In the twenty-seventh year of the Republic of China, that is, in 1938 AD, in this year, there was a case of Li Pinxian's theft and excavation of the tomb of King Chu that shocked the whole country, and when it comes to the context of this case and the entire process of tomb robbery, it is definitely a Republic of China version of the "Notes on Tomb Robbery".
It is said that there is a Zhujiaji 30 kilometers away from Shou County, located about 1.5 kilometers southeast of Zhujiaji, there is a Lisan ancient pile, the locals only think that it is a high slope, and no one realizes that there are a large number of treasures hidden below.
As early as 1932, there was a famine in this area, and several gentry wanted to raise money for relief, but they could not find a good way to get money. A student who has studied geology, after surveying the topography of Li Sangudui, believes that this is not an ordinary slope, but an ancient tomb, if you try to dig up the ancient tomb, you can take out the antiquities inside and sell it, so that you can get a lot of disaster relief money.
This proposal to dig an ancient tomb to relieve the disaster made the gentry embarrassed, which was not a glorious thing, to put it ugly, this kind of behavior was somewhat detrimental to morality, but if not, there was no second way to go, so they had to entrust the joint security director and the security captain of Shou County to take full responsibility for this matter.
Subsequently, more than five hundred local farmers were gathered together and began to excavate in an orderly manner. Sure enough, after excavation, more than 3,000 antiquities were obtained, many of which were valuable. Among these antiquities, the largest one weighs seven or eight hundred pounds, and is carved with dragons or other sacred beasts. Because the locals knew very little about the goods, they were transported to Shanghai, Nanjing and other places for sale, and after identification, it was believed that these antiquities were buried with the King of Chuhuai. (Whether it is really the tomb of King Huai of Chu has yet to be confirmed.) ）
Antiquities were sold in exchange for a lot of money, but they were not used for disaster relief at all, and they were all divided up layer by layer. When Chen Tiaoyuan, then chairman of Anhui, learned of this incident, he immediately ordered that excavation be banned and that military police were sent to guard and forbid anyone to approach the tomb.
Many archaeologists in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other places flocked to conduct field investigations, and some people took the sheep by the hand and took away almost 600 antiquities under the pretext of identifying cultural relics.
The time came to 1938, when the Japanese army was rampant, all the defenders were preparing to fight, the commander-in-chief of the Eleventh Army Li Pinxian was ordered to garrison Shou County, Shou County Commissioner Ma Ji in order to please Commander Li, learned that old Li was very fond of antiques, so he threw in his favor, gave Li Pinxian a few treasures he had obtained, and told Li Pinxian about the excavation of the tomb of the King of Chu.
Li Pinxian is greedy for money, and he is also an antique maniac, thinking that there are still a lot of treasures under li sangu piles, if he does not take the opportunity to make a big profit, after he leaves, others must also dig.
Therefore, Li Pinxian summoned the chief of staff He Xuan to discuss the matter. He Xuansui assigned Deng Zhiyi, chief of the communication section, to lead people to conduct on-the-spot investigations. After receiving the news that the tomb had not been completely destroyed, he immediately ordered Deng Zhiyi to lead three convoys to excavate the tomb. At the same time, for the sake of safety, He Xuan sent his own aide-de-camp Fu Dusheng to monitor Deng Zhiyi's every move.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > The following is deng Zhiyi's post-incident story of the tomb robbery:</h1>
After Fu Dusheng and I arrived at Lisangudui, we first used the collected water wheels to drain the water in the surrounding Hao Pond, which was quite time-consuming, and it took more than half a month to clean up the water.
The original excavated place can no longer be used, so excavated at the top of the slope, when digging to a depth of more than one inch, the bottom is full of white mud-like soil, obviously processed by hand, after seeing the wind, it immediately hardens, so it does not dare to stop work, and takes turns digging soil day and night.
After digging almost ten zhang wide and more than ten zhang deep, I saw the burial chamber. It was faintly visible that there was a coffin inside, all of which were three feet long and two feet square of wooden strips, hundreds of them. The color is chestnut and stacked into cross squares of about two meters high and varying sizes.
As for what these wooden strips are for, everyone is not clear, what is surprising is that the wooden strips were originally soft, and when pressed by hand, a deep mark immediately appeared, but after the wind blew, it would become extremely hard in an instant, and it must be sawn off with a very sharp saw.
The coffin is just under the wooden strip, there are more than thirty large brass bells (actually duo, musical instruments from the Spring and Autumn to the Han Dynasty), and many flowers and greenery, very large gems, as large as small bricks, placed under the wooden strips, very dazzling.
When they saw the treasure, they all went to get it, and soon they got a large copper bowl, a copper scoop, and a strange-looking bronze ware that could not be named, and those bronzes were very large and very heavy, and the strength of one person was not enough to move.
