Since ancient times, there have been some interesting archaeological discoveries in the Hangzhou area, and the history that has been lost in the long river of history will always refresh our understanding of history.
In 2014, the Hangzhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology released a message that through archaeology, they had a new understanding of the armageddon that determined the fate of a dynasty.
And these cognitions stem from the owner of the tomb group, who was a key figure that led to the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty: Hong Qiwei.
Hong was terrified
A belated major discovery
About 300 meters east of Langbi Village, Hengjie Village, Jincheng Street, Lin'an City, Hangzhou, there is a large mountain range named "General Mountain".
There is an unknown hill in the south of The General Mountain, which was no one in the early years, and then gradually had residents, where moso bamboo was planted, and there were many moso bamboo, which was aptly called "Moso Bamboo Mountain" by the locals.
Who would have thought that at the foot of this humble hillside, a key figure in the history of the Song Dynasty was buried.
Directly in front of the mountain bag is a large factory building of an agricultural company, and the open land in the southeast is a bamboo forest, and it is said that when local farmers repaired their houses here and laid foundations, they found a black hole below, and there were some green bricks in the hole, which did not look like buildings in recent years.
When the local village committee learned of this situation, it quickly reported the news to the relevant departments.
After the archaeological team came, they quickly launched a preliminary survey, and they found that the scenery and feng shui around here were very good, and it should be a big figure inside.
Excavations began in November and November 2013 and were not completed until 2014.
To the great regret of the archaeological team, they are not the first modern people to see the tomb, through the analysis of traces at the scene, the tomb has been stolen at least 3 times, and the valuable treasure inside has long been missing.
Fortunately, however, the tomb robbers only took away the rare treasures and left an epitaph.
This is a joint burial tomb, the scale is quite grand, and the structure and layout are very rigorous, which is extremely rare in the tombs in the entire Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions.
This tomb not only provides positive significance for the study of Song and Yuan tombs, but also has extraordinary significance for the study of the history of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Because the tomb has been stolen before, the epitaph is also more weathered, many fonts can not be distinguished by the naked eye, and the writing is written in cursive, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of archaeology.
There is a lot of information in it, which is very necessary for research, and archaeologists have also proposed high-tech means to assist the present and restore the content of the epitaph as much as possible.
Hong Qiwei is a native of Hangzhou, but there are very few records about him, and he may only reluctantly mention it in other people's biographies.
For example, in the "Biography of Song Shi Jia Xiangdao", it has been written about the relevant content, at least it can prove that Hong Qiwei served as the prefect of Lin'an, and his ideas on many issues are the same as Jia Xiangdao.'s.
Even though the tomb was stolen three times, archaeologists still call him a major discovery.
From an academic point of view, the tomb looks like "sealing the soil".
This sealed soil is not directly dug a pit to bury, there is still a lot of exquisiteness inside.
In ancient times, the higher the identity and status of the deceased, the thicker the soil was sealed, but these things were actually not popular in the Song Dynasty, and the theory of sealing land was not common, but before his death, the Hong prefect had many ideas about this aspect.
Although he was a prefect, he made his fiefdom quite thick.
The most interesting thing is that each soil color he uses is still different, after expert verification, the step of Hongqi Wei Prefect Guangfeng Soil has been 31 floors, reaching a height of 13 meters, and it is now a building of several floors.
From this point, it can be seen that Hong Qiwei cares a lot about his position, and there seems to be some dissatisfaction, which is one of the reasons why he "doesn't want his face".
There are also stone strips in front of the tomb to prevent theft, and the two sides have also been specially reinforced with rammed earth, and it seems that Hong Qiwei has thought about the things behind him far away.
Archaeologists considered that the tomb had been damaged in the first place, so they did not dare to open it hastily, and could only use the hole left by the tomb robbers to find a way to enter the burial chamber.
But as soon as they entered, the experts were dumbfounded, and the bricks were layered on top of each other, supplemented by soil and lime reinforcement, which is a rare situation in tombs in the region.
Most of the artificial ramming is a hand-holding, with a lot of small gravel piled on the tomb building, but also specially arranged "z" shaped drainage ditch, very regional characteristics.
In addition to him, his wife is buried here.
The entire burial chamber is composed of five parts: holding hands, sealing soil, tomb building, burial chamber and drainage, but unfortunately, the most valuable cultural relics have long been taken away by tomb robbers, and only a few coins and coffins have been unearthed at the scene, as well as scattered remains.
The most interesting thing is that he also wrote down some of the things he experienced in his epitaph, including one major event: the Battle of Dingjiazhou.
