One
In June 1986, a small village in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, was preparing to build a reservoir for irrigating farmland, but the bulldozer brought out a large number of green bricks during the construction process, and soon the local cultural relics department arrived at the site for a careful investigation and confirmed that there was a Liao Dynasty noble tomb underground.
After several days of cleaning, the tomb door was finally opened, and a ray of sunlight shone into the dark space that had been sealed for thousands of years, making everything clear.
Scene in the tomb of Princess Chen Guo
The tomb was not stolen! The room full of gold and silver jade, so perfect! All the archaeologists could not hide their excitement, and they were so excited that they almost jumped.
"Look, there's a stone tablet over there, is it an epitaph?" An archaeologist cried out in amazement as if he had discovered a new continent.
The crowd followed the team's direction, and sure enough, a square stone stele glowing green was placed impressively in the center of the front room of the tomb.
That is the epitaph is conclusive, in all the excavated Liao tombs, there has never been a precedent for epitaphs, this tomb is very strange, coupled with such a luxurious funerary product, aroused the great curiosity of the archaeologists, who is the owner of the tomb?
The archaeologists slowly walked towards the stone stele, and after wiping the dust on the surface, the seal book of the yin carving was immediately revealed, eight words: The epitaph of The Princess Chen Guo.
The owner of the tomb is a princess! This is beyond the expectations of archaeologists, the key is who is this Princess Chen Guo? The leader, Himmud, searched his mind for relevant historical information, which was a pity! A blank slate.
With the combined efforts of all the people, the epitaph was opened, and Himmud could not wait to read it carefully word by word by the faint light. It turned out that this Princess Chen Guo was the granddaughter of the fifth emperor of the Great Liao, Liao Jingzong, the niece of the sixth emperor Liao Shengzong, and the daughter of Yelü Longqing, the King of Qin and Jin who led the army to attack the Song dynasty many times.
The epitaph shows that she was born in 1000 AD, died in 1018 AD, and died at the age of 18, just as the epitaph says: Although the ancients have died. Princess Chen Guo was too young. Everyone will die, but Princess Chen Guo unfortunately died at the age of the flower season, and it was regrettable that she died too early.
At this point in time, a major event occurred in Chinese history, that is, song and Liao signed an alliance that brought 120 years of peace to the two countries, and Princess Chen Guo was the one who witnessed it.
Two
Daliao was founded in 916 by the Khitan Yelü Abaoji, and was not called Daliao at the beginning of its establishment, but the Khitan state. In 947, the second emperor, Yelü Deguang, changed the name of the country to Daliao. Speaking of Daliao, we can't avoid an ancient geographical term--- Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures.
The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun were the sixteen prefectures in northern China centered on Youzhou (present-day Beijing) and Yunzhou (present-day Datong, Shanxi), namely present-day Beijing and northern Tianjin, as well as northern Hebei and northern Shanxi.
This place is very special, the area to the north is a minority gathering area, to the south is the Central Plains Han Dynasty, then Yanyun Sixteen Prefecture is a natural barrier separating the Hu and Han people, who occupies it who has the initiative to attack and defend.
Bronze statue of Jeroboam
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, the Central Plains had frequent dynastic changes and social unrest, and in 937, Daliao took the opportunity to seize Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures from Shi Jingyao.
After the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty in 960, Zhao Kuangyin considered the gains and losses of Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, which were related to the safety of a generation of Jiangshan, and thought of recovering this area.
As a result, the two sides launched a decades-long repeated battle, due to the Great Song Dynasty's idea of building a state that emphasized literature and light force, resulting in the military confrontation with daliao, always losing more than winning, and the story of the Yang family general was staged during this period.
In 1004, Empress Xiao of Liao and Emperor Shengzong of Liao personally led a large army south into the hinterland of the Song Dynasty, and Song Zhenzong was so frightened that he planned to move the capital south to avoid disaster. Wang Qinruo, a minister of the Song Dynasty, advocated moving the capital to Nanjing, and Chen Yaosu advocated moving the capital to Chengdu, Sichuan.
At this time, Kou Zhun put forward a different opinion, he advocated fighting, how to fight? He asked Emperor Zhenzong of Song to march in person to boost morale. Song Zhenzong was also unwilling to easily give up his grandfather's hard-earned Jiangshan, so he accepted Kou Zhun's proposal and personally led a large army to go out.
This trick really worked, the frontline soldiers saw that when the Heavenly Son came, they could see the heavenly face, and it was really the ancestral tomb that smoked, and they all left tears of excitement, and shouted three times, tens of miles, and the momentum was a hundred times greater.
In the ensuing battle, they all rushed to kill with one to ten, and even if they died in battle, they died with faith in the leader, and they died as they deserved, and they died willingly.
The Liao army was defeated in front of this group of soldiers who suddenly became like tigers and wolves, and the commander of the Liao army, Xiao Taorin, was shot and killed by the Song army. When Empress Xiao and Emperor Shengzong of Liao saw that the situation was not good, they quickly proposed peace, and Song Zhenzong did not want to fight, and of course gladly accepted this proposal.
Since both sides have the intention to reconcile, the rest of the matter is easy to handle, which is nothing more than a matter of bargaining.
