When it comes to tomb robbery, there are many stories in it, especially in ancient times.
Picture: The scene of modern tomb robbery in Henan,
Tomb robbery is a business that does not see the sun, and the folk call it "digging the grave of the ancestors" is not only against the law, but also against human morality. Therefore, when they commit theft, they will cover up, quite cautiously and carefully, jokingly calling them "underground workers", or quite graphic. Real underground workers have their own set of contact codes, and tomb robbers are no exception, and they also have their own set of black words.
Black words, also known as hidden language, secret language, commonly known as "incision". The emergence of language is the need for communication and expression, and its first function is to speak so that others can understand. But the black words are just the opposite, and outsiders are confused.
What does "support the pot" and "invert bucket" mean
In the underground industry of tomb robbery, perhaps everyone thinks that the most frequently used word is "tomb robbery", in fact, the circle never says.
In the past, among tomb robbers in Shaanxi and Shanxi, they most liked to use "support pot" to represent tomb robbers. The original meaning of the pot is to support the stove, in the early years people went out to make a living, cooking is a temporary triangular table, put the pot on, and then make a fire to cook, so it is called "support pot". Later, the "support pot" evolved into the beginning of the family's birthday, and the tomb robbers borrowed it as a partner to rob the tomb, but it was ten images. Correspondingly, if the "pot cannot be supported", it is impossible to rob the tomb and return empty-handed, also called "empty".
Pictured: Tomb robbery: Work at night
In Henan, northern Jiangsu and other places, tomb robbers like to call tomb robbers "digging (planing) sweet potatoes"; southern tomb robbers describe tomb robbers as "turning meat dumplings". Similar to this context is "turning salted fish", a black phrase commonly used by tomb robbers in the north in the past. Why is the tomb robbery called "turning meat dumplings" and "turning salted fish", which is related to the allusion of corpses in the tomb robbery circle, as described in detail below.
"Upside down" is a tomb robbery black sentence that many readers know at present, and many tomb robbery protagonists in tomb robbery novels often hang this sentence on their lips, regardless of the north and south, but in fact, this is not right. In the past, only thieves around Beijing and in the northeast, such as Shenyang, would say so. The so-called "bucket", that is, the coffin; the upside-down bucket is to take out the contents of the coffin, which is naturally a tomb robbery.
Tomb robbery in the Beijing area
In the Beijing circle, people often go to the construction site to dig out the west and east, which is called "squatting point" or "squatting pit", and tomb robbery is mostly called "chute". During the Years of the Republic of China, tomb robbers from the military and bandit background in Beijing often described tomb robbery as "blowing up graves.". The emergence of this term is directly related to the innovation of tomb robbery.
Pictured: In 2009, a chute was found on a construction site near the Hongyan Market in Chaoyang, Beijing, and the coffin could be seen and found by the police
Traditional tomb robbery is the use of Luoyang shovel and other soil extraction tools excavation, explosives in modern military activities widely used, tomb robbers pay attention, but also used, a large pit, coffins, burial products are exposed instantly, super efficient. The first to use this kind of blasting method when robbing tombs should be the warlord tomb robbers in the Republic of China, of which the most influential is Sun Dianying.
When Sun Dianying excavated the Tang Tombs, he "blew up the graves". Fearing that the blast would make a loud noise, he lied in advance that he was going to test a new type of mine. Modern tomb robbers are much smarter than Sun Dianying, and their technology is more advanced: they will use a variety of advanced military combat methods such as directional blasting, remote control blasting, expansion and blasting to tomb robbery activities.
Pictured: Cixi's body was thrown into the lid of the coffin (Photo by the Investigation Team of the Tanglin Incident in the Qing Dynasty of the Republic of China)
Pictured: During the archaeological repair in 1984, the situation when the coffin of Cixi was opened was re-buried after being stolen by Sun Dianying
In ancient times, there were many black words in the tomb robbery circle around Beijing, and "blowing up the grave" was only one of the representative languages in the tomb robbery circle in Beijing during the Republic of China, such as "digging mushrooms", "turning over", "sweeping the warehouse", and "filtering the pit" is often said by tomb robbers in Beijing and Hebei. "Ripping" refers to digging in the tomb, if it is a "large overturning", it is the use of the "big unveiling" technique commonly used in modern archaeology, directly from the top of the grave, digging to the end; "filter pit" refers to the ordinary tomb robbers when they excavate the tomb pit that has been stolen.
