The Northern Wei Dynasty geographer Li Daoyuan's "Water Classic: Xiangshui Note" records that "at the beginning and end of the Wei and Huang dynasties, the Wu people sent Rui mounds to take wood, and set up Sun Jian Temple in the county (Linxiang), and saw Rui's corpse with its appearance and clothes." Linxiang County in ancient times, that is, today's Changsha City (District) in Hunan Province.
This "tomb robbery case" occurred in the sixth year of Emperor Wen of Wei (Cao Pi) in the sixth year of the Huang Dynasty (225 AD), a few years before Sun Quan became emperor (229 AD, Sun Quan was officially proclaimed emperor in Wuchang), Sun Quan was ready to build a temple to worship his father (Sun Jian), who had been dead for more than 30 years, in order to show his filial piety. Changsha was the birthplace of Eastern Wu, and Sun Jian was appointed by Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty to be the Taishou of Changsha and led troops to quell the uprising of Quxing, so he was crowned Marquis of Wucheng. That year, Sun Jian was 32 years old. Later, Sun Jian waved his army north to crusade against Dong Zhuo, and accidentally picked up the lost jade seal of the country in exchange for greater political capital. When attacking Liu Biao in Jingzhou, he was ambushed by Liu Biao's troops and killed by an arrow in Huang Zu. After Sun Jian's death, his sons Sun Ce and Sun Quan continued to exert their strength, and finally seized the Jiangdong counties, seized Jiangnan, and established the state of Wu (known as Eastern Wu in history). In 229 A.D., Sun Quan proclaimed himself emperor, posthumously named Sun Jian as Emperor Wulie, the temple name "ancestor", and was buried in Gaoling (in Dafen Village, Situ Town, Danyang City, Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province).
It is rumored that after the tomb of Wu Rui, the king of Changsha, was dug up, there was an unknown gas in the tomb, and the tomb robbers did not know so they went to observe with torches, and did not want the gas to suddenly explode when they encountered an open flame, and the tomb was deep in the depths of the "boom", fireballs were everywhere, and the group of thieves could not dodge, and many people were seriously burned and wailed. When the inner coffin was opened, everyone was surprised to find that Wu Rui was lying flat in the coffin, with a face like life and a neat beard, you know, more than 400 years have passed since Wu Rui's burial! The person who presided over the excavation of the tomb ordered that all the coffins of Wu Rui's tomb be removed, and the wood was taken out to build the temple, and the inner coffin was intact, and the descendants were notified to take it away. Wu Rui's later relatives took the coffin out of the tomb and moved it to his hometown of Yaoli, where he was secretly buried in a cave on the rooftop of Wugu Jianyang. In order to prevent further destruction, a mound was built in Xiuning, Wuyuan, Fuliang, and Gaoling to confuse the world.
Wu Rui, who is it? Why was the cemetery coveted by Emperor Wu Sun Quan? It is said that Wu Rui was a descendant of Wu Wang Lu in the Spring and Autumn Period, born in Yaoli (now Fuliang County, Jingdezhen City, Jiangxi Province), and served as a county magistrate in Fanyang (now Fanyang County, Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province) during the Qin period, and was quite prestigious, and was called "Fanjun" by the locals. After Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rose up, Wu Rui judged the situation and joined the ranks of the rebels against the brutal rule of the Qin Dynasty, becoming the first local official of the Qin Dynasty to oppose the Qin. Soon, Wu Rui formed an alliance with Xiang Yu and was named the "King of Hengshan". With the change of attack and defense in the Chu-Han War, Wu Rui saw the wind and switched to Liu Bang and made great contributions. In 202 BC, the Han Dynasty was founded, and Wu Rui was renamed the "King of Changsha" because of his merits, and governed five counties of Changsha, Yuzhang, Nanhai, Xiang and Guilin (in fact, there was only one county in Changsha, when Yuzhang County was occupied by King Yingbu of Jiujiang, and the three counties of Nanhai, Xiang and Guilin were under the rule of Zhao Tuo).
In addition to Wu Rui, in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, there were also six other (different surname) princes and kings (Han Xin, King of Chu, Yingbu of Huainan, Zang Di, King of Yan, Peng Yue, King of Liang, Zhang Er, King of Zhao, and Han Wangxin), Liu Bang was very jealous of these princes and kings with different surnames, and he dreamed of getting rid of them. Later, except for the king of Changsha, who was loyal to the Han family, the rest of the princes with different surnames were cut off, but Xiao He once said to Liu Bang, "If you want to destroy Wu Rui, you need to pour the whole Han army to fight for another era (12 years)." In desperation, Liu Bang appointed a close confidant (Marquis of Yu) Li Cang from Chu to serve as the prime minister of Changsha to monitor every move of Changsha State. Unexpectedly, Wu Rui, who was guarded against all kinds of defenses, died of illness in less than a year after taking office as the king of Changsha (some say that he died of illness on the march, some say that he was poisoned by Li Cang, and some say that he faked his death and the golden cicada came out of his shell).
Changsha held a grand funeral for the king, using the yellow intestine inscription to make up the burial system, the size of the cemetery is "more than 68 zhang", and it is buried outside the north gate of the capital of Changsha. It is precisely because of the use of a large amount of fine wood in the yellow intestine inscription that it was coveted and stolen by Sun Quan. But in fact, at that time, Changsha was located in the mountainous area south of the Yangtze River, and the timber resources were not scarce, and what Sun Quan really wanted was probably the burial utensils in Wu Rui's tomb. Because Sun Quan also stole the tomb of Zhao Yingqi, the king of Nanyue (Ming).
Sun Quan stole and excavated the tomb of Wu Rui, tasted the sweetness for the first time, and followed Cao Cao's example of stealing and digging the tomb of King Liang Xiao, and sent 6,000 elite soldiers to the homeland of Nanyue to search for the cave of Zhao Tuo, the king of Nanyue, although he did not find any clues in the end, but accidentally found the tomb of Zhao Yingqi, the third generation of Nanyue (Ming) king, and obtained a number of treasures such as the emperor's seal, gold seal, bronze sword, jade box, etc. In 1983, archaeologists found a wooden coffin tomb on the top of a hill called Fenghuanggang in the West Village Locomotive Depot of Yuexiu District, Guangzhou City, the tomb road is 7.9 meters long, the tomb is 13.8 meters long and 5.7 meters wide, although it was stolen, but more than 20 pieces of jade were left in the robbery hole, according to the production process and ornamentation, and then compared with the artifacts unearthed from the Xianggang Mountain Tomb, the Phoenix Gang Tomb belongs to the tomb of the royal family of Nanyue, and it is very likely that Sun Quan sent people to dig the tomb of Zhao Yingqi.
It seems that Sun Quan, the first person to rob the emperor's tomb, really "deserves his name"!