After the National Day in 1955, Zheng Zhenduo, director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, rarely expressed his dissatisfaction and questioned a proposal placed on the table. The initiators of the proposal included Wu Han, vice mayor of Beijing, and Guo Moruo, a well-known writer, who originally wanted to excavate the location of the Ming Tombs and contribute to the archaeological cause of our country. However, Zheng Zhenduo believes that the time is not yet ripe, the technology is not mature enough, and it needs to be carried out more prudently. Although both sides had their own reasons, in the end the project was decided in the dispute.
However, good intentions do bad things, and from the time the project was finalized, a series of unfortunate events seemed to be doomed. The golden silk nanmu was discarded in the wild at will, and the dragon robe turned black and brittle and disappeared, all of which indicated a bad omen.
Zhu Yijun, the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, reigned for nearly 50 years, but after his death, his mausoleum was destroyed three times. Although the first two times also had a human factor, they did not cause fatal losses. And the third sabotage is the result of good intentions doing bad things, resulting in heavy losses.
The first destruction of Dingling was related to the unfilial piety of Zhu Yijun's descendants. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the common people lived in difficulty, and the peasant leader Li Zicheng launched an uprising, attacking the city and plundering land all the way, and finally hit the city of Beijing. In a fit of rage, he set fire to the ancestral tomb of the Zhu family, and the flames shone across Beijing, and three Ming Emperor tombs, including Dingling, were razed to the ground.
The ground floor area of Dingling reached 180,000, and although the fire was huge, it did not seem to have a serious impact on the scale of the entire Dingling.
However, after the initial devastation, the level of reverence for the Ming dynasty dropped significantly. Especially after the Jurchen people dug up the "dragon vein", the awe of the Ming Dynasty was even more gone.
With the entry of the Qing army and the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, the fate of the Ming Dynasty emperor's mausoleum was even more worrying. Dolgon completely unleashed his hatred for the broken "dragon vein" on the tomb of Emperor Ming.
The Qing soldiers wantonly smashed and looted, and enjoyed it for a while, but they buried endless troubles. After that, they had to rebuild the Ming Tombs in disgrace.
However, what really brought Dingling to ruin was the actions of Guo Moruo, Wu Han and others, who initiated the excavation of Dingling and the protection of cultural relics.
A crack appeared on the wall of Dingling, giving confidence to the archaeological team, which consisted of dozens of people. Under the leadership of Guo Moruo and others, Zhao Qichang and Bai Wanyu, the main and deputy captains of the archaeological team, unanimously agreed to excavate the Dingling Tomb.
Unlike the TV series "Ghost Blows the Lantern" and "Notes on Tomb Robbery", real archaeological work is not easy to enter after difficult and difficult tombs. The biggest challenge is finding the entrance, which requires precision rather than blind digging.
During the excavation of Dingling, they had to carry out three deep trenches. The first trench was excavated from the crack, and it turned out that they were in the right place, and there were abundant discoveries when digging the cavern to a depth of one meter.
Digging along the carved "tunnel door" took a whole month of hard work. Just when they were already feeling hopeless, an unexpected turn of events occurred - they dug a deep gate, made of large bricks. Obviously, this is the first entrance to the trench.
According to previous archaeological experience, the next step should be to dig a second trench. But will Dingling apply ordinary archaeological experience? No one knows about this problem, so I can only dig it and try it. However, the amount of work involved in this trench was huge, and it was the rainy season at the time, so the archaeological work had to be carried out slowly in order to avoid damage to the tomb.
After a few months, the crowd was demoralized, interest in the excavation was lost, and there was growing opposition. However, at this moment, Dingling gave everyone another surprise - a migrant worker happily came to the archaeological staff with a small stone tablet with inscriptions. After a simple cleanup, people saw the words on it clearly, and laughter and laughter suddenly resounded throughout the scene, because it read: "To the front of the King Kong wall, the skin is 16 zhang deep and 3 zhang and 5 feet deep."
So, after the third trench was excavated, it went straight to the white marble gate. As long as this gate is gently pushed open, the mystery of Dingling will be revealed, and the history that has been sealed for hundreds of years will see the light of day again. However, is this door really that easy to push open?
Starting from the gate of the large bricks, as the excavation deepened, the smell of decay and decay became stronger and stronger, and the smell was uncomfortable. The appearance of the small stone monument gives everyone hope, but it cannot counteract the adverse effects of the humid environment on the human body.
When they saw the diamond wall with their own eyes and found the brick-made door, a cool breeze slowly blew from inside the door, causing a group of proletarians to shiver and goosebumps all over their bodies. Although there was an inexplicable fear in his heart, everyone felt the need to go in.
