At the end of 2021, another good news of archaeology was officially announced, that is, the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han was finally confirmed. Friends who may not know much about history will be a little confused after hearing it at the beginning, and Emperor Wen of Han is still easy to understand, so why is his mausoleum called Baling? Why did his tomb take so long to be discovered, and what is so mysterious about his tomb? Then I will put these questions together today and talk to you.
That old rule, to talk about it from the roots, let's start with Emperor Wen and his mother, because this will affect the location of Emperor Wen's mausoleum in the future, and it can also help you understand Emperor Wen of Han more three-dimensionally. So I think it's necessary to waste some of your time.
Emperor Liu Heng of Han was the fourth son of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, his mother was Empress Bo, who was not born very well, Bo Ji's father Bo Shi had an affair with Wei Mi, the daughter of the former Wei clan of the former Wei State, during the Qin Dynasty, and gave birth to Bo Ji, the real name of this Wei royal family is not surnamed Wei, because their ancestors were sealed in Wei, so they changed their nature Ji to Wei, so this Bo Ji is equivalent to a combination of parents' names, and later she was given to her, who was originally one of the Seven Heroes of the Warring States, a descendant of the royal family of the State of Wei, Wei Leopard, Made his concubine. At first, the Qin Dynasty collapsed, Chu Han fought for the male, Xiang Yu Liu Bang fought, this Wei Leopard submitted to Liu Bang, just at first it was fine, this did not expect, Chu Bawang Xiang Yu was more and more courageous, this Liu Bang was defeated and retreated, this Wei Leopard was afraid, in case If Liu Bang lost, then I would definitely die, so he was both afraid and entangled, this Wei Leopard's mother was distressed about his son, so he gave it his son someone to start a gua, calculate it, this calculation, even calculated his concubine, that is, that Bo Ji, The face of great wealth and nobility, the future will give birth to a prince! As soon as Wei Bao heard this, she would give birth to a prince in the future, so wouldn't that mean that I would become emperor? In this way, this Wei Leopard betrayed Liu Bang, and later Liu Bang was persuaded and appeased, and finally stabilized him, but Liu Bang also knew that this guy was a time bomb, and sooner or later it had to explode, so Liu Bang finally found an opportunity to kill Wei Bao. After killing Wei Bao, his concubine, that is, Bo Ji, was sent to the textile factory to weave cloth, but after all, the family had been an insider of the royal family, and his appearance was outstanding, and when Liu Bang inspected the textile factory, he was favored by Liu Bang and included in the palace. But after all, Bo Ji was the concubine of the rebel general, and after entering the Han Room, she certainly could not compare with Lü Shi and Lady Qi, so she was naturally left out in the cold. However, once Liu Bang heard Bo Ji's situation in the mouths of other ladies, he felt pity for Bo Ji and summoned her in, and the history books said that "summoning and fortunate" and "a fortunate man is for the king". This means that usually there is no seeing at all, and when you see it, you are pampered, and once you are pampered, you give birth to a son to Han Room, which is also a fulfillment of the hanging that Wei Bao's mother gave Bo Ji to calculate. Bo Ji did give birth to a prince, but his father was not Wei Bao. It is estimated that at that time, this fortune teller also left a hand, if you tell the truth, good fellow, it is estimated that this fortune teller and Bo Ji's life are gone.
Of course, after this time, although she gave birth to a prince, her mother and son were still not favored in the Han Room, plus Bo Ji's health was not good, and later the mother and son came to their fiefdom and lived a life away from the hustle and bustle. In our ancient times, the concept of ethics was very heavy, and in the royal family of the Han Dynasty, it was the mother who was precious to the son, the son to the mother, the mother to be snubbed, the son Liu Heng naturally had to take on this family, although they were far away in the remote fiefdom, but after all, it was the royal family, and there were many royal treatments, even so, after Bo Ji fell ill, Liu Heng would still personally take care of his mother in front of the bed, and all the medicines that the mother wanted to drink, he would personally taste it before feeding it back to the mother. This filial piety is also written into the 24 filial pieties,
After the death of Liu Bang, Lü Hou took power, killed the family of Lady Qi, who had been an enemy of her, and also tyrannically made Lady Qi a human [rén zhì], who cut off her hands and feet, gouge out her eyeballs, poured copper water into her ears, cut off her tongue, and drank dumb medicine. Finally, Mrs. Qi was thrown into the toilet. Let him die slowly, and Lü Hou's practice even frightened his son, Emperor Hui of Han. After that, Lü Hou sealed all his family members as princes. However, Before Han Gaozu Liu Bang was alive, he once reached a consensus with his subjects, that is, "if the surname of Liu is not called king, the whole world will strike together", that is, if anyone wants to shake up the royal power of the Liu family in the future, any of you royal families can come to fight. In this way, after Lü Hou's death, sure enough, all the kings and princes in the world slaughtered all of Lü Hou's people. But after killing him, there must be someone to replace the royal family of the Liu family, at this time, they thought of Liu Heng, who was still flying outside, and in this way, Liu Heng and his mother Bo Ji, blessed by misfortune, eventually became emperor. He is known as Emperor Wen of Han. Also known as Emperor Xiaowen.
