The act of "raping corpses" is even more heinous than tomb robbery, and it is unbelievable that this kind of despised behavior actually exists objectively, and there have been several incidents of corpse humiliation in the history of our country.
The earliest recorded incident of corpse humiliation should be the Chimei Army's "rape of Lü Lu's corpse". The Book of the Later Han Dynasty has a more detailed account of this matter, and the relevant plot is included in the Biography of Liu Penzi:
"Red eyebrows coveted property and came back to plunder." The city was completely depleted, so it collected the treasures, and because of the great arson, the palace was set on fire, and the troops were led west. In the southern suburbs of the temple, the car armor soldiers and horses are the most vigorous, with a million trumpets. Potzi rode in a king's car, rode three horses, and rode from hundreds. He plundered the city from Nanshan, fought with the general Yan Chun (严春), broke the spring, killed it, and entered The Anding and Northern Lands. In The City of Yang and Fanshu, when there was heavy snowfall, the pits and valleys were full, and the shiduo froze to death, but they were restored, excavated the tombs, took their treasures, and insulted Lü Hou's corpse. All thieves have the same rate of death as if they were born, so the red eyebrows are more obscene. ”
From this record, it can be seen that during the rebellion of the Chimei Army, the rebel army turned the imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty upside down. For tomb robbers, the joint burial tomb of Gaozu Liu Bang and Empress Lü Yan was the "highlight", and they naturally would not let go of the tomb of the founding emperor. In addition to gold and silver jewelry, these mad tomb robbers actually engaged in a more perverted business than tomb robbery--rape corpses. In this way, Lü Yan's body was insulted, and after her death, she became a plaything of the rebel army. Because the concubines of the Western Han Dynasty were buried in "jade boxes" (golden jade clothes), most of their remains came to life.
From the perspective of funeral, this advanced anti-embalming method is undoubtedly very rare, but the designers of this anti-embalming method never expected that the "jade box" would provide convenient conditions for perverted body rapists. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty explains the reasons why the Chimei Army was interested in these female corpses, and the previously mentioned "jade box" burial is one of them. Just think, the women who can become the emperor's forbidden neck should all be women who are incredibly beautiful. Since the "jade box" can keep them alive, it is inevitable that the rebels will be moved.
Before the Red Brow Army revolted, most of its members were honest and honest croppers, and what they saw every day was only some vulgar powder, when did they ever see the beautiful pink daisy in the emperor's harem? You know, only the emperor has the right to visit the concubine, and when the Red Brow Army pries open the coffin and sees these jade bodies, he is bound to want to "live an emperor addiction.". Of course, physiological motivation is only part of the reason, and the actual cause of humiliating corpses is far more than just physiological motivation. It is said that Lü Yan was over sixty years old when she passed away, and even if she was beautiful when she was young, presumably she would not be glamorous at the age of sixty. The body of a sixty-year-old woman can be distorted, presumably the direct motivation of the Red Brow Army should be to vent anger.
During the Han Dynasty, there was another incident of corpse humiliation, still caused by tomb robbery.
Emperor Huan of Han's Feng Guiren was buried due to illness. Seventy years later, during the han ling emperor's period, a group of tomb robbers infiltrated Feng Guiren's mausoleum and dug up Feng Guiren's coffin. After opening the coffin, the group of thieves found that Feng Guiren, who was lying inside, was "as colorful as ever", but his body was cold. The tomb robbers saw the mood and took turns to go forward and intercourse with the corpse. Later, the group of thieves actually quarreled over the issue of order, which led to a gunfight. The cannibalist tomb robbers made a great move and alarmed the officers and men guarding the tomb, which enabled the group of tomb robbers to be all captured.
This passage is from the Book of Search for God, but the rigor of this passage is really not flattering.
According to the records of the Zhengshi, although there were many women in the harem of Emperor Huan of Han, Liu Zhi, none of these women were able to give birth to heirs for him, so after Liu Zhi's death, there was no candidate for succession at that time. Under these circumstances, Empress Dou, who had already been promoted to empress, had to stand up and welcome Liu Hong to inherit the throne. Liu Hong was only thirteen years old when he ascended the throne, and he could not preside over the government at all. Like empress dowager Linchao in many dynasties, Empress Dowager Dou assisted the government and helped the little emperor take care of the country.
Liu Hong served as emperor for a total of twenty-two years, and died in 189 AD. If feng guiren's tomb was stolen seventy years after her burial, it can be speculated that her death was at least before 119 AD. Apparently, Liu Zhi had not been born before 119 AD, let alone ascended the throne. Obviously, there are serious loopholes in the record of the Book of Searching Gods. However, although the record of the Search for God is not rigorous, it is an objective fact that Feng Guiren's body was insulted.
In the Zizhi Tongjian, there is such a record that after Empress Dou died of illness, all of Dou's relatives were punished. When discussing the burial specifications of Empress Dou, some courtiers proposed to be buried according to the specifications of the nobles, and buried in the same mausoleum area as Feng Guiren. However, the minister Chen Qiu objected to this proposal and put forward his own views:
Feng Guiren's tomb had been patronized by tomb robbers, the skeleton was exposed, and the corpses of the tomb robbers were juxtaposed, "soul pollution", and Feng Guiren had never done anything meritorious to the country in his life, so Empress Dou should not be buried with Feng Guiren. From this text, we can see that the historical facts are not much different from the records of the Search for God, but the ages of the two are not matched.