Next to the coffin, there are three huge copper dings, each weighing two or three hundred pounds, and there are relief dragon heads on the feet of the dings, and there are dragon heads around them. On both sides of the coffin, there are two huge lampstands, also made of copper, each weighing a hundred and ten pounds, and one person cannot pick it up.
In the middle of the position, there is a sword, three feet long, and there is a dragon in relief on the hilt of the sword, wiping away the dirt on the sword, which is dazzling, and the non-ordinary sword can be compared. Next to the sword, there was a very brightly colored emerald ball, carved with a dragon pattern, about a foot in diameter, and when I took it by hand, I found that it had cracked from the middle.
At that time, the sky had already darkened, and all the bronzes and gems emitted a little light in the darkness, and I could see everything around me without flashlights, so that I knew that the coffin was actually scarlet.
The coffin is about nine feet long, three feet high and three feet wide, and is carved with dragons and other gods throughout. After carefully searching, he found that there was no seal, so he pushed open the lid together, and the body inside had turned into white bone, but the hair was still there, and the robe was embroidered with dragon patterns and various patterns. Someone with a quick hand reached out and pulled it, and the robe and skeleton immediately turned powdery.
The inside of the coffin is white, clean and untainted. It is strange that there are only inner coffins in the tomb, but no outer coffins, and in the tombs of ancient emperors, there are coffins and coffins, and it is said that there are several layers, and the innermost layer is the coffin. However, this ancient tomb only has a coffin and no rafters, and as for what reason, it is unknown.
I tried to move the coffin, and I felt that it weighed three or four hundred pounds, and everyone worked together to move it outside, and then took away everything that could be taken. Some people thought that there must be more treasures below, so they dug hard for a long time, but they did not find any other antiquities, plus it was about to dawn, so they quickly stopped digging.
The excavation, which involved the manpower of three transport companies, took almost three months before it was completed.
On the way back, I privately discussed with Fu Dusheng that if I gave them all to Li Pinxian and He Xuan, I wouldn't be able to get any points, so it was better to take away some of the smaller ones first, so that there would be no work in vain.
Although Fu Dusheng was sent by He Xuan to spy on me, he was also a greedy man, and he immediately responded to my proposal, so we took away six brass bells (duo), and each of them divided into three.
The rest of the treasures were all given to Li Pinxian, who discussed with He Xuan on how to distribute them, and He Xuan offered to ask for the coffin, and he also wanted a third of the treasure. Li Pinxian quickly agreed, and after distributing the treasure with He Xuan, he did not mention anything about it. As I expected, not a single one was given to me or Fu Dusheng. Fu Dusheng was grateful to me for letting him get three brass bells, and those three things were enough for him to change three big houses.
He Xuan knew that once this kind of thing was exposed, it would fall into the handle, so he ordered Fu Dusheng to transport all the treasures he had received back to his hometown in Yiyang, Hunan Province.
Li Pinxian, on the other hand, used his staff officer Huang Shaobo to transport all the treasures to Hong Kong and keep them in a large mansion in Jiandao. Twenty-four hours a day there were gun guards, afraid that someone would rob him of his treasure.
Although the matter was kept secret, it was still not shy, and newspapers in various places reported it one after another, which made Li Pinxian extremely embarrassed. Chen Cheng, Fang Zhi, and other political enemies of the Gui clan seized the opportunity to attack the Gui clan in a big way, so that the leaders of the Gui clan, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, were greatly enraged, and even sent a telegram to rebuke Li Pinxian.
Li Pinxian, on the other hand, took a posture of not knowing what to do, ignoring the telegrams of Li and Bai. And let people get out the wooden strips in the ancient tomb, sawn into two pieces, and then transported to Xinyang, and then transported to Guilin by train, handed over to the Guangxi Appeasement Office, temporarily stored in the Iron Buddha Temple. After the victory of the War of Resistance, I heard that those wooden strips were sold by people, and the profits were huge.
Li Pinxian was insatiable, thinking that there was an ancient tomb nearby, and when he heard that the tomb of King Chu Zhuang was also nearby, he planned to dig up this ancient tomb as well. However, at that time, the Japanese army was already approaching Tianjia'an, sixty miles away from Shou County, and the Thirty-first Army and the Forty-eighth Army were desperately resisting.
Li Pinxian knew that he was not an opponent of the Japanese army, and could only order the withdrawal from Shou County. Soon, Shou County fell into the hands of the enemy, and Li Pinxian's ambition to continue to excavate ancient tombs was also broken.
The article refers to the archived materials of the Anhui Municipal Office of Culture and History, and part of the content is dictated by the party Deng Zhiyi, and the authenticity needs to be verified.