Emperor Wen of Han was dependent on his mother in his early years and had received a good education, so during his reign, the Han Dynasty began to gradually prosper and created the rule of Wenjing.
Then let's return to the issue of Emperor Wen's tomb, first of all, let's talk about why Emperor Wen's mausoleum is called Baling, this is because the history books record that the tombs of Emperor Wen and his queen Empress Dou are buried near the Bahe River in Xi'an, but the specific location is not known, so everyone calls his mausoleum a baling. In fact, it is reasonable to say that after the death of such a famous emperor, the tomb should be quite luxurious and solemn, but why is his tomb so difficult to find?
First of all, we mentioned earlier that Emperor Wen of Han was a very benevolent and filial emperor, not only that, it was a very sharp emperor in history, and the history records that Emperor Xiaowen came from the dynasty, that is, he reigned for twenty-three years, and the palace court was confined to yòu Dog and Horse Clothing Emperor who had nothing to gain, there was inconvenience, and it was convenient to benefit the people. Taste the terrace, summon the craftsman to calculate, straight to the gold. Shang: "The property of the ten families of the people in the hundred gold, I serve the palace of the former emperor, and I am often afraid of it, why should I be a platform!" Meaning, I Emperor Wen has been coming from the daiguo for 23 years, the inner courtyard of the palace has never been built, and now I want to build a terrace, which requires the income of 10 middle-class families! I use the Former Emperor's Palace, I am afraid of embarrassing the First Emperor, I think this terrace is still not built. This shows emperor Wen's frugality at that time. This is also reflected in his mausoleum, Liu Bang's tomb is flat from the ground to seal the soil, the entire mausoleum with soil piled into a mountain, and Emperor Wen felt that this practice is too expensive and laborious, so he directly found a place, as his own cemetery, and specially instructed, can not afford to seal the soil! This is very different from other burials that are flattened and sealed and piled into hills. Moreover, he also required it before his death, so all the burial items in it were replaced by pottery, and the burial items could be fewer or less. Because it doesn't want to waste too much money. Of course, this benefit is also to avoid the theft of the mausoleum. However, this kind of tiled tomb form, after a long time, has become one with heaven and earth, and it is not easy to find. After all, it's been more than 2,000 years. In addition, his location is very unusual. Therefore, it is very troublesome to judge his position according to the records in the literature.
Speaking of site selection, we also have to talk about the Lingyi system of the Han Dynasty, Lingyi is the Yi land placed by the Han Dynasty to protect the imperial cemetery, and in the early Han Dynasty, in order to strengthen the centralization of power and manage the nobles and rich people in various places, the tomb city was set up at the emperor's mausoleum near the Han Chang'an City. This so-called lingcheng itself has no productivity, that is, it relies on immigrants, and it is a city that is flat with the mausoleum as the center, because in the early Han Dynasty, the main threat to political security was two aspects, one was the threat of the original old nobles and princes of the opposite sex to the Han room, and the other was the threat of the Xiongnu to them, so Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, set up his own mausoleum on the border defense road, and then set up the lingyi system to let a large number of people migrate and live there. This is equivalent to setting up a buffer belt on the outskirts of his capital, Han Gaozu's mausoleum is set on the north side of the capital, Emperor Hui of Han, that is, The son of Lü Hou, placed his own mausoleum on the west side of Changling, and also set up a mausoleum, migrating people, used to consolidate and defend the defense line northwest of Chang'an, when Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, his brother and his father had built a buffer zone on the north side of the capital in the form of a mausoleum, but east of Chang'an, except for Hangu Pass in the far east of Guanzhong and Wuguan in the southeast. There is no barrier for the capital. As mentioned earlier, before Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, did not all the princes of all walks of life raise troops to kill the Forces of the Lü Hou family, and Liu Xiang, the King of Qi, once raised troops to the west and threatened the capital Chang'an. Although its spearhead was against the Lü clique, it was later considered to be a military operation that took advantage of the opportunity to rebel. Therefore, Emperor Wen has always been jealous of this area, as the old saying goes, day and night defense, family thieves are difficult to prevent. Therefore, Emperor Wen had to consider moving his mausoleum to the Bahe River on the west side to prevent the thieves.
