When everyone sang the praises of Zhu Yuanzhang, the "Emperor of Cloth", as a tyrant of a generation, who knew that he was actually a cruel man and fierce in nature?
A large number of funerary women were found in Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb, but strangely, the women's legs were in an "O" shape, as if they had been deliberately posed like this.
So why is this happening?
In fact, these martyrs are not posed by people, to know why this phenomenon occurs, we must first start with the funeral system of the Ming Dynasty.
Since ancient times, there have been many dynasties that have used people for martyrdom, since the beginning of the Yin Shang, and even this system continued until the Qing Dynasty was not yet extinct.
Ancient people were influenced by feudal ideas, they believed that "death is like life", that is to say, the emperor's service after death should be the same as when he was alive, and in addition to the burial of gold and silver jewelry, there must be someone to serve.
It is said that "the dead are great", and people in ancient times thought feudally, believing that the soul is immortal after death, so the treatment of ghosts is extremely respectful, which has led to the emergence of a series of systems after the death of people.
To talk about the largest martyrdom in history, it is qin ii, and the craftsmen who participated in the construction of the mausoleum were all blocked inside, tens of thousands of people.
Because this system of burial was so cruel, it was abolished during the Han Dynasty, but in the Yuan Dynasty, it was revived.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang had many reforms in other aspects at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the burial system followed the practice of the Yuan Dynasty, and after that, until the Qing Dynasty, it was never stopped.
Nowadays, many TV dramas only talk about palace fighting, not about the system, as if people think that entering the emperor's harem can enjoy all the glory and wealth, but where is the emperor's concubine so good?
In the regulations of the early Ming Dynasty, all concubines except the empress were to be martyred!
According to records, Zhu Yuanzhang's concubines totaled 46 people, and a total of 42 children were born for him, but regardless of whether there were children or not, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that these concubines all became "funerary products".
Some of the concubines' sons were already the kings of the clan, and even one concubine had just given birth to a princess, but she was not spared.
After Zhu Yunjiao ascended the throne, according to Zhu Yuanzhang's will before his death, all the concubines of the former emperor were to be martyred, and as soon as the order came out, the palace was in chaos.
A very small number of powerful concubines in the family saved their lives by dredging up relations, but most of the concubines, even if their fathers and brothers were generals who had made great military achievements in the DPRK, were not spared.
After the concubines were buried, Zhu Yunjiao ordered that the families of the concubines be rewarded, and many of their fathers and brothers were awarded the positions of "thousand households" and "hundred households", and these positions were still hereditary.
You know, some people have made great contributions to the imperial court's southern conquest of the northern war, and finally only got a position of a hundred households, and it is precisely for this reason that many concubines are abandoned by their families.
After all, in the feudal era, the monarch wanted his subjects to die, and the subjects had to die, let alone just give up a useless daughter to get a high position?
However, what is even more cruel is that not only the emperor's concubines are not spared, but many princes' harems, including concubines, if nothing comes out, after the prince dies, they will also be martyred together.
At the beginning, after the death of Zhu Zhu, the King of Qin, because princess Wang of Qin had no children, she was directly ordered by Zhu Yuanzhang to be buried with other concubines.
This Wang clan was extremely miserable, she was the sister of the Mengyuan general Wang Baobao, who was originally accused of marrying Zhu Zhu to become the Princess of Qin, because the special status of the Wang clan meant that Zhu Zhu could not inherit the throne in this lifetime.
So Zhu Zhu transferred all these unwillingness to the Wang clan, beating and cursing her day by day, in this case, the Wang clan can save his life, how can he have children?
But Zhu Yuanzhang didn't care about these things, as long as there were no children, they would all be martyred!
If we want to say why Zhu Yuanzhang followed the system of martyrdom, it can only be said that Zhu Yuanzhang was a cruel person by nature.
In zhu Yuanzhang's eyes, except for his own wife Empress Ma, the rest of the women were just fertility machines, and when they died, these people could not have children, what else could they do if they were left?
In the future, the imperial court will not only spend silver to raise them, but also vacate the palace to place them, and if any concubine does not want to wear a green hat for herself, she will also ruin her own name.
Thinking about it, I will still go underground with myself to serve well.
So the question is, many of the women found in Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb have posed strangely, and why?
In fact, martyrdom is also divided into dead martyrdom and live martyrdom.
Death and martyrdom is to allow them to hang themselves before they are buried, in order to relieve their suffering. Those who want to be martyred will first eat a full meal, then enter the prepared room and line up, stick their necks into the hanging white silk, and then someone will remove the small bench at his feet.
Therefore, after many emperors died, the cries in the palace were tremendous, often not because they were crying for the emperor, but because they were about to die.
And the martyrdom is even more cruel. The martyrs were imprisoned in the tomb when they were alive, and whenever they died, they were judged by their creation.