According to the fine tradition of our country, cadres who encounter difficulties always go first, so captain Zhao Qichang stepped forward. He carefully removed the first brick, then the second, then the third, until a pitch-black hole was revealed. He shuddered as a rotten aura swept across his face, and the others all took half a step back.
Will there be traps, arrows, poisonous insects, snakes, or ants inside? Someone asked, slightly panicked. Immediately after that, everyone began to talk about whether they would encounter zombies, and some people worried about their safety.
The atmosphere became lively for a while. However, when the first step was actually taken, everyone started to get nervous again. In order to ensure safety, according to the ancient custom of sealing the mausoleum, the first living creature to enter the mausoleum was a chicken.
When the rooster bravely rushes into the darkness, clucking and flapping its wings, it seems to be unscathed and in no danger along the way.
So, everyone worked together to remove the bricks, Zhao Qichang tied the hemp rope, handed the other end of the rope to his companion, and then followed the path of the rooster, carefully walking forward.
It was not until it was confirmed that it was safe that other migrant workers and archaeologists followed suit. Together, they cracked the mechanism to prevent the tomb robbery, went through all kinds of hardships and dangers, and finally arrived at the location of the white jade gate.
Pushing open the gate of white jade, the Chinese archaeological community ushered in a major feat. This move not only lifted the veil of history, but also set off a haze of disaster.
So, what exactly is this mystery called? And how is the so-called disaster defined?
With the intersection of ancient civilization and modern civilization, the scene is gorgeous and solemn. Under the illumination of the lights, ancient and precious porcelain, jewelry, gold and silver, brocade and other cultural relics shine brightly, attracting the attention of everyone at the scene.
And for archaeologists, the most exciting thing is the upcoming revelation of the emperor's burial. First, let's take a look at the situation of the Wanli Emperor. His coffin was surrounded by ornaments such as jade and plum ping, and there was a red lacquered wooden box next to it, which was filled with rare antiquities.
In the golden silk nanmu coffin, the body of the Wanli Emperor is covered with a layer of cotton quilt, and under the quilt are ornate robes and fabrics. Despite the fact that a long time has passed, his body is still well preserved and not completely decomposed.
He was lying on his side, face up, with his hands resting on his right and left side of his stomach, and a string of rosaries could be seen on his hands. And his legs are not neatly arranged, but spread outward, presenting a unique posture.
Underneath his corpse, there are nine layers of bedding, one of which is even inlaid with 17 coins that symbolize good luck.
The other two coffins with grand specifications are buried with the two empresses of the Wanli Emperor, namely Empress Xiaoduan and Empress Xiaojing. Compared to the state of the corpses of the Wanli Emperor, the bodies of these two empresses were already more severely decomposed.
Empress Xiaoduan and Empress Xiaojing also adopted a side-lying burial position, but the specifications were different.
The bodies of the two empresses are in different postures and present different details. Empress Hyoduan is facing west, her feet are facing in opposite directions, and her hands are crossed on her abdomen. And Empress Xiaojing's body was not covered with a golden silk ribbon, one of her hands was placed behind her head, and the other hand was placed on her chest, as if similar to the posture of Emperor Wanli.
The excavation work was carried out in an orderly manner, and according to statistics, more than 3,000 cultural relics were unearthed from Dingling, including porcelain, fabrics, furniture, gold and silver jewelry, calligraphy and paintings, and daily necessities of the royal family. Every artifact is valuable, but how to properly protect it has become a major problem.
The villagers' homes have long since run out of space to store cultural relics, and the excavation task is more onerous than expected. As a result, many cultural relics were piled up on the ground haphazardly, and even the golden silk nanmu coffin where the body of the Wanli Emperor was stored was used as firewood for the peasants to make fires.
There are many unforgivable mistakes in this catastrophe, and the biggest of them is ignorance. Due to the lack of scientific archaeological knowledge, some staff members even touched the cultural relics directly with their hands, resulting in serious damage to the cultural relics.
Originally, Dingling was used as an underground mausoleum to protect the balance between cultural relics and the environment. But suddenly being exposed to a large amount of oxygen causes the fabric to quickly turn black and brittle, shattering at the touch of a button. Some specially treated cultural relics also need to be stored and protected with special technology after excavation, but the staff is not aware of this.
More than 3,000 excavated artifacts have either disappeared in the long course of history, or have suffered serious damage and lost their original precious value.
Man-made disasters outweigh natural disasters, and the tragedy of Dingling could have been avoided if they had taken more cautious steps and moved forward calmly.
Recalling their initial decision to excavate the Changling Tomb of the Yongle Emperor, people couldn't help but feel worried, so when Dingling suffered misfortune, ** took into account the actual situation and rejected Guo Moruo and others' proposal to continue excavating the Ming Tombs.
Experts insisted on excavating the mausoleum, which ultimately led to the destruction of precious artifacts.