Ancient people died, there is a burial custom, this custom has a long history, from ancient times to the Qing Dynasty, has always existed, but the form is different, the burial of things are also different. In ancient times, there were straw people, in the Middle Ages there were figurines, the Qin Dynasty used living people, the Liao Empress used their hands, and the Ming and Qing dynasties had two emperors abolished.
In ancient times, after a person died, he used grass to tie a human form and bury it with the deceased, so that the straw man accompanied the deceased, called "Sword Spirit". The custom of burial with straw men continued for a long time, until the Middle Ages.
In the Middle Ages, people replaced the straw man with figurines. The funeral figurine has a mechanism on the body, and the starting mechanism can jump, so it is called "Zhen". Figurines are very similar to real people, and after activating the mechanism, they are more like real people. Figurines are actually the earliest robots, and during the zhou mu king period, there were already people who could create robots that were no different from real people.
In the Qin Dynasty, the martyrdom was changed from a figurine to a living person. This custom began with Qin Mugong, who died with one of the doctor's sons, while Qin Jinggong was buried with 186 living people. The "Tomb no. 1 of The Duke of Qin", known as the "Pyramid of the East", found 186 martyrs, which is the largest number of martyrs since the Western Zhou Dynasty. Qin Shi Huang established the Qin Dynasty, and the custom of burial of living people has not changed, and 99 burial tombs have been found in the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
In the Liao Dynasty, there was still a custom of martyrdom after the emperor's death, and after the death of Yelü Abaoji, Empress Shu Luping chopped off her right hand and was buried. This fierceness, ordinary people do not, so Shu Luping is the only one in Chinese history to bury the empress with a hand.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the custom of burying the living after the emperor's death continued. After the death of Emperor Mingyingzong, the system of martyrdom was abolished. After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, it brought the martyrdom system with it. After Kangxi's death, Kangxi abolished the system of martyrdom. Since then, the system of living burial has ceased.