Luoyang pipe robber tomb called "planing antiques"
Ancient and modern tomb robbers do not feel that their behavior is a crime, in their view, tomb robbery and go out to work such a normal means of making a living, getting rich, in the past in Luoyang, Henan, the black language of tomb robbery is called "planing antiques", which reveals this mentality.
"Planed antiques" appeared in the late Qing Dynasty and became more popular in the Republic of China. In recent years, when I conducted local investigations, I found that the circle is still used today. This black phrase came about like this: In the Republic of China, people called the cultural relics left by their predecessors antiquities, or antiques, antiques, bone Dong, etc. In the twenty-fifth year of the Qing Dynasty (1899), the Qing government built the Luobei Railway (part of the present-day Longhai Railway) connecting Luoyang and Kaifeng through the Mountain, and a large number of ancient tombs were destroyed and thrown everywhere with burial items.
Pictured: Commonly used tomb robbery tools in Luoyang
At first, no one wanted these antiques, which was considered unlucky by the people, and then some antique dealers came to buy them and could sell them for money, and the locals suddenly woke up and took tools to sell antiques on the mountain. When the ground could not be cut, he began to dig graves, and gradually, "planing antiques" became synonymous with local tomb robbers. According to another theory, the term "planing antiques" originates from the local people's behavior of "planing and curing".
It should be noted that the tomb robbers in the Hong Gang are called "driving dry tickets". The underworld calls the act of hostage-taking "kidnapping", which is for the living, and the author speculates that the term "driving (rack) dry ticket" may come from this, and "dry ticket" should refer to dead bodies.
Tomb robbery is unpopular, so the common people describe tomb robbery as "robbing the shady house", which later became a black sentence.
"Salted fish" refers to a body that does not rot
In the circle, not only the tomb robbery itself speaks black words, but other related also have corresponding hidden language, such as the title of the corpse, there are various forms, of which there is a "salted fish" saying, which is very popular in the ancient tomb robbery circle.
The "salted fish" in the mouth of the tomb robber refers to the undeformed corpse encountered when robbing the tomb. From ancient times to the present, in order to eat fish for a long time, people often salt the fish to ensure that it does not rot. Why tomb robbers describe corpses as "salted fish" may be related to the ancient chinese northern people's corpse embalming customs.
Pictured: Taizhou archaeology unearthed the intact and uncorrupted male corpse of the Ming Dynasty
In Chinese history, there has been a phenomenon of using the "salted fish principle" to dispose of corpses. In the tenth century AD, the Liao people who confronted the Song people in the Central Plains had to be transported back to their hometown for burial, no matter how far away they were. The Liao state in the northeast region, mainly Khitan people, live by herding, hunting, fishing, like to pickle salted fish and salted meat. In order to keep the body from decaying, they were inspired by the pickling, and the same was true when disposing of the corpse: first the belly was cut open, the internal organs were removed, the water was drained, and then it was marinated through with large spiced salt to make a "salty corpse". This is what is recorded in Song Wenwen's book "The Facts of the Yuting Dynasty": "In his rich and noble house, there are dead people, who break their abdomen with a blade, take their stomachs and intestines, and use the incense to salt alum, five seams, and pierce the skin with a sharp reed barrel, and drain its anointing blood..."
In fact, this method is a common method of handling beef and mutton, rather than pickling fish, called "making a fish". This custom still exists among the northern nomads, and the "羓" made is equivalent to the bacon made by the Han people. The corpses that have been treated in this way are due to the rank of the corpse owner before he dies
Pictured: At the scene of the tomb robbery, the ancient tomb has been uncovered
There are different names, and the body of the emperor is called "Emperor Yan".