The Song Dynasty was not militarily good, but the country was relatively wealthy, so the Song Zhen Sect sent Cao Tou to negotiate peace with him before saying: "As long as you don't cut up the land and talk about peace, the Liao State is asking for millions of dollars, and you can also agree."
Cao Yu asked what the bottom line is?
Zhao Heng said without hesitation, "If you have to do something, a million can also be." ”
After Kou Zhun knew the number promised by Song Zhenzong, he secretly called Cao Yong over and said, "Although the emperor has a million covenant, if it exceeds 300,000, I will cut off your head." ”
After several bargains, the two sides reached a figure of 300,000 silver silks given to the Liao state by the Song Dynasty every year. Cao used his self-consciousness to complete the task with great honor and rushed back to hand over the will.
When he was invited to see him, Song Zhenzong was eating, and the waiter asked Cao how much silver he had given to liaoguo. Cao Yu did not speak, but just held out three fingers on his forehead, meaning three hundred thousand taels.
The waiter mistakenly thought it was three million taels, and Song Zhenzong was shocked when he heard about it: "Too much, too much."
Song Zhenzong summoned Cao Yu to interrogate him personally, and Cao Yu replied tremblingly, "Three hundred thousand taels." ”
Zhao Heng listened and muttered, "Only three hundred thousand, so little." You're very good at things, very good at things! ”
Subsequently, Cao Was rewarded heavily.
In 1005, the two countries signed a final contract at Liaoyuan: the Song and Liao used the Baigou River as the boundary, and the two sides withdrew their troops. Every year, the Song provided Liao with "the fee for assisting the army" with 100,000 taels of silver and 200,000 silk horses, which were delivered to Xiongzhou. This is the historical Alliance of the Abyss.
After the two countries reached a peace agreement, there was no more large-scale war, but small conflicts still existed, so the Song and Khitan still had fierce contradictions, which were even deeply rooted among the common people of the two countries, and the two sides regarded each other as Kou.
Xiao Feng in Jin Yong's "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon" is precisely the character created under this historical background, which is exactly hu Han's enmity and must pour heroic tears.
Three
The epitaph also explains a surprising thing, not only Princess Chen Guo is buried in the tomb, but also Princess Chen Guo's husband Xiao Shaoju, and what is even more unimaginable is that Xiao Shaoju is actually the uncle of Princess Chen Guo, who is 18 years old.
Princess Chen Guo and the donkey horse
This phenomenon of close relatives marrying is unacceptable to the Han Chinese and will be defined as incest, but it is very common in Khitan culture.
The Khitan tribe has two major surnames, Yelü and Xiao, and the imperial power is controlled by the Yelü clan, but the empress or horse must be the Xiao clan, which means that the men of the Yelü family must marry the women of the Xiao family, then the women of the Yelü family must marry the men of the Xiao family.
It was in the context of Daliao's two-surname hereditary system that the 18-year-old Princess Chen Guo married her 36-year-old uncle Xiao Shaoji.
The Khitan people did not bury immediately after death, they believed in resurrection from the dead, so the corpses would be preserved using certain embalming means, so was it possible that the bodies of Princess Chen Guo and Xiao Shaoji were well preserved? With this huge anticipation, the archaeologists entered the back chamber of the tomb.
Different from the Central Plains Han burial customs, there is no coffin in the back room, only a bed, the bodies of the princess and the donkey are placed side by side on the bed, the princess is on the right, the horse is on the left, the right hand of the horse is pressed on the left hand of the princess, and both are dressed in silver wire mesh and wear gold masks.
Princess Chen Guo mask
Song Wenren Weijian's "Facts of the Yuting Dynasty" records:
"In his rich and noble house, the man has the dead, with a blade to break the abdomen, to take his stomach and intestines, to take the alum with incense, salt, and five seams, and to pierce the skin with a sharp reed, to drain its anointing blood, and to use gold and silver as a mask, and copper wire to wrap his hands and feet."
Everything the archaeologists saw was exactly in line with the records in the texts, and it is said that the mask was made according to the appearance of a real person, and the golden mask covering the princess's face was plump, the upper forehead was stretched, the lips were slightly sniffed, and the appearance was dignified and slightly sad.
Judging from the mask of the donkey horse, he should be a handsome and handsome man before he died, with slightly convex cheekbones, sharp jaws, and a thin face.
Donkey Gold Mask
The silver mesh coat is made of silver wire with a diameter of 0.05 cm according to the size of the human body, and the net coat is well preserved as a whole, but the clothes under the net coat have been highly carbonized, the hand is ashed when touched, and the dry state under the clothes seems to indicate that the body has also decayed.
The funerary goods on the princess and the horse were extremely luxurious, maintaining their burial position and covering the entire bed. Over the millennia, these artifacts have become fragile and difficult to clean up at the site.
After careful discussion, the archaeologists finally decided to pack up the coffin and the cultural relics excavated from the tomb and transport them to Hohhot, a thousand kilometers away, by liberation truck.
In a specific stadium in Hohhot, archaeologists finally took down the golden masks of the princess and the horse, and unfortunately, only some teeth remained under the masks, and the bones under the silver wire mesh clothes had become mud.
A total of more than 3227 burial items were cleared out of the tomb, most of which are unique, rewriting the history of the Liao Dynasty, which can be called the only case in the Liao Dynasty culture.