In many TV series, some of the martyred palace women are very clever, they can use sulfuric acid to corrode the dungeon to dig out the exit; they can also eat the snakes, insects, rats and ants that run into the tomb to survive, and even escape from the mausoleum within a few days.
So is it really that easy in reality?
In fact, the ancient burial system is several times more cruel than we think.
Some of the buried living people are tied hands and feet, and then thrown directly in the coffin, for example, the woman found in Zhu Yuanzhang's tomb shows a strange posture, which is a typical case of being tied up and trying to escape after being tied up, and finally dying in the struggle, and the legs take on an O-shaped posture.
During the Qin Dynasty, there was a system of directly nailing martyrs in coffins with long nails, and its cruelty was really unbearable to look at.
Because the live martyrdom is too cruel, many of the concubines and palace ladies who accompany the funeral know that waiting for death is more painful, so some people even ask for death first and then bury it.
There are also many ways to bury the living, some are imprisoned in the mausoleum, the emperor will open the organ at the first order, and the martyrs will all be killed by the organ;
However, there are very few cases where martyrs are placed in mausoleums to die. However, for these martyrs, this is more painful than being killed directly.
How long the surviving time of the living martyrs in the tomb is also related to the size of the mausoleum and the number of people.
You know, once the mausoleum is closed, it is completely sealed, and the oxygen inside is extremely limited, even if they do not need to eat and drink, the oxygen alone is not enough to let them live for a few days.
According to one study, if fewer than 18 people were martyred, they might live for three days without shouting and consuming oxygen at will.
But if the number of people reaches about 50, the oxygen in the tomb can only keep them alive for one day.
If there are more people, it may not take more than a few hours to suffocate, and what we are talking about is only theoretical estimates, and in real cases, they may not be able to last that long.
Once the tomb is closed, it will completely fall into silence and darkness, and when people are in the darkness when they know that they are about to die, their fears will inevitably grow.
Then this extreme fear may cause spasms or other diseases, so it is not known whether they will survive a day.
With such a degree of cruelty, I really can't believe how stable and happy we are living in modern times.
In ancient times, many emperors' tombs had many organs, and there were also tomb passages, and one of the functions of the tomb passages was to facilitate the burial of martyrs to enter the mausoleum.
In fact, those who can be martyred after hanging themselves are already the treatment of concubines of extraordinary status, but we know that the emperor's martyrs are not only concubines, but also palace women, servants, and even workers who build mausoleums.
In Houjiazhuang, Henan, a large tomb from the Yin Shang period was excavated, and when people excavated it, the situation in the tomb surprised people.
There was a layer of dirt underneath the owner of the tomb, and below the dirt was a row of martyrs.
That is to say, before the tomb owner is buried, the accompanying person is buried alive, and then the top layer of soil is rammed, and then the tomb owner is buried.
In addition to the burial pad under the tomb owner, many martyrs were also found in the tomb, and these martyrs all died in different ways, and a large mausoleum was full of corpses, living into a mass grave.
They had beheads, they had their hands and feet broken, and there were many children and even babies, which shows how cruel the kings of antiquity were.
The martyrdom system of the Yin Shang period had already been systematized, that is to say, the size of the officials and princes had a strict burial system, and this inhumane martyrdom was not stopped until the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, except for the Han Dynasty, which was briefly stopped.
Before the Kangxi Dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor had ordered the killing of more than 30 palace eunuchs to accompany The funeral of Concubine Dong.
When Dong Efei died of illness at the age of 22, the Shunzhi Emperor was devastated after Dong Efei's death, and he first posthumously honored Dong Efei as empress in spite of the imperial system, and then directly ordered that all the palace eunuchs who served Dong Efei be given to death and buried.
Soon after, the Shunzhi Emperor also died, and there were more than 30 harem ladies who were martyred in the harem, and their coffins followed the coffins of the Shunzhi Emperor.
The procession set off in a mighty way, and the scene was once frightening, but the Kangxi Emperor was very unbearable to see this scene, so he ordered the abolition of this terrible burial system.
The burial of the living was originally a product of feudal society, and the status of women in ancient times was low, even if they were concubines and noblewomen in the dynasty, as long as the emperor gave an order, their families still had to receive thanksgiving.
At that time, in the imperial society, the imperial order was greater than the sky, and people were poisoned by such ideas, as long as it was ordered by the emperor, no one felt that there was anything wrong.
From this point of view, how happy we should be living in a civilized society now, and in the "crossing" type of film and television and books flying all over the world, many girls have fantasized about crossing to ancient times to meet their true destiny.
So knowing the status of women in ancient times, as well as the cruel burial system in ancient times, do you still hope that you will meet your own true destiny prince and true destiny heavenly son after crossing over?