As famous as the ancient Egyptian "mummy", the "emperor" is called the "mummy of the East" by Western scholars. The most famous "emperor" in Chinese history is the corpse of Emperor Taizong of Liao. In the first year of Datong (947), the pro-Liao army attacked The Liao Taizong of the Northern Song Dynasty and died of a sudden illness in present-day Luancheng, Hebei. It was a hot day, and the entourage "pickled the fish" on his body.
The same famous black phrase as "salted fish" is "meat dumplings".
The practice of wrapping and wrapping rice dumplings is very similar to the way people dispose of corpses. When people die, they have to wear old clothes, wrap them well, and sometimes tie them with hemp rope, similar to dumplings. In this way, it is easy to understand that the corpse is said to be "meat dumplings" and the tomb robbers are said to be "turning meat dumplings".
"Water holes" and "fire holes" should be cautious
In the tomb robbery circle, in addition to not saying that the tomb robbery is "tomb robbery", it is not directly said "tomb".
"Tomb" is the place where human beings place their own remains, the meaning is the same or similar, there are more than 10 kinds of names such as "grave", "茔", "mound", "tomb", "mausoleum", "寑" and so on. In the tomb robbery jianghu, the jianghu language that means "tomb" is also various -
Grave robbers from bandits call tombs "random ideas", or "nails"; tomb robbers from chicken thieves call tombs "graves". Similarly, "heaps", "mushrooms", "piers", "pits", "holes" and so on.
Pictured: Lower Robber Cave
The term "cave" is exquisite, it was often said by the tufuzi (tomb robbers) in the Changsha area of Hunan in the past, also known as "dongzi". The cave is divided into "water cave" and "fire cave", fire cave refers to a well-preserved, untolen ancient wooden tomb, because the tomb will spew out unknown combustible gases, so named. The famous Changsha Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb is a "fire cave" that unearthed an incorruptible female corpse from more than 2,000 years ago.
The water cave is an ancient tomb that is not well sealed and filled with water. The preservation of the burial goods with the water cave is poor, and the quality of the stolen antiquities is generally not too good. What the fire hole stole was just the opposite, and it was of good quality. But whether it is a water hole, or a fire hole, you must be careful when digging, the water hole is too deep, and you may be drowned if you accidentally fall behind; the fire hole is very easy to burn people to death, and the lightest will also be burned, which may be one of the legendary anti-tomb robbery methods - ambush fire.
Grave robbers kill their accomplices called "live seeds"
The main motivation for tomb robbery is to obtain burial treasures and "borrow money to spend" from the dead, and there are also sayings in the circle about these stolen things. Because tomb robbers have more contact with cultural relics dealers, many hidden languages are similar to the jargon of antiques. For example, gold is said to be "gopher", silver is said to be "earth dragon", copper coin is said to be "earth snake", and so on.
Pictured: Tomb robbery excavations
The stolen funerary goods are all stolen goods, which were called "rat goods" in ancient antique shops. Tomb robbers certainly don't say that, and are generally referred to as "water heads." During the Republic of China, the Beiping tomb robbers called it "unearthed goods", and the owner of the Antique Shop of LiuliChang heard people say this, and he knew that it was just stolen from the tomb. Such goods, also known as "raw pit goods".
Ten tomb robbers and ten greedy for money, so the phenomenon of stealing stolen goods is not uncommon in the tomb robbery circle, and the black talk in the circle is called "eating private". Eating private and "eating black" in the bandit circle are the same thing, and they must be severely sanctioned and prohibited. There were many terrible rules in the ancient tomb robbery circle, and it was frightening to deal with the eaters. If the predator is discovered by the accomplice, the end will be very miserable, usually killed.
During the Republic of China, the way to deal with eating private goods in the Tomb Robber Circle in Beiping was to let him "become a land immortal", which is also a black word in the circle, which means to bury alive. If you want to swallow a treasure alone and kill your accomplices in a robbery cave or tomb, the black language is called "living seed".