Although he did not have the fame of Cao Cao's lieutenant who touched the gold and the great thief sun Dianying of Tanglin, he was the real tomb robber king in history, and the great thief of Tanglin, Sun Dianying, was in front of him. So, what did the tomb robber king do, and what happened to him in the end? Today, let's travel through history to understand the legendary life of this tomb robber.
This tomb robber was the famous Wen Tao, a liang man of the fifth dynasty, born in present-day Yao County, Shaanxi. When Wen Tao was young, he fell into the grass and started a livelihood of robbing his family. Later, he defected to Li Maozhen, the King of Qi, was adopted as a righteous son, and was renamed Li Yantao, so that he, a thief, became an official and began his own crazy history of tomb robbery. This Wen Tao served for seven years as the envoy of Yaozhou Jiedushi (equivalent to the commander of today's Shaanxi Provincial Military Region). He took advantage of his position to rob tombs in a frenzy. According to the "Old Five Dynasties History Of Wen Tao's Biography", "Those who were in the Tang Tombs were in the realm. ”
The reason why Wen Tao is called the King of Tomb Robbers is that he patronized the 18 imperial tombs of the Tang Dynasty and excavated 17 of them. Only Wu Zetian's Qianling survived. According to records, like Huang Chao, he set his sights on Qianling, the largest imperial tomb in the Tang Dynasty, and sent tens of thousands of people to excavate Qianling. But he never expected to go up the mountain three times to commit crimes, and all three times they were full of wind and rain, and as soon as they withdrew, the wind and rain immediately stopped. Wen Tao looked confused, thinking that Wu Zetian was angry and had palpitations in his heart, so he gave up the idea of stealing Qianling, and Qianling escaped another disaster.
In addition to the many imperial tombs that Wen Tao excavated, there was also a particularly high-profile tomb robbery. Cao Cao's Lieutenant Touching Jin and the Tanglin thief Sun Dianying were both sneaky excavations at night, while Wen Tao's tomb robbery was very high-profile and forced. Others work secretly at night, and he prefers to swing the imperial tomb in broad daylight. What is even more remarkable is that he also compiled the pirated funerary goods into a list and published it to the world, and his courage was so great that he set a model for all the tomb robbers in the world. Being able to play tomb robbery so forcefully is really the king of the tomb robbery world.
But, of course, this is not over, and the next one is even more bizarre. It is said that after the death of Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin brought precious calligraphy and painting works such as Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface" into the Zhaoling Tomb. What is funny is that Wen Tao brought out a batch of precious calligraphy and painting works when he was excavating zhaoling, and he did not look at the valuable calligraphy and painting works, but the gorgeous satin framed outside. He had the framed silk torn off and the precious calligraphy and paintings thrown away. The authentic manuscript of Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Orchid Pavilion" has never appeared, and some historians speculate that it is likely to have been destroyed by Wen Tao. However, in the roster compiled by Wen Tao, there is no record of the Orchid Pavilion Preface. Therefore, there are still some scholars who still have a glimmer of hope that it may be in Wu Zetian's Qianling.
The damage caused by Wen Tao to the imperial tomb of our country was catastrophic, and it was called the most dangerous morning tomb robber in the history of our country, and he was a sinner for thousands of years. Wen Tao is a person born anti-bone, with milk is the mother, he has betrayed 3 masters three times, who has great power will follow who mixes. He made some connections through the large number of treasures he had stolen, and although he was mixed up in the chaotic world, he was too high-profile, openly stealing the imperial tomb, and risking the world. After Tang Mingzong Li Siyuan came to power, he believed that Wen Tao was a capricious villain, and that keeping him would be a scourge if he had no loyalty. As a result, Wen Tao was exterminated by Li Siyuan.
Good and evil will eventually be rewarded, Wen Tao stole so many imperial tombs, got so many treasures, and ended up with a ruined end, it is really retribution!
References: "The History of the Old Five Dynasties , Wen Tao " , The New Five Dynasties Of History , Wen Tao " , Zizhi Tongjian "