introduction
"The First Year of Emperor Guangming of the Second Year of the Age of The Emperor": "By virtue of jun mo words, the marquis will be crowned with ten thousand bones." "From ancient times to the present, there is no victory in a war that is not piled up with corpses and mountains of blood, and the accumulated white bones are stepping stones for the king's meritorious deeds. And the most innocent in the war are those innocent people, who are not only burdened by the war, struggling to survive in the fluttering mountains and rivers, but even face the danger of being killed at any time.
01
After Qin Shi Huang unified the Six Kingdoms, in order to better control the mind and unify the country, he launched an operation of "burning books and pit Confucianism", which caused countless Confucians to lose their lives. "We can imagine what a tragic sight the Battle of Changping, which killed 400,000 prisoners of war at once. The leader of the Battle of Changping was Bai Qi, a victorious general who had made great contributions to the Qin state.
▲ "Book Burning Pit Confucianism" painting
In the fifty-third year of the Zhou Dynasty (262 BC), Bai Qi led the Qin army and the Zhao state in a decisive battle at Shangdang, resulting in a complete victory for the Qin army, capturing 450,000 Zhao troops. For these Zhao soldiers, Bai Qi decided to kill them all, and the result was that a total of 450,000 people were not spared, and all died at the hands of the Qin army. Bai Qi became famous in the first world war and became the most feared battlefield killer at that time. Since then, he has been even more invincible, invincible in the battlefield, and played an extremely important role in the unification of China by the Qin state.
▲ White up stills
There have been many battles in Chinese history that have adopted the "pit killing" strategy, so historians have given an explanation for the remarks that people have proposed that "pit killing" is equivalent to burying alive: if you think like this, it is completely wrong, the real situation of "pit killing" is simply thousands of miles worse, "pit killing" is far more terrifying than we think, and the real scene is even more frightening. "Pit killing" was originally written as "shoveling", and "阬" means "gatehouse", not "digging a pit and burying alive" as we understand it. For example, in the Book of Han, it is recorded that Wang Mang "killed" the courtiers.
▲ Wang Mang stills
At that time, in order to exclude dissidents, Wang Mang directly issued an edict to "kill" Zhao Ming, Liu Xin, Zhai Yi, Huo Hong, and others and their nine ethnic groups. What is even more incredible is that Wang Mang also ordered that their corpses be covered with thick soil, and the final area and height of the construction were six zhang, which was called "Jingguan", which means "阬". After that, he ordered people to insert a flagpole with the words "Anti-Thief Whale Salamander" written on the mound, so as to play a role in killing chickens and monkeys. From this, we can know that "Jingguan" does not refer to ordinary pavilions, but to mounds of earth made of corpses.
▲Schematic diagram of "Jingguan"
Zhang Dai of the Ming Dynasty also has a related account in "Night Sailing Ship", saying that after the ancients killed the enemy in battle, they usually covered the body with loess and piled it into a building similar to a gatehouse. In a major battle, the number of enemy soldiers killed is innumerable, and the remains are piled up, so people can only cover them layer by layer, and the final height of this landscape depends directly on the number of enemy corpses. And the Jingguan built by Bai Qi is full of hundreds of thousands of soldiers' corpses, and its Jingguan must be magnificent, and the enemy country will also have a great shock in its heart when it sees such a scene.
02
It should be pointed out that in history, not only Bai Qi and Wang Mang did such things, but similar things also happened in the Tang Dynasty. According to the Old Book of Tang, "In the fifth year, Emperor Zhao, Sima Changsun of Guangzhou, was in a battle against the Sui Dynasty and destroyed the Jingguan established by Goryeo. It can be seen from this that "Killing Chikukyo-kan" was a common means used by ancient people to show demonstrations and deter the enemy army. This was also reflected in the wars between the Jin and Chu states. In the battle, the Jin army was defeated by the Chu state, and later the king of Chu Zhuang, at the suggestion of the chu minister, killed all the Jin soldiers and built a jingguan to deter other countries.
▲King Zhuang of Chu went out on a campaign
According to the relevant historical records, we can know that during the turbulent period of the Sixteen Dynasties, there were many cases of "killing" in China. In the fourth year of the Western Jin Dynasty (310 BC), after Shi Le defeated the Jin army, he killed tens of thousands of prisoners at Wu Deshan. In the fifth year of Jin Jianxing (317 BC), Liu Cong of the former Zhao State killed 15,000 people in succession in order to solve the problem of the Pingyang nobles. Gradually, the skew became a very common tactic in warfare, and soldiers and rulers were very keen to use it to achieve their own ends. Whether in war, or in the management of the country and the control of ideas, the killing has played a very strong deterrent effect. Therefore, until the Ming Dynasty, "stagnant killing" has not withdrawn from the stage of history.
▲ Wokou stills
During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army went out to attack Annam, and after winning the victory, the enemy army was killed and built into Jingguan; during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the Wukou invaded China, the Ming army repelled it, and later built their corpses into Jingguan. As the course of history continues to accelerate, the sasaku and Kyokan have also been drowned in time like the stories of those times, and people today can no longer see the real Kyokan. But it will serve as a profound mark on the persecution of people in China's history, and it will not be forgotten.
epilogue
"Ten Thousand Miles": "Armor is born of lice, and all surnames are dead." "The existence of killing constantly reminds people that war is bloody and cruel, so we must love peace, cherish peace, and even more cherish the hard-won peaceful life."
Resources:
"The Second Song of the Age of The Self-Hai Dynasty, the First Year of Emperor Guangming of the Emperor", "Ten Thousand Miles"