The tomb of the "Wangu Liufang" eunuch in the city of Beijing
A few days ago, I was deeply shocked by the survival desire of a group of ancient North Drifters. The reason is that in recent days, in order to write a historical copy, when I was looking up the information, I stumbled upon an old news story, to the effect that one day in May 2002, the reporter received a hotline call saying that a university in Beijing's West Third Ring Road was under construction, and it seemed that an ancient tomb had been dug up. It turned out that what was buried here was not a celebrity, but a group of eunuchs. From 1950 to 2014, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, the Xiangshan Hotel, the Youth Political College, the Beijing Technology and Business University, and the Institute of Geomechanics were all state-owned units that excavated large eunuch graves. According to historical records, the tombstones of the eunuchs are roughly the same: relief cloud stone, four calligraphy Chinese characters "Wangu Liufang".
According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, there are at least 570 tombs in the city that contain the tombs of eunuchs who dream of "Wangu Liufang", and more than half of the Haidian district and Shijingshan District are densely packed with eunuch tombs. What now? For the construction of the capital, these tombs have either been demolished or buried, and it seems that there is only one tomb group left at present- "Tian Yi Tomb", where the tombstone is still the same as the father-in-law's favorite "Ancient Liufang".
For ordinary Chinese, "Wangu Liufang" is a popular epitaph template, few great people can really "Liufang", most people have children, can also become "Liufang", but for eunuchs, this epitaph is always a little embarrassing. So, how did the eunuch "flow through the ages"? According to historical records, some eunuchs or traitors, hurting loyalty, or yin and yang people who go around scavenging for oil and water, they should be closer to "leaving a stink for ten thousand years", but the dream must have, if it comes true? Therefore, the eunuchs embarked on the path of pursuing "eternal flowing fangs" all their lives.
In order to realize the dream, based on thousands of years of practice, they came up with a complete solution:
The first option: Fry the baby (after the net, fry the baby for a long time).
The eunuchs believed that only by burying sponge's body with him could he become a complete person in the afterlife, and that a complete person was worthy of the title of "Eternal Flowing Fang", but they were troubled by the following three situations:
First, they could not find an ordinary cemetery, because in ancient times their status was very humble and looked down upon by the world.
Second, you cannot enter the ancestral grave
Because they have lost the ability to pass on the generations without being recognized by the family, they will not be able to enter the ancestral grave in the future.
Third, find a random place to bury outside, and be afraid of being cut off by others who know that they are eunuchs.
The outside world is very ruthless, in today's words, in the final analysis, they are a group of rootless "north drifters", in order to make a living, uprooted from their hometown, into the Forbidden City to work, and have no one to rely on. Fortunately, the eunuchs did not give up, and when reality collided with dreams, they found new ways to fight against the eternal flow.
The second plan: admit your son
The great eunuch Wei Zhongxian was very good at this, and the sons he recognized were all figures with heads and faces, Manchu Dynasty Wenwu, and a small number of people called him "Daddy"
Even more cattle is the Eastern Han Eunuch Cao Teng, whose son gave birth to a grandson named Cao Cao.
Unfortunately, there are very few great eunuchs who are happy to be fathers; a large number of grass-roots small eunuchs, let alone recognize their sons, cannot even recognize their ancestors and return to the ancestors... If you silently receive that little wage for a lifetime, after leaving the palace, you are likely to be able to die on the street... In the face of danger, the eunuchs used a unique trick -
The third option: monasticism
In the temple, the father-in-law huddled together for warmth, and after a long time, the temple became the father-in-law's nursing home. Here has formed a unique pension mechanism, and this nursing home operates like this:
The big eunuch strives to engage in gray income, spends a huge amount of money to buy land to build a temple, when the nursing home, the little eunuch pays a certain "pension insurance", and after retirement, he enters the temple to do miscellaneous work and pension until he dies.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, 2344 new temples were built in Beijing, of which 330 were "nursing homes" built by the public: such as Dahui Temple, Fahai Temple, Yongji Temple, Cheng'en Temple, Biyun Temple, Shanfo Temple, Xinglong Temple, Baiyun Temple, etc., which were built by some great eunuchs to pray for their Ding Ding.
The wish of a group of low-level people to "flow through the ages" finally shook Greater Beijing! In the silence, the eunuchs also gradually released their biggest trick for the "Ancient Liufang": to leave a name for the enclosure.
You may have heard of the following place names, but you don't necessarily know that these place names are caused by eunuchs:
Vegetable Camp, Apple Orchard, Enjili, Dingfuzhuang, Zhongguancun.
The original name of Zhongguancun was "Zhongguan Tomb", and the so-called "Zhongguan" refers to eunuchs.
It can be seen that the energy field of the eunuch "Wangu Liufang" at that time was greater than the momentum of Haidian parents snapping up school district houses. Seventy years back in time in the wanliu area where rich people are now gathered, all of which are 680 acres of rivers and mountains that eunuchs willfully bought: from the bottom to the incense, eunuchs are also a very inspirational profession. No wonder that in the era when eunuchs were in power, so many poor children with bad grades would shake their arms in despair! However, the eunuchs' ideal of "eternal flowing" came to an end forever with the decline of the Qing Dynasty.
The last eunuchs in China walked out of the palace gates in 1932. Most of them were pale old men, with no family to accompany them, and no one caring, or quietly getting on a bus or joining the bustling crowd, struggling to adjust to the outside world. Sun Yaoting, China's last eunuch, worked as an accountant at the Guanghua Temple in Beihai and practiced calligraphy every morning, and he lived to be 94 until the first year of Hong Kong's return...
With the death of China's last eunuch, the once vigorous "Ancient Flowing Fang" became more and more weak and weak. There is time to go to Tian Yi's tomb to see, where a group of Ming and Qing Dynasty northern drifters lived, who once worked very hard to live. This may be their last trace in the world.