Text/Feng Xuanyi
In April 1995, in Gaoping, Shanxi, it was the season of spring ploughing, and a farmer was repairing the land in the field. At this time, he found some bones in the soil, and after careful identification, he initially identified them as human bones. Then he continued digging, digging more and more bones, and at the same time digging out 17 sword coins and 1 copper cluster.
In this way, the news of Gao Ping's discovery of the "ancient tomb" did not go away. In October 1995, archaeologists excavated the area where the bones were found and named the site "Yonglu Village No. 1 Bone Pit". In this bone pit, archaeologists found that "almost no complete skeleton" was buried, and according to preliminary estimates, about 130 individuals were buried. Among them, the bones are "disorganized and stacked vertically and horizontally". It is estimated that the human bones in the pit are all male, and the age is the most in the 30 years. According to the arrangement of bones and trauma observation, the vast majority of the deceased were mass-buried after being killed. The time of burial, according to historians, is the bones of the Warring States period. There are still more than ten bone pits that have been found around Yonglu Village. Based on this, archaeologists initially determined that this was the site of the Battle of Changping.
In July 2020, Gaoping, Shanxi Province, found the bone pit again. The bone pits found this time are about 0.6 meters thick and more than 20 meters long, and are distributed in bands. This time, the bones were also found by some local farmers in Gaoping City. After on-site investigation by local cultural relics departments, this ribbon-like skeleton may be related to the Battle of Changping, which occurred 2200 years ago. Experts believe that this is most likely the bone pit where Zhao Guo's dead soldiers were buried in the Battle of Changping.
As a result, the Battle of Changping, a large-scale battle of unprecedented scale a thousand years ago, once again entered people's field of vision.
The Battle of Changping took place in 262 BC, and the decisive battle broke out in 260, which was a decisive contest between the two great powers of the Qin and Zhao states for the Shangdang region. This war is recorded in more detail in Sima Qian's "Records of History".
According to Sima Qian's account, in 262 BC, the State of Qin attacked Shangdang in Korea, and Shangdang surrendered to the State of Zhao and asked the State of Zhao to send troops to support it. Zhao Guo accepted the surrender and sent troops to the party. The Battle of Qin and Zhao thus broke out. After many rounds of fighting, the two sides formed a confrontation in Changping.
At the critical moment, the State of Qin used a counter-plot to successfully alienate the State of Zhao, causing the King of Zhao to replace the veteran general Lian Po and make Zhao Kuo replace him and command the Zhao army. The State of Qin was also replaced by the famous general Bai Qi. In the summer of 260 BC, Zhao Kuo, the new commander of the State of Zhao, ordered the Zhao army to take the initiative to attack in an attempt to crush the Qin army. Unexpectedly, the Zhao army was cut off by the Qin army, and hundreds of thousands of Zhao troops fell into the siege of the Qin army.
The Zhao army has been trapped in Changping, and for 46 days, in the desperate situation of no reinforcements outside and no grain and grass inside, Zhao Kuo was determined to fight to the death and lead the army to break through. During the breakout, Zhao Kuo was killed in battle, and the rest of the Zhao pawns surrendered to the Qin army. Bai Qi, the commander of the Qin army, believed that the soldiers of the Zhao State did not sincerely surrender, they were capricious and could not leave a living mouth, otherwise there would be disasters in the future. As a result, Bai Qi killed all 450,000 Zhao Guo's descendants.
Killing 450,000 people at once is a chilling number. If you think about the battlefield of that year, it is difficult to describe its fierceness with words such as "corpse mountain and blood sea".
Because this number is too large, many scholars have raised objections. Some historians have suggested that the total population of the Zhao state at that time was about 2.23 million, and the adult men were about 400,000. If Sima Qian's record is true and credible, then the Battle of Changping would be equivalent to killing all the adult men of the Zhao Kingdom at once. In fact, it is unlikely that the Zhao state will throw all the adult men into the Battle of Changping, after all, the zhao state still needs the rest of the army to defend the Zhao capital Handan and guard the border.
For a long time, many scholars have devoted themselves to the study of the Battle of Changping, and whether or not to find the historical relics of the Baiqi Pit that killed the Zhao State has also become the key to the study of this battle. Archaeological excavations in 1995 and this year have provided an archaeological basis for historians to study the Battle of Changping.
Judging from the reports of this archaeological excavation, none of the bones in the pit were complete and placed in a disorderly manner, which shows that the battle was undoubtedly very tragic.
Do you think that it is not credible to kill 450,000 Zhao Guo descendants in the white pit?
The Chronicle of History has always been regarded by historians as a history of faith, and many of the records in it have been confirmed to be true. So, this time, can the archaeological excavations in Gaoping, Shanxi, once again prove that Sima Qian's record is credible? It seems that it will have to wait for further study by historians. What do you think, you can communicate in the comments section!