In addition to the lingyi system, some experts also speculated before that Emperor Wen of Han chose to set up a mausoleum near the Bahe River for his mother, at the beginning we said, the mother of the Han Dynasty followed the son Gui, the son followed the mother Gui, after Emperor Wen ascended the throne, his mother Bo Ji was honored as the empress dowager, then his mausoleum setting had to be put on the agenda, it is reasonable to say that he should be buried in Liu Bang in the future, that is, in Changling, after all, he was later concubine by Liu Bangna, in ancient times, there were "husband and wife", "life and death are sympathetic, the tomb is subordinate" Concepts and burial customs, The Western Han Dynasty also had institutional regulations for concubines to bury the imperial tomb, so Bo Ji should enter changling, but at that time, Lü Hou had already been buried with Liu Bang as the main chamber, and the concubines below already had Lady Qi and Lady Fu, so if Lady Bo had to queue up behind when she entered the mausoleum, Liu Bang was rare before she died, did she have to end up with such a low-level treatment after death, not to mention that Bo Ji was not happy, and his son Liu Heng was not happy, but if you did not do this, and violated the ancestral system, then what to do, he referred to the situation of Qin Zhaoxiang Wang Yingji, Imitation of Qin Zhaoxiang King's mother is also Empress Xuan's eight sons, that is, the eight sons in the TV series Mi Yue's biography, and finally after the death of Qi Bazi, he was not buried with his husband Qin Huiwen Wang, but buried next to his son, that is, at the foot of Li Mountain, as for the TV series in order to miss Zhai Li and buried in LiShan, we are not good to verify, in short, this Qi Eight Sons, that is, Empress Xuan is set up a mausoleum alone, then this Liu Heng also refers to the practice of the former Qin Huiwen King, "Near Emperor Xiaowen's tomb" He also let his mother set up a separate tomb next to his own tomb.
Of course, some experts believe that in fact, Liu Heng did not have any feelings for his father Liu Bang, coupled with his longing for the homeland of the country, and did not conform to the "Zhaomu system" and so on before choosing to set up his own mausoleum next to the Bahe River. These also require further investigation in the future.
And this time the official Xuan Han Wen Emperor Liu Heng tomb was found in fact did not cause a great reaction in the professional academic circles, because in fact, in their view, for a long time, has been confirmed by a lot of circumstantial evidence, such as Liu Heng's wife Empress Dou's mausoleum, the location is determined, according to the Han Dynasty system, husband and wife with the same tomb of the provisions, Emperor Wen's tomb is definitely next to him, but the specific location has not been confirmed, until a tomb robbery was discovered, people began to pay new attention to the Jiangcun tomb,
At the beginning of this century, people found a huge tomb of the Han Dynasty in Jiangcun, but it is strange that such a large tomb did not have a sealed soil, which confirmed the characteristics of Emperor Wen's tomb, but everyone did not dare to confirm, and then found in it Zhongsikong Seal, Zhongsikong Cheng, Shanguan, Cangyin, Stable Kuài Several kinds of official seals, as well as a lot of bronze and carriage horses, although we mentioned earlier, after Emperor Wen's death, everything was simple, but after all, people were a generation of Ming Jun, and the specifications of the burial were placed there. It has a huge number of clothed pottery figurines, although these pottery figurines are small, but when they were buried, they were all dressed in linen clothes, and there were many eagles, wild geese, turtles, horses, etc. The burial of these rare birds and animals, from this scale and the well-established tombs, they all tend to be the Wendi Tomb, even if it has no name, researchers will also designate it as the Tomb of the Empress. And not far to his north is the mausoleum of Empress Dou, the wife of Emperor Wen of Han,
However, what has always puzzled scholars is that from the historical records of the Yuan Dynasty, he should be in the Phoenix Zui Mountain north of Jiangcun. However, researchers have done a lot of surveys in the phoenix mouth for many years, and various scientific and technological means have been used, and no traces of tombs have been found underground. Later, people found a layer of outer traces of the mausoleum outside the mausoleum of Empress Dou, according to the direction of this trace, just the Jiangcun tomb and the tomb of Empress Dou were surrounded, and finally, in ancient times, the husband and wife were one" "Life and death are sympathetic, the tomb is subordinate, the habit of the same tomb, plus Empress Dou has been stable and stable all her life, there is no scandal, naturally it should be buried with Emperor Xiaowen. Therefore, after synthesizing so much conclusive evidence, the academic community finally officially announced the fact that the Jiangcun Tomb was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, and also broke the error in the record of Emperor Wen's mausoleum since the Yuan Dynasty. So next, we hope that archaeologists can find anything in this tomb that can reproduce history.