In the long journey of human historical development, it is always inseparable from the war, and around the war caused by casualties, in large battles, the sacrifice of soldiers will sometimes be as many as tens of thousands, so the war has one more link, that is, to clean the battlefield, although the times are different, but for the corpses after the war, people's way of dealing with them is still very similar, then how do they deal with it? Here are some general practices and a few special practices.
Common ways of disposing of corpses:
1. Bury the body.
This is the most routine practice of fighting the dead in wars throughout the ages. After the end of the war, the victors or other official or civilian organizations buried the dead separately.
Generally, the war dead of the victorious side will be treated more solemnly, and most of the generals and ordinary soldiers can be buried independently. The dead of the defeated side generally dig a long pit and throw the bodies together to bury, there are orderly burials, there are also disorderly burials, a small number of defeated generals will be buried separately, and erect monuments to show respect for the other side.
Whether it is ancient history or now, most of them are disposed of in this way.
The excavation map of one of the sites where the remains of the Zhao army were buried in the Battle of Changping has only a thin layer of soil.
2. Cremation. (Only in modern times)
The use of cremation to deal with the war dead is a common practice of the Japanese army on a large scale, and its purpose is very simple, the body of the deceased cannot be brought back to their own country, cremated collectively, and then packed in jars or ceramic jars, marked with names, and transported back to Japan in a centralized manner.
According to the Japanese version of the soul returning home, soldiers and generals who died in battle basically had to be brought back, but only ashes. Urns, bottles or other parcels of ashes are marked with the number and name of the troops, transported back to Japan, and then buried, indicating that they have been buried to ensure that they have been buried and that their souls have returned to their hometown.
The Japanese army in World War II cremated most of the war dead back to Japan, as shown in the picture
3. Treatment of the first rank, ears, nose and hands of the corpse.
In ancient warfare, how did soldiers who fought show the achievements they had achieved? There are generally several ways, and the opponent's head, ears, nose and hands are the best way to show military merit.
Regardless of the war, the heads, ears, hands and other parts of the war dead will generally be removed, and then reported as their own battle achievements. The parts of the bodies of these war dead will be inspected by special officers and soldiers who record military merit, and after basically all the military merits have been disposed of, the human parts will be disposed of, buried, burned or sent to the place where the head needs to be inspected.
For example, in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, after Guan Yu was beheaded, he was sent by Sun Quan to Cao Cao's place for examination. Sometimes, in order to show their martial skills, some monarchs would display the heads of soldiers killed in the war and then bury them.
Most of the bodies of soldiers on the defeated side of the war are mutilated, not complete corpses, one because of the war, and the other is that both sides of the war must have evidence of military merit.
4. Abandon it.
Due to the fierce fighting between the two sides, the bodies of many of the dead were discarded, especially in some more remote areas. There are no major transportation routes here, no one wants to live and cultivate in these places, corpses are generally abandoned, wild animals and nature decompose these abandoned corpses.
There are several practices for the special disposal of corpses in war:
1. The landscape of corpses shows military strength and deters hostile forces.
This method is also relatively special, that is, the corpses of soldiers and civilians who died in battle on the other side are concentrated and piled up to become a kind of landscape, so that the people and soldiers of the enemy side can see it, and play a role in deterring each other.
In fact, this method is often understood by people, displaying the corpses or heads of the enemy's generals in places such as city gates to deter the other side. There are also more tragic ways.
Pan Dangtu, a Chu chinese, was the first recorded figure to propose the construction of a landscape of corpses
During the Spring and Autumn Period, Pan Dang of the Chu State was as famous as Yang Youji, and once served as a shooter at the side of the King of Chu. Once he led the Chu army to crush the Jin army, he planned to gather the corpses of the Jin soldiers who died in battle to create a landscape called "Jingguan" to shock the soldiers and generals of the Jin state. This is probably the earliest record of the use of the corpses of the war dead as landscapes! Since then, such things have also been common in wars.
However, these bodies will eventually be buried and disposed of, after all, decomposed corpses are very susceptible to disease transmission.
2. Feed on the corpses of the war dead.
It is also not uncommon to feed certain parts of the corpses of the war dead. For example, at the end of the Tang Dynasty, Cai Prefecture was envoyed by the State Army, surrendered to Huang Chao after being defeated by Huang Chao, and was later killed by Zhu Wen. There was a shortage of food in his army, especially meat.
His (Qin Zongquan) was more brutal than that of The Nest (Huang Chao), and the military march did not begin to transfer grain, and the truckloaded salt corpses followed. North to Wei, Slippery, West and Guanfu, East to Qing, Qi, South out of the River, Huai, Zhou Town survivors only protect one city, thousands of miles, no fireworks. (Zizhi Tongjian. 256"
He not only used the corpses of soldiers who died in battle, but also often slaughtered the people and salted them for use by the army.
3. Boil lamp oil.
At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, Huang Ji, who was taken to the north with The Second Emperor Hui Qin, once wrote a book, "The Chronicle of the Southern Embers", which recorded a very special event, as follows:
Before he could finish speaking, several people (Jin Guoren) entered the room and came out with wooden sticks to build the corpse of Taishang (Emperor Huizong of Song). The Young Emperor (Emperor Qinzong of Song) followed suit. Compared with the stone pit, the corpse is burned on the top, but it is burned with tea wood, and the scorched will be half, and then destroyed with water, and the bones of the large wood are pierced, and the pit is abandoned, and the corpse falls to the bottom of the pit and sinks into sight. The young emperor could not stop, but cried bitterly, and also wanted to jump into the pit, and the natives said: "In the past years, there were living people who jumped in, and this water was clear and could not be used as oil." (The Chronicle of the Southern Embers)
It is recorded here that the Jin people burned Emperor Huizong of Song for a period of time, and then threw it into a large pit with clear water, so that the oil floated above the water by itself and used it for human oil, mainly for burning lamps.
Judging from the operation of the Jin people in treating the corpses of the enemy emperors in this way, the Jin people have been using the dead to make lamp oil for a long time, and many of the corpses of the war dead may have been boiled into lamp oil for disposal, and Song Huizong did not get any preferential treatment.
Oil lamps of the Song Dynasty
In fact, what is even worse, after the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, Yang Lianzhenjia, the president of the Southern Buddhist Sect of the Yuan Dynasty, came to Jiangnan. He excavated the tombs of the Southern Song Emperors, and the dead Song Lizong was dragged out of the grave. Song Lizong's body was infused with a lot of mercury (metal mercury) for embalming, and the Yuan people hung Song Lizong's body upside down on a tree and emptied all the mercury. Its skull was also made into a Buddhist ritual vessel, the Gabala Bowl.