In the 50s of the last century, Wu Han, deputy mayor of Beijing and historian of the Ming Dynasty, and others wrote to request the excavation of the Changling Tomb in the Ming Tombs. However, Xia Nai, vice president of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the conditions for archaeological excavation of imperial tombs in China at that time were limited, and should start with the smaller Wanli Dingling.
Despite this, the excavation of Dingling has become a major regret in China's archaeological history, with precious artifacts severely damaged due to neglect of conservation, and many strange things that happened during the archaeological period, which is surprising and awe-inspiring.
Among them, the most striking thing is that in the 50s of the last century, when archaeologists excavated the Ming Tombs, a strange old man appeared on the construction site.
The Ming Dynasty tombs are well preserved, as can be seen from documentary records and archaeological excavations. Among them, Zhu Yuanzhang's filial piety mausoleum is located in Nanjing, while the mausoleums of the fourteen emperors from Ming Chengzu to Chongzhen are distributed in Hebei, Beijing, Liaoning and Henan.
Ming Ming Tombs: Located in Tianshou Mountain, Changping County, 50 kilometers northwest of Beijing, is the mausoleum of the remaining thirteen emperors of the Ming Dynasty, each mausoleum is built in a basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, Wenyu River from the southeast to come, the mountains are surrounded by water, extremely treasured.
These thirteen mausoleums include Xianling, Jingling, Maoling, Yuling, Kangling, Tailing, Yongling, Dingling, Zhaoling, Qingling, Deling, Siling, etc. Changling is one of the most representative mausoleums, surrounded by gold and jade in the cemetery, and there are sixteen buried concubines in the east and west wells.
Because of the high status of Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, and the representative structure of Changling, Wu Han and Guo Moruo and others originally planned to excavate in Changling, hoping to obtain breakthrough results from it.
However, when Zhao Qichang, the leader of the archaeological team, led the team members, with various archaeological tools and braved the cold and heavy snow, to the Ming Tombs and Changling Tombs in Tianshou Mountain, they found themselves in a predicament in the exploration of Baoding and Baocheng.
They couldn't accurately grasp the tall brick city dome that should be above the underground palace, as well as the battlements and female walls on the city wall.
After all, this was the first archaeological excavation of the imperial tomb since the founding of New China, and they could not dig indiscriminately like the warlord Sun Dianying, so the archaeological team staff could only speculate that Baocheng and Baoding should be in the center of this underground palace, but they still acted cautiously and did not take action.
In 1955, after careful consideration, Wu Han sent a letter to *** proposing that the archaeological team still needed to carry out further stratigraphic exploration of the Changling Tomb, which had a history of more than 600 years. After a year, in 1956, at the suggestion of Xia Nai, vice president of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wu Han wrote to Guo Moruo: "Dingling has appeared in front of our eyes......Although its scale is small, it is estimated that the structure is roughly the same as that of Changling, so we can start with Dingling to accumulate some experience for the development of Changling. ”
Dingling was built in 1584, that is, the twelfth year of Wanli, completed in the eighteenth year of Wanli, located in the southwest of Changling, at the foot of Daling Mountain, covering an area of about 180,000 square meters.
This is the thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Shenzong Zhu Yijun and the two queens of the joint burial tomb, it took six years, 8 million taels, about 10 million peasants at that time a year's rations, equivalent to the Wanli years of the country's two years of field income.
Zhu Yijun, the owner of the tomb of Dingling, although he was absurd and superstitious, but he was very attentive to his cemetery, not only began to build Dingling after he ascended the throne at the age of ten and became emperor, but also for most of the forty-eight years of his reign, he did not go to court, but devoted himself to the construction of the cemetery.
When Zhu Yijun was twenty-two years old, he ordered the construction of the Dingling Mausoleum, which is enough to show his love for treasures. As a result, Dingling has always attracted tomb robbers and disgruntled. Especially at the end of the Ming Dynasty, after Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising, captured Beijing, he came to the Changping Ming Tombs area, and because of his dissatisfaction with the Ming Dynasty, he set fire to the three Ming Emperor's tombs, including the Dingling Tomb, and some of the buildings are still difficult to find.
The second destruction of Dingling came from Dorgon, the prince of Qingrui. He demolished the tombs of the Jin Dynasty emperors in the Fangshan area in his early years, which made the Jurchens very angry, and they kept this hatred in their bones.
After the Qing army entered the customs, Dolgon took revenge for the demolition of the mausoleum, and demolished the stele pavilion of divine merit and saintly virtue in front of the Dingling mausoleum and part of the above-ground buildings. However, this move endangered the Qing Dynasty's rule in the Central Plains and was detrimental to the stability of the people.
So the Qing Dynasty rebuilt the Ming Tombs. However, Dingling has suffered irreversible damage. Therefore, when the decision was made to excavate the Dingling Tomb in 1956, the Dingling Excavation Committee was very cautious and attached great importance to the excavation of the first imperial tomb.
