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A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

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One night in April 2005, several tomb robbers opened a Song tomb under Longwang Mountain in Wuyi County, only to be frightened by the sight of a pig cry: Mercury Pit!

People who like to watch "Notes on Tomb Robbery" know that in order to prevent theft, the ancients took pains to set up a lot of organs in ancient tombs, and if the trespassers were not careful, they would die. Such as quicksand tombs, stone sand tombs, puddle tombs, trap tombs, hidden weapons tombs, mercury pits, jack stones and so on.

So far, in archaeological excavations, except for the "Tomb of the Hidden Artifact", which has not yet been found, everything else has appeared. Therefore, what is written in "Notes on the Tomb Robber" is not all fictional plot, but it is true.

The Song tomb in front of you is the "Mercury Pit" anti-theft tomb, and the anti-theft level is very high.

As we all know, mercury is a highly toxic substance, volatile, its smell can kill people invisible, if it sticks to the skin, it will be troublesome.

The appearance of the mercury pit surprised this group of tomb robbers, and they were helpless for a while. Mainly didn't expect that!

A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!
A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

They had to send people to drive overnight to find plastic buckets, spoons, gas masks, etc., before they cleared the mercury from the grave and put on gloves to pick up the goods.

Unfortunately, there is not much gold and silver in this tomb, but it is full of four treasures of the study room: pen and ink paper, and a gold box containing 17 volumes of paper documents wrapped in silk fabrics. Amazingly, these documents are as if they were just written, without any trace of age.

Cheng Mou, the tomb robber who was the leader, was an expert, and he quickly resealed it to prevent oxidation.

They swept away the funerary goods in the burial chamber. I went back and took a picture of these thousand-year-old documents and took them to the Wuyi Antique Market to find a buyer. However, because these cultural relics are preserved "too new", the antique shop does not know the goods, and 6 years have passed, and they have never sold, which makes them very depressed. In fact, these are priceless.

One day in February 2011, Director Dong of the Wuyi County Museum accidentally found these "document" photos in the antique market, and he couldn't help but giggle.

With years of archaeological experience, he knew that although this document looked very new, the handwritten small letter on it was not something that modern people could write. Why?

Now, since liberation, people have been writing with fountain pens and ballpoint pens, because they are easy to carry, and the brush has withdrawn from the stage of history and is only used on specific occasions.

But for the ancients, the brush was the only writing instrument, and they wrote with a brush every day. Coupled with the specific social environment and cultural accomplishment, this leads to the use of the same tools, the words written by the ancients and modern people are completely different. The words written by the ancients have a unique ancient rhyme, which cannot be imitated.

A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!
A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

Director Dong read the above carefully, which was a letter of appointment issued by Shangshu Province to a man named Xu Shuli. Who is Xu Shuli? He looked around and found no information about the man. But two words on the "document" caught his attention— Jiayou, the era name of the reign of Zhao Yun, the Emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, from 1241 to 1252. (Zhao Yun was the unlucky emperor whose braincase was made into a wine glass by the evil monk Yang LianZhenjia of the Yuan Dynasty.) )

Director Dong thought to himself: If the documents in the photos are really from the Southern Song Dynasty, it will be too important. To further confirm his inference, in March 2011, he invited Professor Zheng, an expert in Song history, to see if the documents in the photographs were genuine.

As soon as Professor Zheng saw the contents of the document, he excitedly took the case and asked impatiently: Where is the thing? What a treasure! One hundred percent is genuine, and modern people can't defend it. This is a real first-hand information for the study of Song history!

Listening to Professor Zheng's words, Director Dong felt more and more about the seriousness of the situation. But where to find this document? The person taking the photo must know the whereabouts of the document, but who is the person who can take the picture? Where did these instruments come from? Maybe there is also a tomb robbery behind the scenes?

Without further ado, Director Dong decided to call the police first and told the police about the value of these documents. The police did not dare to be sloppy and quickly set up a special team to carry out the investigation. Since the photo comes from the antique market, let's start with the antique market. The police sent people disguised as rich merchants who liked antiques to infiltrate the antique market and look for clues.

A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!
A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

Soon, a suspicious man surnamed Cheng entered the scout's field of vision, who was the leader of the tomb of song who stole the Dragon King Mountain.

Then, the scouts followed the vine and figured out where the other three were staying. On December 28, 2011, the police quickly attacked and arrested the four people in one fell swoop, and confiscated all the cultural relics, including the 17 precious documents.

A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!
A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

Early the next morning, Director Dong sent the documents to the Zhejiang Provincial National Cultural Relics Appraisal Center for appraisal, and the appraisal result was "orphan product, national first-class cultural relics!"

In April 2012, the archaeological team came to Huchu Village, Shuxi Subdistrict, Wuyi County, to carry out archaeological excavations of the Song Tomb at the southern foot of Longwang Mountain.

It is puzzling that there is no ground seal here, and it is overgrown with weeds, how did the tomb robbers find this tomb?

The answer is in the environment, here by the mountains and water, the surrounding mountains are stacked with greenery, is the standard feng shui treasure land, can there be no ancient tombs?

This is a masonry structure of a two-chamber couple burial tomb, although not large, a room only holds one coffin, but it is very exquisite, two large red coffins, after thousands of years, still bright as new, very stunning.

Only one shoe, two coffins, and part of the tomb's owner remain remained in the burial chamber. However, the appearance of two boxes of epitaphs made everyone excited. Through the epitaph combined with the local Xu clan genealogy, the following important information is given:

Xu Zhili (徐曰礼), courtesy name Jingzhi, was born into the Xu family of the famous Wuyi clan. His father, Xu Bangxian, was an official and a servant of the Ministry of Works; his uncle was Chen Liang, a famous thinker and writer of the Southern Song Dynasty. In 1254, Xu Yuli died suddenly of illness while serving in Fujian at the age of 52.

His wife, Lin Shi, was born in 1201 and died in 1247 at the age of 47.

So why did the instrument remain incorruptible for 800 years? Mainly because the whole tomb is well sealed, and there is mercury embalming. In addition, the box containing the documents is also sealed with wax, and the documents inside are wrapped in layers of silk fabrics, so they can be well preserved.

This 40,000-word document reproduces the administrative context of the Southern Song Dynasty's rule of the country with culture, has extremely important documentary value, and has now become the treasure of the Wuyi Museum.

(The picture and text originate from the original author of the online copyright)

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A few grave robbers were frightened by the scene in front of them: mercury pit!

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