Everyone knows that the ancient practice of thick burial was prevalent, although thin burial was later advocated, but bringing the living goods into the ground became a deep-rooted concept of the ruling class, that is, death is like life. Therefore, when countless precious funerary objects were excavated, it provided us with first-hand physical materials for our study of the society at that time.
However, the thick burial wind also brought a serious problem, especially in the era of war, tomb robbery is endless. Therefore, the ancient ruling class tried its best to design anti-theft measures for the cemetery, but the road was one foot high and one foot high, for example, the Tang Emperor was excavated by Wen Tao except for the indestructible Qianling.
The question is, has the tomb of Qin Shi Huang ever been stolen? Tell everyone for sure, no! In 2002, as one of the high-tech geophysical exploration projects of the national "863 Plan", experts conducted a survey of the Underground Palace of the Qin Emperor. According to reports at the time, this exploration mainly used remote sensing and geophysical exploration technology, and would not cause damage to the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum Underground Palace.
Geophysical exploration shows that the underground palace is intact, there is no excavation phenomenon, and there is a thick circle of rammed earth walls around the burial chamber under the sealed mound. So, why did Sima Qian record in the "Records of History" that the Tomb of the Qin Emperor was stolen and excavated? In Sima Qian's "Gao Zu Benji", Liu Bang listed ten crimes for Xiang Yu, the fourth of which reads, "King Huai entered Qin without plunder, Xiang Yu burned the Qin palace, dug up the tomb of the first emperor, and privately collected his property." ”
Of course, Liu Bang said that Xiang Yu had stolen the tomb of the Qin Emperor, most likely out of political propaganda needs. However, judging from the ten major crimes listed by Liu Bang for Xiang Yu, the other nine major crimes were familiar, and there was obviously no need for him to fabricate one. The Han Dynasty historian Ban Gu also wrote in the "Book of Han And Liu Xiang Biography", "Xiang Yu burned his palace camp, and the former Xian saw the excavation." ”
Later, Northern Wei Li Daoyuan pointed out in the "Notes on the Water Classics", "Xiang Yu entered the Guanfa, with 300,000 people, thirty days of transport can not be poor." Kanto thieves pin copper. It can be seen that Liu Bang said that Xiang Yu's theft of the Qin Emperor's tomb was not empty, but geophysical exploration showed that the Qin Emperor's tomb underground palace was well preserved, which is not a contradiction.
In 2012 people finally found the answer. On June 19 of that year, the excavation and archaeology team of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Qin Emperor's Mausoleum officially announced the results of the third excavation to the outside world. After more than three years of solid excavations, a large number of pottery figurines and precious artifacts have been unearthed. In the pit, archaeologists found a large number of traces of fire and flooding, and also found a large number of hooks and slashes on the terracotta warriors.
Experts deduced that these traces were deliberately destroyed by Xiang Yu's command army. The author believes that this inference is in line with history, and after Xiang Yu entered the customs, he robbed the ground buildings and treasures of the Qin Emperor's mausoleum and set fire to the ground buildings. However, the Qin Emperor's mausoleum underground palace was built very deeply, and the entrance was a mystery, and Xiang Yu could not find the entrance to the underground palace.
The Terracotta Warriors were not so lucky. During the excavation process, archaeologists found that "all the figurines near the yongdao and the cave were burned, severely deformed and discolored, and some were even burned, and the ash of the shed in this area was white, and the visible temperature was very high." ”
The terracotta warriors destroyed by the fire were mainly distributed in ventilation places such as yongdao, which shows that the fire was the largest here at that time. It also further shows that Xiang Yu did deliberately damage the terracotta warriors.
References: "History of GaoZu Benji", "Notes on the Water Classics", "Hanshu Liu Xiang Biography"