In recent years, with the continuous popularity of novels and movies on the theme of tomb robbery, the profession of tomb robbery has gradually attracted the attention of more and more readers and audiences. In the eyes of many people, the profession of tomb robbery is very mysterious and full of excitement, and the tomb robbers not only know a lot of feng shui metaphysics and the ability to divide the gold and the cave, but also have endless wealth obtained from the underground.
At present, the most famous tomb robber in film and television novels is Hu Bayi, but after all, it is only a novel, and there has been a capable person in the field of tomb robbery in Chinese history, this person is Cao Cao.
He used the money he had obtained from tomb robbery to feed 100,000 troops.
If Cao Cao was also the overlord of the Three Kingdoms, why did he rely on tomb robbery to feed the army?
How did Liu Bei, who was Cao Cao's opponent, raise the army?
Image: Stills of the tomb robbery
First, why did Cao Cao rely on tomb robbery to raise an army
The end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was one of the most unstable periods in China's history, when there was corruption within the imperial court and fierce rivalries between eunuchs and courtiers. The landlords' powerful annexation of peasant land led to numerous peasant uprisings, and later large-scale conflicts and chaos broke out among the rulers over power and profit, and the only forces that survived this power scuffle were Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan.
After this chaos, Cao Cao independently controlled his own forces, which sounded domineering, but the hundreds of thousands of his soldiers under him to eat and pay were almost astronomical.
At first Cao Cao didn't have it at all
Enough money and food to feed the army
, then he
And then again
How to feed this huge
target
army
this?
Photo: Stills of Cao Cao leading an army on a expedition
Because the situation was particularly chaotic at that time, everyone wanted to get a piece of the pie in this chaotic world, which led to constant wars, the people had no intention of developing productive forces, and the social economy was seriously impacted, and people could not even take care of their own food and clothing.
In this case, it was difficult for Cao Cao to obtain enough military expenses by increasing taxes, and in desperation, he decided to support the army by robbing tombs. In order to organize an army of five thousand people, Cao Cao spent all the silver on his body, and at the same time, he pieced it together to raise enough money. In ancient times, even if it was a prince of one side, pulling people into the army had to give rewards and salaries to others.
Although these magnates have a high status and can make others fall to the ground with a single order, if there is no food to make the soldiers hungry, I am afraid that no one will want to follow them. There is no team without money, and the reality is so cruel.
Cao Cao really had no choice, and finally had to go to the graves of others to dig up some treasures for money.
Of course, the act of robbing the tomb is very immoral, so his behavior of destroying the peace of the deceased has been criticized by posterity, which has also become a stain that he can never erase.
Image: Stills of Cao Cao
Cao Cao is different from ordinary small tomb robbers in tomb robbers.
He not only set up a special division of labor for tomb robbery, but even set up a lieutenant who touched gold
One post
to manage, it was also the first official tomb robbery institution ever.
If those who have stolen their tombs know that someone has set up a huge institution in order to steal the little treasure in their tombs, I don't know if they will climb out angrily and curse people?
Cao Cao has been even more unable to stop since he discovered that digging graves can be exchanged for a large amount of wealth, and he has led the tomb robbery team to dig one mausoleum after another. Not only Cao Cao robbed the tomb, because the living conditions of the people at that time were not good, so there were really many people who started the idea of the dead, which was good, and many slightly famous tombs at that time were almost dug up.
Many poets in ancient times often lamented that they were not born at the right time, and if these people who had been dug up of their graves had known about it, they would have lamented that their deaths were not timely. They really should not have died before the Eastern Han Dynasty, and in the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, from the people to the officials, they were digging tombs, and almost none of the tombs of those who died before the Eastern Han Dynasty were spared.
Image: Grave stills
According to historical records, Cao Cao's most proud one was to excavate the tomb of Liang Xiaowang, the younger brother of Emperor Jing of Han, and reaped great rewards. From this point of view, after Cao Cao had his own professional tomb robbery organization, even the tomb robbery first picked up the fat hand, was it afraid that others would rush to the front to search for his treasure?
But it is no wonder that Cao Cao obtained a huge amount of wealth by robbing tombs, especially the tombs of princes.
Tomb robbery realized the accumulation of original entrepreneurial capital for him and provided for his hegemony
finish
Strong support.
It can be said that without the treasures and wealth of these underground dead, Cao Cao probably really could not support his power, and xiongtu hegemony might have died early in the morning.
Image: Stills of the underground dead's treasures and fortunes
Second, Liu Bei's "plundering" road to raising troops
Compared with Cao Cao's means of sending dead people to wealth, Liu Bei raised the army by sending living people's wealth. Liu Bei was actually just a peddler who woven straw mats and sold straw shoes at the beginning, and did not have any strong capital, after starting from Zhuo County, he often attached himself to other princes
Yes, by virtue of
make move
With the ability of the empty glove white wolf, he gained a lot of benefits
，
And then gradually
Form
Got up on your own
party
power.
Photo: Liu Bei weaves straw mats selling straw shoes stills
So how did he feed the army after he had established his own power? In the early days of Liu Bei's establishment, it mainly relied on the support of wealthy merchants. This kind of operation is similar to pulling sponsors to raise funds for the event now.
Later, Liu Bei "pulled sponsorship" and even became addicted, from the early rich merchant Zhang Shiping to the rich merchant Mi Zhu in Xuzhou, and then to Cao Cao, Yuan Shao, Liu Biao, etc., who later attached himself, everyone became the object of Liu Bei's wool.
Liu Bei relied on the sponsorship of these rich people to strengthen his strength step by step. After Liu Bei took Jingzhou and Yizhou, military spending became more tense, so he adopted the despicable means of "plundering" to obtain money.
Image: Stills sponsored by Liu Beila
Before attacking Yizhou, Liu Bei made an agreement with his soldiers: as long as things were successful, he would take out all the gold and silver wealth in the city to reward the soldiers. After taking Yizhou, he did indeed hold a feast with the soldiers and divided all the gold and silver he had stolen from the people.
Later, because he was worried about the shortage of military supplies, he even followed the advice of his subordinates and printed coins at will to collect the supplies of the people in the city. After the coin was minted, Liu Bei's soldiers used this pan-printing "straight hundred dollars" to exchange supplies with the people. A few months later, Liu Bei's treasury was filled with supplies from the people. Liu Bei's move is really high, it is simply an upgraded version of the empty glove white wolf, and it looks justified.
According to the cultural relics that have been excavated so far, the Shu Han regime established by Liu Bei did mint a large amount of "straight hundred dollars", and Liu Bei plundered a large number of resources from the people through this seemingly bright and upright means.
Although he used these supplies to make up for himself
at
Military
on
insufficient
It is conducive to further strengthening its own strength
But this act of plunder has taken a huge toll on the people
Let the people live once again in extreme poverty.
The picture comes from the Internet: a kind of "straight hundred dollars"
Through the two leading figures of the State of Wei and the State of Shu, it is not difficult to infer that the leaders of each force during the Three Kingdoms period had their own "know-how" to make their own fortunes and raise troops, if not, how could they dominate in the chaotic world?
If Cao Cao's act of digging up people's graves and taking people's treasures to make dead people's wealth is a lack of morality, then Liu Bei's act of plundering the people's living wealth is against conscience. However, these behaviors of theirs were also determined by the social background at that time, the society cannot be turbulent all the time, and one side must stand up to make the country unified again and let history continue to move forward.
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic was produced by the team of the Big Cafe Say History Studio!