A faceless Zhizhou
For the excavation and examination of the tomb of Hong Qiwei, the president lasted for nearly two years.
Historical sources have few records of him, but depending on the size of this burial chamber, this should not be the case.
First of all, Hong Yu, who was Hong Qiwei's great-grandfather and served as a young master of the crown prince; then there is his grandfather Hong Zhikui, who was also a scholar of the Duanming Temple.
Growing up in such a family is already much higher than others.
Therefore, when Hong Qiwei was a child, he was influenced by his family, full of poetry and books, and his family was an official eunuch, and he naturally did not want to be left behind, and when he was only in his twenties, he embarked on the road of becoming an official by examination.
Having experienced such an education, the level is naturally very high, and entering the official field is not a difficult task for him, so when he first debuted, Ma Guangzu, Wang Zhiyuan and many others felt that this person would have something to do in the future.
However, he did not rise with the trend, and it was also related to his own personality.
Once, he attended a talking session, during which Wu and Wang Ergong asked him to talk about his position, and the young Hong Qiwei did not consider any human and sophisticated things at all, he only talked about his ambitions.
He felt that since he had already become an official, he could not change his personality and path because of anything else, and there was no need to mention anything "flexible" at all.
With these words, the second duke shook his head and felt that this child would not judge the situation and would certainly have nothing to do in the future.
It can be said that the Second Gong also saw half of the people, and they certainly could not have imagined that Hong Qiwei had actually written a heavy stroke in the history of the Southern Song Dynasty.
The path of this "third generation of officials" in the early years was not smooth, not only did he not have the opportunity to show his talents, but he also did not receive any heavy use, and what he got from the family in the first half of his life was only a full belly.
As a result, just when Hong Qi was afraid and depressed, he met a very important person, his name was Jia Xiangdao, and he was a powerful minister.
Jia Xiangdao
Jia Rudao, a man who has a great means of doing things, not only uses tough means to prevent the rich from hoarding grain, but also openly advocates the "public land law" that harms the interests of many people, and also reduces the circulation of paper money to stabilize prices.
Such an approach was good for the imperial court, at least to alleviate the financial crisis and difficulties faced by the emperor.
However, these measures have also offended many landlord classes, and they have also tried their best to find trouble for Jia Rudao and force him to step down.
It was good to want to make changes, but Jia Seemed to be in a hurry, some measures were not fully done, and he began to work on other places again.
At that time, the military generals of the imperial court often falsely reported expenses and took some money with them, and Jia Rudao, knowing that he was very anxious after knowing it, directly implemented the "Intention Law", the purpose of which was to verify the specific expenses of the military generals.
In this way, those military generals who are accustomed to making quick money are naturally unwilling, burying the hidden danger of instability.
Overall, he was a good official with a lot of ideas, but he was a little anxious, plus the Southern Song Dynasty was already facing external troubles at that time.
During this time, Hong Qiwei has been following the pace of Jia Rudao and becoming his right and left arm, and no matter how many people oppose many things that Jia Rudao proposed, Hong Qiwei will always raise his hand in approval.
If the Southern Song Dynasty could be stable for a long time, perhaps the influence of Jia Xiangdao and Hong Qiwei would be even greater.
However, in 1275, the Southern Song Dynasty finally encountered a fierce enemy: Kublai Khan.
This battle, known in history as the "Battle of Dingjiazhou", was commanded by Jia Xiangdao himself in the Southern Song Dynasty, while Hong Qiwei assumed the post of logistics chief, and all the things used in the war were all responsible for Hong Qiwei.
The result of this battle need not be said more, even if Jia Rudao had ideals, in the face of the menacing Kublai Khan army, the gap was still too large, Jia Rudao fought a big defeat, but also let the Southern Song Dynasty lose the room for redemption.
In this way, those figures who were at odds with Jia Xiangdao stood up one after another, and everyone was excited and aimed their spearhead at him, and soon, Jia Rudao was demoted.
On his way to Guangdong to charge the army, Zheng Huchen, who had a vendetta against him, repeatedly reminded him to commit suicide, but Jia Rudao felt that he was left in Qingshan and was not afraid of no firewood, but he was unwilling to die, and Zheng Huchen tried his best to finally execute Jia Rudao.
According to Hong Qiwei's statement in the epitaph, that would be Jia Xiangdao's life, but wanted to gather the rout to fight again, but in the end it did not materialize, the infantry commander was Sun Huchen, who had just come into contact with the Yuan army and directly collapsed.
