In Sanchahe Village, Jiuli Hui Nationality Township, Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province, there is a well-known tomb, and since 1998 there have been nine attempts to rob tombs, which is the joint burial tomb of Zhu Dong, the 24th son of Zhu Yuanzhang, the King of Yingjing, and his princess Guo.
In 2005, the Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau finally made a major decision to carry out rescue excavation of the tomb of King Yingjing, and the fog hovering over the long river of history was finally answered.
Opening a tomb is difficult
The tomb of King YingJing has been subjected to all kinds of destruction through the vicissitudes of China.
According to the "Hindu Chronicle. Volume VII records: "The Tomb of King YingJing has seven halls, ten east and west chambers, five divine kitchens, three slaughtering rooms, one drum tower, one stele pavilion, three coffin gates, three coupon gates, one hundred and twenty-seven red-walled zhouhui, and one internal gong residence." ”
However, the scale of such a magnificent ground recorded in this historical record is now only a small mound that is inconspicuous, because when the Japanese army invaded China in 1937, the cruel Japanese destroyed all the cemetery buildings on the ground, which made people sigh.
Not only that, affected by the rampant activities of the tomb robbery gang, the tomb of king Ying Jing experienced several tomb robberies, and the robbery cave alone was 8 meters deep, and the damage to underground buildings was even more immeasurable.
In 2005, the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Jingmen Museum, the Zhongxiang City Museum and other units jointly formed the "Hubei Provincial Ming Dynasty Yingjing King Tomb Archaeological Excavation Task Force" based on experts such as Liu Weidong, deputy director of the Zhongxiang Museum, who participated in the excavation of the tomb of King Liangzhuang in 2001, and Yuan Wenqing, researcher of the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
To carry out rescue excavations of the tomb of King Yingjing, which has suffered several damages.
At the beginning of the excavation work, experts need to carry out preliminary geological survey and literature search and other preliminary preparatory work on the mausoleum, according to the scale of the sealing layer and the historical records, the experts agree that the scale of the tomb of King Yingjing is larger than that of the adjacent Liangzhuang King Tomb, and roughly clarify the general direction and length of the tomb.
With the previous experience in the excavation of the tomb of King Liang Zhuang in the same era, the members of the archaeological team thought that the work of the tomb of King Ying Jing should be carried out very smoothly, even if it was difficult to open the tomb door.
On November 21, 2005, the excavation of the tomb of King Yingjing officially began.
First of all, it is necessary to clear out the tomb passage, according to past experience, the excavation method of the rock-like tomb of the King of Yingjing, the excavation method of the large roof is the most ideal, however, the construction team is not so easy when excavating.
Migrant workers smashed the ground with pickaxes, they were all experienced veterans, but the excavation effect was very small, the land was somehow extremely dry and hard, and the hard-won dirt was mixed with many small particles of unknown things, which led to the planned one-week completion of the cemetery cleaning work extended to a month.
This is only the first test.
It was difficult to complete the difficult tomb cleaning work, three boulders first appeared in the eyes of everyone, three boulders in the shape of an inverted "pin" character structure, two boulders stood tightly on top of a lying boulder, forming a natural "copper wall iron wall", presumably this is one of the reasons why the tomb of King YingJing has experienced so many tomb robbery activities and is still intact.
How can I open this barrier? Explosives are certainly not used, first, because it is not clear how thick the stone is, the amount of explosives cannot be accurately placed, and second, because the direction of the stone collapse is not controlled, in case of indoor collapse, the consequences are unimaginable.
After some discussion, the construction team decided to use a stupid method:
They first brought a bunch of tires and stacked them to the same height as the boulders on the bottom, and then the workers stood on the tires and manually pried the door against the stone cracks, and as the stone chips fell, the stone door finally collapsed under unremitting efforts.
Behind the stone gate is the Diamond Gate, and the stone gate is different, the King Jing Tomb of king Jing looks crooked, generally speaking, the king gate is an extremely important barrier outside the door of the tomb, very strong, so it is called the king gate by experts, and this image is randomly built, which is extremely inconsistent with the identity of the king of Ying Jing.
There's more to it than that.
The construction team had just pried open a crack in the brick of the King Kong Gate, and a white gas was instantly released from the seam in front of everyone's eyes.
"Evacuate!"
Everyone immediately thought that this may be an anti-theft measure for the tomb of King Yingjing, most likely a toxic gas, and the media, police, and archaeological teams present quickly covered their mouths and noses.
The experts of the archaeological team have a wealth of experience in archaeology on the ground, but this mausoleum full of white mist is the first time to see, in the spirit of due diligence, the experts still decided to study what this gas is, they then used a rubber tube to reach into the gap to extract air into the mineral water bottle, and urgently sent it to the research center for composition analysis.
Although strange things happen one after another, the excavation work needs to continue normally.
After the white fog cleared, the construction team dared to carefully go forward, and after making sure that there was no danger, it easily dismantled the crooked and slanted Diamond Gate.
