of Jiangsu and the eastern part of Zhejiang today. Danyang was also changed to Yunyang County.It is such a small Yunyang county, I don't know how much Qin Shihuang spent, and even tried to destroy the "royal spirit" of this place at any cost.

Qin Shihuang naturally had his reasons for doing this.At the beginning, when he was passing through Danyang on his east tour, his entourage historian divined that Yunyang had "wangqi".Therefore, Qin Shihuang was afraid that an emperor would come out of Danyang to compete with him for the country, so he immediately ordered to break Danyang's "feng shui".In order to destroy Danyang's "Wang Qi", Qin Shihuang decreed to change the name of "Yunyang" county with "Wang Qi" to "Qu'a".The second measure is to change the section of "Kuiji Chi Road" passing through Danyang into a crooked "straight road to make a bend", that is, to deliberately turn the straight road into a bend, and the purpose is also to break Danyang's "wangqi".

In order to cut off the "royal qi" in Yunyang, Qin Shihuang implemented various measures in place, but they did not stop the rise of the "royal qi".Unfortunately, the alchemist's prophecy finally came true.In 430 years after the death of Qin Shihuang (AD 222), Danyang gave birth to the first emperor, Sun Quan, the Great Wu Emperor of the Three Kingdoms.Sun Quan (AD 182-AD 252), styled Zhongmou, Han nationality, was originally from Fuchun County, Wu County (now Fuyang, Zhejiang Province), and his descendants moved to Qu'a (now Situ Town, Danyang).His grandfather, Sun Zhong, lived by growing melons in Situ, Danyang, and was buried in Situ Baihe Mountain after his death. His father, Sun Jian, was buried in Situ Wuling Port, Danyang after his death. The tomb is called "Gaoling".In the Southern Dynasties, Danyang produced two generations of founding emperors.One of them is Xiao Daocheng, named Shaobo, nicknamed Doujiang, Emperor Qi Gao of the Southern Dynasty, who lived in Xiaojiaxiang, Fangxian Town, Danyang. He died at the age of 56 and was buried in the "Taihe Mausoleum" in Shiziwan, Huqiao, Danyang after his death.The other is Xiao Yan, named Shuda, known as Emperor Wu of Liang in history, and also a native of Xiaojia Lane, Fangxian Town, Danyang. He died in a catastrophe in 549 at the age of 85 and was buried in Sancun Lane, Jinglin, Danyang. Xiuling".

In fact, regardless of whether Qin Shihuang broke Yunyang's "royal spirit", there will always be princes and generals who will replace the Qin Dynasty.Because the brutal rule makes the people unable to survive, and the harsh system makes the people miserable, the new ruling power replaces the old ruling power, which is the law of social development.

A big fire breaks the dragon's veins
In 356 BC, Qin Xiaogong appointed Shang Yang to reform the law. After the country became rich and powerful, the capital was moved from Liyang to Xianyang, the ancient capital twenty miles northeast of the present Xianyang City.In the eyes of Feng Shui experts, Xianyang City is a rare Feng Shui treasure.It takes Jiuyi Mountain as its ancestral vein, Weihe Plain as its Mingtang, and Weishui River as its Vermilion Bird.In this way, Xianyang is between the south of Jiuta Mountain and the north of Weihe River, and the mountains and rivers reflect each other.

After Qin Shihuang eliminated the six kingdoms and unified the country, he built a large-scale construction project in Xianyang, the capital, and built palaces and palaces. The largest palace built was the Afang Palace.According to "Historical Records: The Benji of Qin Shihuang", in the 35th year of Qin Shihuang (212 BC), Qin Shihuang thought that there were too many people in Xianyang, the capital city, and the palace of the former king was small, so he ordered the royal garden south of the Weihe River between Feng and Hao, the capital of the old Zhou Dynasty. In Shanglin Garden, a new imperial palace is built in imitation of the elites of the world's architecture.This court palace was the famous palace later called Afang Palace.

In the 35th year of Qin Shihuang (212 BC), the construction of the court palace, namely Afang Palace, began in Shanglin Garden, south of the Weihe River.Due to the huge project, only one front hall was built during Qin Shihuang's reign.According to the records of "Historical Records: The Benji of Qin Shihuang": "The front hall, Efang, is five hundred steps from east to west, and fifty feet from north to south. There can be thousands of people sitting on it, and five feet of flags can be built on the bottom. Zhou Chi is a pavilion road, from His Royal Highness to Nanshan, showing the height of Nanshan. Dian thought it was a quaint, and it was the restoration of Taoism. It crossed the Wei from Afang and belonged to Xianyang." Its scale is huge, and it is huge in labor and money.Qin Shihuang also introduced the Wei River into the capital to symbolize the Tianhe River, marked the North Star with the palace, and told the world that Xianyang is the capital of the emperor, and the palace is the unshakable residence of the emperor, and built the entire capital into a cosmic schema.Not only that, after the death of Qin Shihuang, he chose to build his imperial mausoleum in Lintong in the northeast of the Weihe Plain, with Lishan Mountain in the south and Weihe River in the north, forming an extraordinary royal style.

