How cruel was the ancient burial system? Before people die, they will be pistons into the tomb, even the craftsmen who build the mausoleum will not be able to escape this disaster, so how long can people live after entering the tomb? To know this, let's first understand the origin of the live burial system.
The burial of the living, that is, the burial of the living for the dead emperors and nobles and other powerful figures, is an extremely cruel custom in ancient times. The identities of the people to be buried are different, and they are generally close relatives of the deceased, such as close relatives, close subjects, slaves, and captives. The number of people buried varies with the status of the deceased, ranging from hundreds to several. The history of living burial is very long. Roughly in primitive society, it flourished during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, especially in the Shang Dynasty. People believe that after death, they will go to another world, hence the saying that "death is like life". Therefore, it is very popular to use living people to accompany funerals.
After the Shang Dynasty, the Zhou, Spring and Autumn, the Warring States, and the Qin Dynasty all had funeral customs, and it is recorded in the "Mozi Festival Burial" that "the son of heaven killed martyrs, hundreds of people, dozens of widows; generals and doctors killed martyrs, dozens of people, and several widows." "In the spring, there is a popular way to use human figurines to accompany the burial, and such a way old master Kong can't look down. Only then did he say, "The initiator, there is no successor." This shows that Confucianism does not advocate human martyrdom, but the rulers have no humanity. This terrible funeral system has been perpetuated.
The bad habit of human martyrdom has risen and fallen several times in history. Flourished in the Shang Zhou Dynasty and extinct in the Han Dynasty. Including the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties, it did not appear, but after the Yuan Dynasty entered the Central Plains, this bad habit recurded again. And Zhu Yuanzhang even opened the ming dynasty's people's bad habit of martyrdom, during which the protagonist of the "change of tumu fort", Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen once issued an edict to abolish it. However, it reappeared in the early Qing Dynasty, and it was not until the Kangxi Dynasty that this evil custom, which had been passed down for thousands of years, was completely abolished. And about how to let people take the initiative to accompany the funeral, that is, to induce martyrdom. There is another extremely shameless story.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, after the daughter of King Wu committed suicide because of her resentment toward him, King Wu was very sad and built a huge mausoleum outside the city. Used to bury a daughter. The daughter's coffin was filled with gold and jade, pearl agate, and silk satin as funerary items. On the day of the funeral, King Wu let many dancers dance in the street, and specially caught a few white cranes to attract passers-by. The dancing white cranes immediately attracted hundreds of people to watch and follow these white cranes. Unconsciously, these people walked into the tomb of King Wu's daughter.
At this time, King Wu had the switch turned on, put down the 10,000-pound boulder, and imprisoned all the people and dancers in the mausoleum.
No matter how much they shouted, it did not help, so they and the white crane all became the funeral items of the daughter of King Wu.
The incident quickly spread throughout the country, and everyone hated King Wu's shameless behavior to the bone. Therefore, many people are not willing to be buried, most of them are the result of coercion and inducement.
And human martyrdom is divided into life martyrdom and death martyrdom, "life martyrdom" is to put people alive and directly into the tomb, dead martyrdom is to kill the buried person outside the tomb and then put it in the tomb. In the event of martyrdom, in order to avoid escape. The mourner will also be fixed, that is, buried alive, that is, the hands and feet of the funeral are tied, and then posed in a certain posture, and then buried alive. But this long process is even more desperate. Therefore, some funeral attendants will even take the initiative to ask for death, so that they can be buried without torture.
Most of the lists of martyrs were jointly negotiated by successive emperors and ministers, generally lower-status or childless palace people. There will also be a very small number of palace concubines who will be "voluntarily buried" because of their feelings. And those poor people who are buried alive in the tomb, in the dark and dark tomb, not only lack the necessary living conditions such as food and oxygen, but also face boundless fear and a dark environment. In this case, there is almost no possibility of escape. So how long can they live in the tomb?
The Classic of Mountains and Seas records that a woman was buried in a tomb from the Time of the Western Zhou Dynasty and was not discovered until the Wei and Jin dynasties. A few days later the woman was breathing, and a few months later she was able to speak again, but eventually died of illness. That is, this woman lived for thousands of years, of course, this is limited to mythology. Theoretically, it is impossible for a person to survive for too long in that environment.
First of all, there is no oxygen, and the ancient tombs will be sealed after the construction is completed, and there will be no entrances and exits. And the tombs buried deep underground, once sealed, mean that there will be less and less oxygen. In the absence of oxygen, people will be unconscious for as long as four to six minutes. And then death. And even if the tomb is ventilated and can provide some oxygen, the people in the tomb will die quickly because they have no food and water.
According to science, people can survive for seven days without eating, but if they don't drink water, they can only live for three days. So even if there is oxygen supply, but without water and food, people can only live for three or five days. And the last point is the inexhaustible fear. People are buried in such a dark and cold environment, which can easily lead to mental collapse, even if there is a lamp in the tomb, it is impossible to keep it on all the time. Coupled with the continuous death of the people around them, this huge psychological panic is really difficult for ordinary people to bear.
Therefore, this psychological despair will accelerate the death of people. Therefore, once a person is buried alive in the tomb, he is doomed to die. And the time of death can not be controlled by themselves, as many as three or five days, as few as a few minutes, countless fear psychology is the biggest obstacle to survival.