Behind the Diamond Gate, there are two red gates painted with vermilion, because of the protection of the stone door and the brick Diamond Gate, the wooden door is extremely well preserved, the color is bright, and there is no sign of decay, archaeologists are overjoyed, and the lineup of the tomb of King Ying Jing is finally going to see the light of day.
Generally, the gate of the mausoleum is placed behind the top door stone, and the scarlet gate of the tomb of King Ying Jing is not completely closed, leaving a gap in the middle, a black hole hole.
And even if the wooden door in front of the eyes is well preserved, experts do not dare to easily push it open, because the mausoleum has experienced more than 600 years of wind and frost, the door shaft of the wooden door is very likely to have decayed or can not withstand the force of the door to open, and if the wooden door is too fragile to collapse inward, it is very likely to damage the cultural relics placed behind the door.
The experts could only think of another way, they carefully studied the door shaft of the local farmer's house, and suddenly came up with a good idea, since everyone did not know what was behind the door and did not dare to act easily, then the first step should be to figure out the space behind the door.
So they used cameras, laptops, and a guide control to form a simple "visiting eye": the camera was reached through the crack in the door, and people outside the door looked at the images from the camera through the laptop.
Using this method, the interior of the tomb of King Ying Jing was finally displayed in front of the world for the first time, and through the screen, everyone saw that not only was there nothing behind the door, but the iron door shaft at the top of the tomb was extremely well preserved and had the conditions for pushing it open, which was tantamount to giving the experts a shot of tonic.
However, for the sake of safety, it was decided to leave a door, that is, only one door was opened to reduce all possible losses.
This ups and downs of doubtful tomb opening work has finally seen the end.
Rotting wooden box and seven female corpses
With a "squeak", the red gate was successfully pushed open, and the inspection team leader breathed a sigh of relief, but the situation in front of him made everyone's hearts tighten into a clump, and the ground between them was full of potholes and orderly small pits, and there must have been something here before.
"It won't be that the tomb robbers didn't enter through the gate, but came in from other places and stole everything!" The experts looked at each other and thought in frustration.
Fortunately, the incident took a turn for the better.
"Look here!" When a team member crouched down and looked closely, he found that there was still a wooden figurine in a pit, and when he looked closely, the small pit on the ground seemed to have some wood slag showing traces of wood.
Combined with the scale, the matter has an answer, this ground should have been a batch of wooden ceremonial vessels, but for some reason it has been corroded.
However, the floor of this tomb is very dry, and the tomb of King YingJing is located on a high ground, there should be no liquid entering, and the door shaft of the gate is well preserved, and there is no sign of corrosion, so what is the reason that all the ceremonial utensils in the land are corroded?
There was no way out, and the experts could only continue to look at their surroundings to see if they could find any useful clues.
Sure enough, the archaeology team experts found the answer from the surrounding walls, and the researchers found that there were multiple flood lines on the wall, the highest point reaching 1.7 meters high, which showed that the burial chamber suffered more than one flood, and the door axis was at the top of the tomb at a height of 2 meters, which was naturally not eroded by water.
At the moment, this is the best explanation, there is still a lot of work to be done, and the experts can only put aside their doubts and continue to explore.
Through preliminary investigation, the interior of the tomb of King YingJing consists of two ear chambers in the east and west, a small front chamber, a rectangular middle chamber and the largest back chamber, with an overall "sub" shape structure, covering an area of more than 90 square meters.
The floor of the front room is a mess, mainly placed some wooden ceremonial utensils, which have all been damaged, have little reference value, and only need the construction team to do the cleaning work.
The experts of the archaeological team continued to go deeper, passing through the front chamber is the middle chamber, there is a stone threshold in the middle of the two rooms, it is speculated that there should have been a wooden door here to play a screen role, but with the burial chamber many times into the water caused the wooden door to collapse and decay.
The middle room is very empty compared to the front room, the only thing worth noting is that there are several large boxes on the ground, but unfortunately, also affected by the flood, the boxes have all decayed, and the contents are gone, and from the remaining residue, it can only be roughly inferred that these boxes are used for organic matter such as clothing calligraphy and paintings.
The cleaning of the middle chamber was soon completed, and the experts next came to the two ear chambers, which were finally no longer so empty, and the floor was littered with coffin fragments, and the appearance was no longer recognizable.
However, through careful excavation, experts found teeth belonging to six different people in two ear chambers, and through analysis, they deduced that these six people were underage girls, and the three were symmetrically placed in the east and west chambers as martyrdom.
In addition to the remains of six young girls, there are also six celadon plum bottles scattered in two ear chambers, Liu Weidong and others speculated: "This should be the horcrux of six young girls, which means to contain the soul, the ancients paid attention to the soul has a home, this plum bottle has this use." ”
A large cylinder in the east ear chamber has also attracted everyone's attention, it is reasonable to say that this cylinder should be used for long lights, but the east and west ear chambers are symmetrical, why is there no large cylinder in the west ear chamber? The East Ear Chamber was originally used for martyrdom, so why do you need a high-standard long lamp? This has become a big doubt in everyone's mind.