Qin Shihuang died before the project was completed, and Qin II Hu Hai transferred the craftsmen to build the Afang Palace to build the Qin Shihuang Mausoleum, and then continued to build the Afang Palace, but the Qin Dynasty collapsed soon.

However, some people say that Qin Shihuang relied on the dragon's veins and attached the grand design of palaces such as Afang Palace, but was completely burned by Xiang Yu. Is this true?
At the end of the Qin Dynasty, Xiang Yu was named Duke of Lu by King Huai of Chu. In the decisive battle of Julu in 207 BC, he led the Chu army to defeat the Qin army. In the palace, the fire will not go out in three months." Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, described the queen of the Efang Palace in his "Ode to Efang Palace", and sang with infinite emotion: "The people of Chu have a torch, and they pity the scorched earth."

In order to find evidence that Xiang Yu burned the Qin Palace, in 2002, archaeologists came to the south of Sanqiao Town in the western suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, from Jujiazhuang in the east to the Afang Palace site in Gucheng Village in the west, and began to explore.Although a variety of advanced equipment and methods were used, the result was beyond people's expectations: no traces of the Afang Palace being burned were found.Since more than 2000 years have passed, will the traces left by the fire be attacked by wind, frost, rain and snow?In order to find out whether this is the reason, the Afang Palace archaeological team came to the site of Changle Palace in the Han Dynasty.At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Changle Palace, like other palaces in the Han Dynasty, could not escape the fate of being burned. More than 2000 years have passed, but the traces of being burned here are still vivid.

So, is it not true that Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, whose army entered the customs for 2000 years, set fire to Afang Palace and all its ancillary buildings and turned them into ashes?
After careful investigation by archaeologists, they found that what people usually call the Efang Palace site is not the entire palace of Efang Palace, but the site of the front hall. , There are rammed earth walls on the west, north, and east sides of the platform foundation, and tiles are laid on the top of the wall; there is no south wall built on the rammed earth platform foundation.The cultural layer of the Qin Dynasty and the architectural relics of the palaces of the Qin Dynasty were not found inside the three walls.Judging from the distribution of road soil, people transported the rammed foundation soil from the south to the north, and then gradually rammed the foundation from the north to the south.Based on this, experts boldly speculate that of all the projects of Efang Palace, only the front hall has been built with a foundation, and other projects have not yet started.
"Historical Records The Benji of Qin Shihuang" contains: "Xiang Ji was the chief, killed his son and baby, and the clan of the princes of Qin. Then slaughtered Xianyang, burned his palace, captured his children, collected his treasures, and shared them among the princes." Xiang Yu is The policy of burning, killing, and robbing Xianyang was adopted, but there is no explicit mention of burning Afang Palace here. "Historical Records Xiang Yu Benji" records: "Burning the palace of Qin Dynasty, the fire will not go out for three months." There is no mention of burning Afang Palace here.It is likely that other palaces of the Qin Dynasty were burned. Another record in "Historical Records" also proves from the side that the Afang Palace was not completed: "In April, Qin II returned to Xianyang and said: 'The first emperor was the youngest of the Xianyang court, so he ran the Afang Palace. The house was not completed, and the meeting Beng, let go of its author, and return to Lishan Mountain. Lishan Mountain is completed, and today’s release of Afang Palace is the result of Zhang Xiandi’s fault.’ Restored as Afang Palace.” However, in July of this year, Chen She and Wu Guang Inverted.In such a short period of time, it is obvious that the Efang Palace cannot be built.

The front hall of Efang Palace has not been built, and there is no palace building on the rammed earth platform of the front hall. Therefore, it is meaningless for Xiang Yu to set fire to a rammed earth platform without palace buildings. Therefore, it is said that Xiang Yu was wrong in burning Afang Palace. of!

In the previous chapters, we have also explained that Xiang Yu did not want Qin Shihuang to rest in the underground palace, and in order to prevent future generations from knowing his tomb robbery, he set a fire after excavating the treasures, trying to burn the entire tomb. burn it.Fortunately, the tomb of Qin Shihuang discovered by Xiang Yu is only a small part of the actual tomb, and there are good fire prevention facilities between the tombs of the tomb itself.Therefore, the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum can be preserved to this day, and it has not been destroyed by Xiang Yu's fire.Although the Afang Palace was not burned, it is an indisputable fact that the palace of Xianyang City, which Qin Shihuang built based on the dragon veins, was burned.

Emperor Sui Yang Digging Earth and Graves

In the history of tomb robbery in China, many emperors dug their ancestral graves in order to prevent their political opponents from robbing their own lands. For example, Qin Shihuang, who we mentioned earlier, changed the name of Yunyang and repaired its roads in order to break the "royal spirit" of Yunyang.In terms of digging other people's ancestral graves, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty also did it.

(End of this chapter)