Preface
What kind of dream can make a human emperor spend nearly 40 years, consume countless lives and resources, just to build a mausoleum beyond ordinary people's imagination? Is this madness or greatness? When you stand in front of the 76-meter-high mound outside Xi'an, you may be able to find the answer. This is the price of the pursuit of eternal life, and it is also the cornerstone that supports the Chinese civilization for thousands of years.
The ambition to dominate the world
In 259 BC, a young man who was only 13 years old ascended the throne of the Qin monarch. He was later known as the "First Emperor of the Ages" and influenced the entire course of Chinese civilization - surnamed Zhao Mingzheng, the grandson of Qin Xiaogong.
At the beginning of the reign of the young man, the state of Qin was still a vassal of the other six states. But this young monarch was unwilling to just guard a small land, he learned Xi way of governance from his ancestors, and at the same time hired Li Si and other virtuous ministers to assist him. The government attaches great importance to agricultural production and implements the tuntian system to increase the revenue of the state treasury; He promoted the idea of legalism and used harsh laws to rectify the rule of officials; In addition, he built water conservancy to strengthen national defense, vigorously developed weapons and trained the army.
With the joint efforts of the monarch and his courtiers, the national and military strength of the Qin State was rapidly increased. In the past 30 years, Zheng led the Qin army to annex Korea, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Yan and Qi, and finally completed the first great unification in Chinese history in 221 BC, ushering in an era of absolute monarchy in China for more than 2,000 years. At the age of 36, Zhengzhou ascended to the highest point in his life, and he received a new honorific title - the first emperor.
The supreme glory and the unsearchable eternal life
After ruling the world, the First Emperor possessed the supreme glory of mankind. The territory of the Qin Dynasty stretched from the Korean Peninsula in the east, to Xinjiang in the west, to Vietnam in the south, and to Mongolia in the north. Emperor Shi built a magnificent palace in the capital Xianyang, and handled the government here. His power far surpassed that of any monarch in history, and everywhere he went, he was worshiped by his courtiers with the most devout worship.
Deep down, however, the First Emperor was uneasy about the limitations of his reign – he knew that even if his exploits were so great, he would eventually grow old and die. Behind the supreme glory, there is always a fear of death. So he began to ask the monks for the secret recipe for immortality.
The First Emperor sent his priests to travel the country and abroad in search of the legendary elixir of immortality. These monks endured hardships and hardships, but unfortunately they could never find an answer that satisfied the emperor. The contradiction between the emperor's thirst and the empty medicine bottles in the hands of the alchemists became more and more acute.
Build an imperial mausoleum that surpasses common sense
Faced with the disappointment of not being able to obtain the secret recipe for immortality, the First Emperor turned to resolve to preserve his glory and body after death. So he began to build his own mausoleum in the 38th year of his reign, and named it the Mausoleum of the First Emperor. The mausoleum is located at the foot of Lishan Mountain, 30 kilometers east of Xi'an, the new capital at that time, and its scale is unique in Chinese history.
In order to add to the sanctity and majesty of the place where the emperor was unarmed, the mausoleum was designed to resemble a small underground city. Its overall layout imitates the Xianyang Palace, the capital city where the emperor lived during his lifetime, and is divided into two inner and outer city walls, presenting a hollow-shaped layout. The total length of the inner and outer walls is several thousand meters, and the highest point is 10 meters, and the entire mausoleum covers an area of 56 square kilometers, and the towering earth slope of the tomb mound alone is 76 meters high, forming a small hill.
The space enclosed by the city walls contains countless artistic treasures and strange landscapes collected by the emperor during his lifetime. The top of the tomb is inlaid with gorgeous night pearls, symbolizing the stars, the sun and the moon; The floor of the burial chamber is filled with thousands of tons of liquid mercury, bubbling like rivers, lakes and seas. In this way, a partial replica of the environment in which the emperor lived during his lifetime was created to continue the glory.
In order to cooperate with this unconventional design, the internal structure of the tomb was reinforced to prevent collapse, and it took nearly 20 years to build the main building alone. And when the engineers poured thousands of tons of flowing mercury into the burial chamber, everyone was amazed – no one could have imagined that the ambitious young monarch could have such huge financial resources for a tomb.
The testimony of mercury and the beautiful talk of Ba Qing
Time flies, more than 2,000 years have passed, and when we mention the Imperial Tomb again, we are perhaps most interested in the authenticity of the thousands of tons of "mercury river" in the legend. Although it is recorded in the history books, it is difficult to convince future generations. It wasn't until the 80s that a series of scientific tests revealed the truth to this question.
Archaeologists tested the concentration of mercury in the sealed soil above the mausoleum and found that there was an unusually high amount of mercury. The soil beneath the tomb directly above contains 10 times as much mercury as other areas, or more than 100 tons. This astonishing data has finally revealed the mystery of the ages.
In addition, vegetation within a few hundred meters of the mausoleum also showed signs of mercury poisoning. The original lush vegetation cannot grow normally here, and only a small number of strange-shaped pomegranate trees can barely sustain it. These pomegranate trees grow much shorter than elsewhere and have unusually high concentrations of mercury in their bark and fruit.
It can be seen that the unimaginable huge amount of mercury in the emperor's tomb has indeed turned into mercury over time, and gradually seeped into the nearby earth. This also confirms the authenticity of the historical records from the side.
How, then, did the emperor obtain so much mercury in the scarcity of technology at the time? thanks to a Sichuan businesswoman, the widow Ba Qing.
Ba Qing's late husband had already amassed a huge fortune by dealing in minerals during his lifetime, and she inherited the family business and improved the process of refining mercury from dansha to make it more productive and of better quality. In this industry, Ba Qing has almost reached the point of monopoly. It was her continuous supply of dansha raw materials to the emperor that enabled the emperor to complete the dazzling "mercury river" in his tomb.
For this reason, the emperor gave her the title of "virgin", and made an exception to allow her to sit on an equal footing with him to discuss the affairs of the court. Although in the end, this legendary story could not escape the fate of the collapse of the dynasty, but at least in the emperor's heart, Ba Qing's status can be seen.
epilogue
When we stand in front of the 76-meter-high mound, looking up at the clouds and looking down at the plain, we can't help but imagine the small space hidden in the depths of the earth. It once contained the dreams, fears, and obsessions of an emperor, all of which now slept together in darkness and dead silence.
In order to build this dream tomb, the collection and refining of mercury raw materials alone took the lives of countless refiners. It can be said that under the gorgeous river of mercury is the sacrifice of countless blood lives, which is from the madness of that era more than 2,000 years ago. At the same time, it also helped the emperor to seal his life's achievements intact to this day, becoming a precious historical heritage of Chinese civilization, and this reward seems to dissolve the meaningless pain of those lost lives to some extent.
How do we feel when we are faced with the huge and magnificent exterior of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang and the inner coldness presented in the darkness? Reverence for life, reverence for history, and even more awe for the fire of civilization that will never be extinguished.