It seems that the only thing left is the back room where The husband and wife of King Ying Jing can be solved.
In the back room, the coffins of King Ying Jing and his princess Guo shi were also unexpectedly unrecognizable, and only some of the gold paint on the coffins told the past prosperity of the tomb owner.
In the middle of the two coffins, Yuan Wenqing and others also found traces of several wooden boxes, which were speculated to contain the clothes of their husband and wife, etc., plus the wooden boxes found in the middle room, and a total of ten wooden boxes were found in the entire tomb of King Yingjing, all of which have been damaged, and their value cannot be estimated, which inevitably makes people sigh, and these can be described as "gold" innumerable.
Although the flood destroyed many cultural relics in the entire tomb of King Yingjing, experts still found many heirloom treasures.
In the corner of the back room, there is also a large cylinder with the same as the east ear chamber, combined with the fact that the water enters the tomb, the cylinder in the east ear chamber has an explanation, that should have been placed in the back room, but because of the water, it was moved by force, and drifted down the water to the east ear chamber.
The coffin head of the husband and wife also has a porcelain bottle as a horcrux, different from the six simple green vases in the ear room, the two porcelain bottles in the back room, one bottle is painted with dragon patterns, the other bottle is painted with four love pictures, the brush strokes are delicate, the glaze color is clear, it is the best in the glaze, after testing, it was found that this is the Blue and White Porcelain of the Yuan Dynasty, which should be a reward from Zhu Yuanzhang, and its value is immeasurable.
In addition to plum bottles, experts also found precious cultural relics such as gold, silver, and jade in the back room, such as agate royal beasts and crystal devices, and gained a lot of money.
All kinds of mysteries have been answered
This back room is not only rich in cultural relics, but also here experts have found answers to various mysteries accumulated from excavations.
The clue to everything came from the pile of rubble between the coffins of King Ying Jing and his princess.
This King Ying Jing's status is noble, and the mausoleum is carefully repaired, why does this ash pile appear so suddenly?
The archaeological team was afraid that they had guessed wrongly, so they consulted the local masons, and it was confirmed that this was indeed a common local raw material for wall repair.
After obtaining a definitive answer, the archaeological team re-examined the entire burial chamber and found multiple traces of re-repair on the walls, many of which were accompanied by cracks in the bricks.
At first, Yuan Wenqing thought that this crack was just a natural phenomenon caused by the settlement of the newly built structure, but did the craftsmen foresee that there would be a crack in this burial chamber in advance, so they came to repair it? If that's the case, why not clean up the ash on the ground and go? So, this idea doesn't explain why there are so many patch marks in the room.
At this time, combined with the various clues since the excavation, Chen Guantao from the Center for Science and Technology Archaeology of Wuhan University put forward a bold hypothesis:
Could there have been any major natural disasters here before that caused the burial chamber to collapse so the craftsmen repaired it again?
This idea may sound whimsical at first glance, but when you think about it, it seems to make sense.
After the king of Ying Jing was only 27 years old, he died suddenly, the princess also died after a period of time, and after the placement of the husband and wife, there was a sudden earthquake, so the craftsmen re-entered the tomb with tile ash, glutinous rice pulp and other materials to repair, and when the repair was not completed, the earthquake occurred again, the craftsmen fled in a hurry, the tile ash was scattered in place without cleaning, and even the top door stone behind the door was not placed.
In this way, the crooked tomb gate and the inexplicable flood were also answered, and the tomb of King YingJing was located high, and there was no sewing facility when it was built without flooding worries, and due to a sudden earthquake, groundwater poured into the tomb and caused damage to cultural relics.
As for why such an earthquake was not recorded, experts speculate that it may be because the princes and princesses died one after another, the tomb was urgently built, and the affairs were complicated and the omission was missed.
Of course, whether it is an earthquake or a natural settlement, it belongs to the speculation of later generations, and we do not know what the real facts are.
As for the white mist that emanated when the tomb door was opened, what was it?
In fact, experts have some understanding after speculating that there has been a flood in the burial chamber, and after detecting that the white mist is only water vapor, they have determined their own speculations.
When the experts cleaned up the middle room, they gradually found that the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor was extremely large, according to Yuan Wenqing's recollection, there were more than ten degrees below zero outside at that time, but the interior was hot enough to wear only a single shirt to work.
The water flooded into the tomb, and because of the high indoor temperature, the water was heated and evaporated to form water vapor, and the entire tomb of King Ying Jing was immersed in a long white mist.
Ten rotten wooden boxes, a couple, six burial maidens, gold and silver jade artifacts passed down from generation to generation, the tomb of King Yingjing in Hubei Province tells the poignant love story of The King of Yingjing or buries the cruelty and evil customs of human martyrdom, the answer can only be known by mottled tomb tiles and silent moss, but the excavation of the tomb of King Yingjing is undoubtedly another legend in the history of archaeology.