And the matter of escaping, each has its own saying.
In the "Biography of Yuan Shi Boyan", it is said that Xia Guixian, the commander of the water army, escaped first, while in the "Biography of Song Shi Jia Xiangdao", it is said that Jia Rudao and Sun Huchen escaped together, and finally The epitaph of Hong Qiwei says that Sun Huchen ran away, which can no longer be verified.
However, Hong qiwei also mentioned some little-known history.
Still
For example, after the defeat of Ding Jiazhou, Chen Yizhong and Liu Mengyan, two people who had been promoted by Jia Xiangdao, both stabbed Jia Xiangdao on the fold, for example, Chen Yizhong directly said on the fold that Jia Xiangdao had two hearts and deliberately lost the war.
At that time, the imperial court must have been angry, and hearing them say this made it even more firm in the idea of exileing Jia Xiangdao.
Without Jia Rudao, there would be no Hong Qiwei, but what Hong Qiwei did later also made people angry when they thought about it.
In January of the following year, the capital of Nanjing, Lin'an, was occupied, so that Hong Qiwei would certainly not be able to stay in Lin'an, and he would have to find a safe place.
Experts in the history of the Southern Song Dynasty said that the failure of Ding Jiazhou was actually equivalent to directly dismantling the "big beams" of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the hero Wen Tianxiang, who was later known to everyone, would actually lead some small-scale wars, and it would not become a big climate at all.
Wen Tianxiang
Since Jia Rudao was demoted and left, the rest of the matter naturally fell on the head of the prefect.
In fact, if Hong Qiwei could go in the direction of Jia Xiangdao, and gather the remnants of the defeated soldiers together to protect the city, at least the Southern Song Dynasty could perish a little later, and perhaps, there were other ways.
Hong Qiwei shouted the slogan very loudly, and posted "If the north rides, there is death and no leave!" ”
These eight big characters also made everyone indignant, thinking that the prefect was going to take himself to fight a good battle.
As a result, the iron horse of the Yuan army had just approached the city gate, and Hong Qiwei directly abandoned the city and fled, directly performing a "walk without descending".
Running away from this kind of thing is the most humiliating thing in any dynasty, and Hong Qiwei really did it.
He finally returned to Lin'an to spend his old age, and gave himself a name, "humble quan", taken apart, the word "humble" represents the meaning of not very clever, and "all" has the meaning of preserving integrity, whether he is self-deprecating or what other ideas, from the current point of view, it can not be analyzed.
Perhaps, Hong Qiwei did have the meaning of regret in his later years.
Hong Qiwei's life was very contradictory, but he committed a taboo in the world, and the emperor called him to defend the city, but he fled without a fight, which directly led to the final demise of the Southern Song Dynasty.
It is such a person, but also sealed his own tomb 31 layers of soil, it is indeed a little faceless, archaeologists see that the estimation is a little angry, a person who fell without a fight, why do you still have the face to perform such a generous gift, how can you be kind enough to write the story of your escape and attachment to the power on the epitaph?
And next to the tomb was his wife Lang Shi.
Lang's epitaph is engraved with 13 lines, and between the lines are All the lines that show Hong Qiwei's nostalgia for his wife, and it seems that he is a person who cherishes love and righteousness.
The relationship between the two is still very good, the two families are also door-to-door, Lang Shi also received a good education, when Hong Qiwei went out to be an official, she dealt with the family in an orderly manner.
As a result, Lang's confinement unfortunately contracted a wind and cold disease, and he took the wrong medicine in a hurry, and died at the age of 38.
This kind of bereavement also made Hong Qiwei unbearable, he has been living in his thoughts later, and has already arranged for the next person, and after death, they will also stay together, and finally achieve this husband and wife tomb.
His own personality is very complicated, he can say everything when facing his wife, but in the face of the Yuan Army, he pulls out his leg and runs.
In his early years, he was still very dignified, which also made him a little unable to climb up in the Southern Song Dynasty officialdom, but later his attachment to the powerful ministers also made people feel that a lot of changes had taken place in him, at least, he was no longer the hongqi he once was.
The most interesting thing is that Hong Qiwei used the word "clumsy" to summarize his life, which is really intriguing, but all this is still lost in the dust of history.
reference
1 Excavation of the Tomb of HongQiwei, the prefect of Lin'an in the Southern Song Dynasty, the epitaph restores the decisive battle between the Song and Yuan Dynasties, China News Network
2 An epitaph deeply revealed the secret - "four prefects" Hongqi Fear Hangzhou Network