Therefore, Chen Qiu's words actually implied another meaning, that is, the body of Feng Guiren was indeed insulted by tomb robbers. Of course, Chen Qiu could not have said it so bluntly in public, so he only took the specific details with "merging with the thief".
Due to the many incidents of "corpse humiliation" in China's history, this kind of gimmicky and curious theme quickly swept the literary circles, and the bridge sections of various corpse rapes were frequently transplanted into ancient literary works.
For example, in the "Awakening to the Everlasting Word", such a story is included:
During the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, there was a fan dalang who opened a hotel in Kaifeng, and his younger brother Fan Erlang was handsome and handsome, and he was a well-known handsome man. In a chance encounter, a girl named Zhou Shengxian met Fan Erlang, a young man and woman who fell in love at first sight and both fell ill with lovesickness when they returned home. In order to marry Fan Erlang, Zhou Shengxian asked his father to discuss family affairs with the Fan family, who knew that Zhou Erlang's father thought that Fan Erlang's family was poor and unworthy of his daughter, and resolutely refused to agree. Zhou Shengxian was depressed and died of illness not long after. When the Zhou family buried Zhou Shengxian, they put all the antiques and soft ones placed in her boudoir into the coffin as funerary items.
When Zhou Shengxian was buried, the Zhou family hired some helpers to dig graves, and among the helpers in this group was a guy named Zhu Zhen. Zhu Zhen usually earns money by digging graves and carrying coffins for others, but his other identity is unknown. Every night, Zhu Zhen, who came from a family of tomb robbers, would transform into a tomb robber and specifically pick those rich "patrons". When helping to bury Zhou Shengxian, Zhu Zhen was particularly red-eyed about his rich funeral offerings. In order to keep these burial items for himself, Zhu Zhen left a heart eye when filling the grave, and moved his hands and feet on the graveyard for the next tomb robbery.
Zhu Zhen's mother saw her son go home to find "crime tools" such as shovels, knew that her son was going to do his old job again, and wanted to stop Zhu Zhen from robbing the tomb with the story that happened to his father. It turned out that twenty years ago, when Zhu Zhen's father was robbing the tomb, he saw the corpse in the coffin and smiled at himself, and Zhu Zhen's father was frightened and scattered, and he died a few days after returning home. Zhu Zhen had heard this story many times, he couldn't listen to his mother's words at all, and that night he still sneaked out of the house and came to the cemetery to prepare to dig up Zhou Shengxian's grave.
After Zhu Zhen dug up the grave, he pried open Zhou Shengxian's coffin. Seeing that Zhou Shengxian was wearing a lot of gold and silver jewelry on his head, Zhu Zhen took off all these jewelry with his bare hands. Zhu Zhen did not know whether other parts of the corpse were hiding burial items, so he took off the body's clothes. After stripping Zhou Shengxian naked, Zhu Zhen found that this girl who had just been buried was very beautiful, and he actually became obscene and raped her. In fact, Zhou Shengxian did not really die, but just fainted in the past. Now that he had gained Yang Qi, Zhou Shengxian slowly opened his eyes. Zhu Zhen was almost scared to death, jumped up, and stood by the coffin trembling.
The girl asked, "Who are you?" Zhu Zhen saw that Zhou Shengxian would still gasp, put his mind at ease, and conjure up a set of ghost words: "I came to save you." Zhou Shengxian Bingxue was smart, seeing himself lying in the coffin, all his clothes were removed, and instantly understood his situation. Zhu Zhen saw that Zhou Shengxian could not hide it, so he simply took the sword and axe, prepared to do nothing and not stop, and then sent Zhou Shengxian to see the King of Yan. However, when it was time to do it, Zhu Zhen was a little reluctant again. Zhou Shengxian said, "Can you take me to see my lover Fan Erlang, I will have a heavy thanks." Zhu Zhensi came and went, but he could not kill this girl, so he simply gave up and let Zhou Shengxian have a way to live.
In this story, although Zhu Zhen's behavior is disgraceful, if he had not dug up Zhou Shengxian's grave, I am afraid that Zhou Shengxian would have been difficult to revive. It is a pity that when Zhou Shengxian climbed out of the cemetery to find Fan Erlang in the hotel, he was killed by Fan Erlang as a ghost.
There are many such vivid stories in ancient times, and many ancient writers have become accustomed to the niche hunting theme of "rape corpses".
So, why is the phenomenon of tomb robbers "raping corpses" so frequent?
People who can rob graves have psychological problems, and the bodies that are violated are often women. Tomb robbers often go insane and commit some perverted behaviors in highly stressful situations. In addition, there is another reason for the frequent occurrence of tomb robbery and corpse theft, that is, according to the archaeological results of the archaeological community, there are more cases of female corpses not decaying. From the ancient corpses unearthed in recent years, we can find that the vast majority of well-preserved remains are women. For example, the Han corpses in Lianyungang and the female corpses of Mawangdui are all women.
In any case, the act of robbing the tomb itself cannot be forgiven, and the insulters are worse than the tomb robbers, and this kind of animalistic behavior is bound to be condemned by conscience and morally attacked.
Resources:
[Book of the Later Han Dynasty", "Zizhi Tongjian", "Search for God", "Awakening to the Everlasting Words"]