He succeeded to the throne at the age of 13, and later quelled the rebellion of Qiu, annexed the Six Kingdoms, and unified China. Such an emperor, who considered himself "three emperors and meritorious emperors", reigned for 37 years and amassed countless fortunes, and his mausoleum was built even longer than his reign, and it was not until the second year of Qin II that it was fully built. The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor has also become the largest, most time-consuming and most thought-promisingly conceived of the Chinese imperial tombs. This imperial mausoleum, which has existed for more than two thousand years, has too many secrets. Why was the imperial tomb located in Lishan Mountain facing due east? Is the underground palace really filled with mercury? Is there really a "Changming Lantern"? Is there a mechanism in the underground palace that fires ten thousand arrows in unison? Was the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor stolen? Why has the imperial tomb not been excavated for so many years?
In March 1974, in Xiyang Village, not far east of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, several farmers stumbled upon a number of pottery heads and limbs while digging wells. This attracted the attention of the relevant authorities, and archaeologists were immediately sent to start drilling and excavation work. After the surface of the ground was cleared, a miracle that had been buried for thousands of years appeared in front of the world, and a group of samurai figurines dressed in armor and armed with weapons and terracotta horse warriors pulling carriages were standing in the deep pit. With the successive excavations of the Qin Terracotta Army, this mysterious Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor has attracted more attention. If we want to talk about the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, we must say Qin Shi Huang and his people. During the extremely chaotic Spring and Autumn Warring States period, King Huanzheng of Qin pacified the Six Kingdoms in one fell swoop with his majesty and established the first centralized multi-ethnic unified state in Chinese history, which was praised by Li Zhen as "the first emperor of the ages". Naturally, he is not satisfied, and he wants not only to be a king for one lifetime, but also to have the great desire of "descendants to be kings for all generations". Obsessed with elixirs and pursuing the art of immortality, it is impossible to save a rather old life. In ancient China, according to the ritual system, emperors would build mausoleums for themselves after death from the time they came to power, which was one of their great deeds in life.
As the first self-proclaimed "First Emperor" in Chinese history, Qin Shi Huang was a great believer in gods and feng shui, so the grand cause of building a magnificent mausoleum was put on the agenda in the second year of Qin Shi Huang's business, and accompanied his political career throughout his life. The scale of the construction of the imperial tomb was designed by the then prime minister Li Si according to the scale of the Xianyang capital, and the general Zhang Wei was in charge of supervising the work, and a total of more than 700,000 people were requisitioned for construction, and the number of people even reached 800,000 at the peak. The scale, length and number of people involved in the construction of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor are unprecedented in the history of the construction of ancient Chinese imperial tombs.
According to records, this mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, built at the northern foot of Lishan Mountain, covers a total area of 59.25 square kilometers, equivalent to the size of 78 Forbidden Cities, and is nearly 70 kilometers away from Xianyang, the capital of the Qin Dynasty at that time, so why did Qin Shi Huang, who had the capital Xianyang, build his mausoleum in the foothills far north of Lishan Mountain? In response to this question, there are many theories circulating in the academic community. Some people use Yun Daoyuan's "Notes on the Classic of Water" as a basis, and believe that "Qin Shi Huang was buried in a great way, built a tomb in the mountain of Lirong, a blue field, his yin is golden, his yang is beautiful and jade, and the first emperor is greedy for his good name, so he was buried." That is to say, the topography of Lishan Mountain and the later introduction of mountains and rivers constitute a wealth of "pillow gold and silver", such a terrain with mountains on one side and water on three sides is very in line with Chinese feng shui metaphysics and the law of choosing mountains and waters. Therefore, Qin Shi Huang chose to build a mausoleum in Lishan Mountain, far away from Xianyang. Some people also explain this problem from the aspect of etiquette, because the mausoleum of the ancestor of Qin Shi Huang was built in Zhiyang, west of Lintong, according to the ancient "His Holiness in the west, humble in the east" etiquette system, as the younger generation of the first emperor Yingzheng naturally can not build his mausoleum in the west of the ancestors, can only build his mausoleum east of Zhiyang, and the northern foothills of Lishan Mountain has a unique advantage, in line with the etiquette system and corresponding to feng shui, so the mausoleum is built here, and the pattern of the mausoleum sitting west to east is also closely related to this etiquette system. Others believe that Qin Shi Huang considered himself "three emperors and meritorious to the five emperors", and in order to show his dignity, he separated himself from the area of Zhiyang, where his ancestors built the cemetery. But this statement is biased, after all, Ying Zheng took the throne at the age of 13, and only at the age of 39 did he really dominate the world, reaching the height of what he believed was "virtue and three emperors, meritorious to the five emperors", and the construction of the mausoleum began in the second year of his accession to the throne, so this view is not tenable.
The mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor can be divided into four levels from the inside to the outside: underground palace, inner city, outer city and outer city, and each part is clearly distinguished. The underground palace is the most central part of the entire cemetery, where the great first emperor and countless treasures are buried, with the stars, the sun and the moon above, and the mountains and rivers below. Legend has it that when Qin Shi Huang built the mausoleum, in order to prevent himself from being invaded by descendants and prevent the funeral goods from being stolen by thieves, he injected a full amount of mercury into the underground palace to form rivers and rivers. According to Sima Qian's "History", "Mercury is used as a hundred rivers and seas, instilled by machine, with astronomy on the top and geography on the bottom." Yun Daoyuan also said in the "Notes on the Water Classic" that Qin Shi Huang "painted the image of astronomical stars on the underground palace, and used mercury as the four rivers and five mountains and nine states." "Such historical records have been an unsolved mystery for many years, after all, no one has entered the depths of the underground palace, and the underground palace is grand, hidden more than 30 meters deep under the sealed mound, and according to archaeological findings, the underground palace area is 180,000 square meters. If such a huge underground palace is filled with mercury, it is an incomparably huge tonnage, and where can these mercury be obtained in the distant Qin Dynasty? Therefore, people have been skeptical about the historical records over the years.
Until the development of modern science and technology, the China Geological Bureau used geophysical exploration to measure the depths of the underground palace, and indeed found that the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang had obvious mercury anomalies, that is, we commonly call "mercury", just imagine, after more than two thousand years of passage and volatilization, you can also detect obvious mercury elements, which shows that the legend about the water galaxy at that time is indeed true. Not only that, the archaeological staff also found through the instrument that the distribution of mercury element shows a situation of strong southeast and southwest, northeast and northwest weak, and then compare the distribution of rivers and rivers on the mainland, which is exactly in line with the location of the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea on the mainland. And where does so much mercury come from? According to research, most of this mercury was provided by the Palestinian widow Qing, who was treated as a guest by the state at that time.
We all know that mercury is a highly toxic volatile substance, and the existence of the Water Galaxy also makes it more difficult to excavate the underground palace of the imperial tomb, because no one can guarantee that it will not be harmed by mercury after the underground palace is opened. Moreover, according to historical records, in the depths of the underground palace are "palace views and hundreds of strange artifacts", so Qin Shi Huang not only excavated and built the water galaxy, but also "made the craftsman make a crossbow arrow, and those who have some access will shoot it". As long as a restless and kind tomb robber enters the underground palace, it will trigger the mechanism, causing ten thousand arrows to fire in unison, and no matter how it can not escape the dense arrows like rain. The "mermaid paste as a candle" mentioned in the record is also called the yongming lamp by the archaeological community, which actually extracts whale grease, one square meter of grease, which can provide more than five thousand days of illumination, if a sufficient amount is extracted, it may be possible to achieve yongming. However, because the underground palace has not yet been opened, the scholars' understanding of the mermaid lamp is still limited to the records of history books.
The misty mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang has been inseparable from the curiosity and exploration of future generations for more than 2,000 years. According to historical records, after Xiang Yu, the overlord of Chu, attacked the Kanto, he not only wantonly looted the imperial tomb, but also caused the mausoleum to become a ruin, which was the first and largest man-made destruction of the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Later, the Xinmang period, the Wei and Jin dynasties, the end of the Tang dynasty and the early Republic of China were all excavated and destroyed to varying degrees. But whether the underground palace was stolen, the answer given by the academic community is: no! Because, first in the process of exploration by archaeologists, it was found that from the location of the copper carriage and horse unearthed from the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, it was in the ear chamber of the tomb road west of the underground palace. If it is true that the underground palace recorded in historical records was repeatedly burned and ransacked, then the burial objects next to the cemetery should have been destroyed and looted first, and such valuable items were not destroyed
。 Secondly, according to archaeological data, the underground palace of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang is surrounded by fine rammed earth walls up to 4 meters thick, and these palace walls are also covered with solid bricks, and there is a stone wall on the inside of the earthen wall. These palace walls and earthen castles are clearly structured, and no man-made destruction has been found. Even the five-flowered earth in the passage leading to the underground palace showed no signs of being disturbed and destroyed. Although two robbery holes were found in the imperial tomb, these two robbery caves with a diameter of one meter and a depth of less than nine meters were far from the underground palace and did not really enter the underground palace of the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang. Third, the geophysical exploration of archaeologists shows that there is a large amount of mercury in the underground palace, which shows that the underground palace has not been excavated, because if the underground palace is stolen, then the mercury will volatilize along the robbery hole. Finally, not to mention the aforementioned crossbow to escort this underground palace! From this point of view, for so many years, no one has really entered the underground palace, and Qin Shi Huang's sleeping behind him has not been disturbed as he wishes.
In today's developed science and technology, it is inevitable that many people will ask why not dig the Emperor's underground palace? So many secrets are sleeping underground, when is it better to wait for this time? Proponents list the benefits without taking into account the cost of excavation and the dangers involved. Difficult problems such as the aforementioned water galaxy, crossbows and various unknown dangers, as well as the vast area of the imperial tomb, the large volume of sealed soil, the excavation of the underground palace is by no means a small project that can be completed in time, you must know that this is a royal mausoleum that used more than 700,000 manpower and took nearly forty years to build. And from a humanitarian point of view, the state has long had a clear rule - not to take the initiative to excavate the imperial tomb, which is a policy that we must unswervingly implement at present. This secret will let him continue to sleep, and when the future technology is developed enough and the economy is strong enough, all the mysteries will be solved.