On May 19, 1956, the first shovel of the excavation of Dingling was dropped, and everyone was full of enthusiasm and expectation. However, it backfired, and the excavation caused devastating damage to Dingling.
On May 18, 1956, a large truck loaded with bed boards, tables and chairs, pots and pans, stoves and household items, as well as archaeological tools such as bamboo baskets, ropes, flat poles, shovels and pickaxes, drove towards Zhaoling Village, south of Dingling, and stopped at a villager's home.
The Dingling Excavation Committee employed more than 60 farmers from the villages surrounding the Ming Tombs, who were both curious and intimidated before entering the mysterious underground palace for excavation.
There is a local saying that the underground palace of Dingling is full of traps and secret passages, and countless flying knives are hidden. As long as the dungeon is opened, the throwing knife will hit the head directly, as long as you touch the masonry siding, the poisonous arrow will shoot, once you hit the body, you will not escape the fate of death.
Xia Nai, Wu Han, Guo Moruo and others are not as addicted to martial arts adventures throughout the ages as the villagers**, but they are still cautious about this huge imperial tomb.
In addition to Zhao Qichang, there was also an old man with gray temples, he was Bai Wanyu, who was responsible for archaeological research and restoration of unearthed cultural relics, and was also the deputy captain that Zhao Qichang asked Xia Nai.
In order to determine the location of the gate of the underground palace, the archaeological team dug a 20-meter-long and 35 m wide trench. The trench probing method requires not only a lot of physical labor, but also keen insight.
During the excavation process, the migrant workers need to dig out the loess from the tomb one by one, and then carefully load it into baskets and transport it to a distant place to be inspected by special inspectors.
After all, archaeological excavations are not the same as the construction of farmland and levees, and each shovel of dirt may hide historical clues. The old man Bai Wanyu repeatedly emphasized: "Everyone must remember that we are not digging reservoirs and dams, nor are we engaged in construction projects, and archaeological work requires patience, meticulousness and care." ”
After the archaeological team conducted an all-round search, clues were found soon after. The stones inside Baocheng were exposed during the excavation, and a migrant worker suddenly shouted: "Look, there are words on the stones!" ”
The members of the archaeological team immediately put down their work and walked together to surround the exposed stone. I saw that the smooth stone was shallowly carved with rough handwriting "Tunnel Door", which was obviously a mark left by the craftsmen.
Suddenly, the archaeological site was noisy and lively. The archaeological team immediately informed Xia Nai and Wu Han, the two did not expect to find the tunnel door in just two hours, they were both surprised and surprised on the way here, while sighing that this is really the right time, place and people.
When the two arrived, they found a brush, squatted down and carefully cleaned the soil on the stone, as if they wanted to kiss the stone, and carefully identified it. They nodded again and again: "That's right, that's right, it's the word 'tunnel door'." ”
Although the migrant workers did not understand the importance of these three words, they couldn't help but smile when they saw the two captains so excited. However, when the atmosphere was relaxed and happy, Zhao Qichang and the migrant workers noticed that Bai Wanyu's smile was gradually disappearing, and his brows were slightly furrowed, as if he was thinking about something.
In fact, Bai Wanyu was not dissatisfied with this discovery, but only had some doubts: if you look closely, the font inscriptions of this stone strip are too shallow and not neat enough, and it looks more like a random production than a customized product in the construction process of the tomb.
The original content of the copy was about the question of the appearance of the three characters in the emperor's mausoleum, as well as possible explanations, including the illusion that the craftsman may have set up to confuse the tomb robbers, or the craftsman left it at the behest of the Ministry of Works.
The new copy mainly revolves around Bai Wanyu's speculation, and he speculates that these three words may have been secretly left by craftsmen instructed by the Ministry of Works.
Who would dare to ** the time of the emperor's death?As soon as the emperor died, the Ministry of Works was to immediately open the door of the tomb and take charge of this task. If the burial period is delayed or even missed because of the opening of the tomb, the ** in charge of the funeral of the Ministry of Works may die as a result.
Therefore, the Ministry of Works** may have marked a certain part of the entrance. Zhao Qichang and Bai Wanyu speculated that this rough stone strip may be a mark left by the Ministry of Industry during the Wanli period.
Soon after, they dug 4 above the groundAt a distance of 2 meters, a neat brick wall built of Yongcheng bricks was found, and the two walls were eight meters apart, forming an arc-shaped alley that curved to the north.
However, when the second trench was excavated, the archaeological work came to a standstill.
In order to improve the efficiency of detection, archaeological work has been changed from manual excavation to the use of pulley lifting. Day after day, workers worked hard to lift baskets of earth and transport them away by truck.
However, after more than a month of hard work, they still did not find any new clues or signs, and even the traces of the tunnel gradually disappeared. There is only a deep ditch in front of you, which is more than 20 meters long, 6 meters wide and 7 meters deep.
The archaeological team was in a heavy mood, although many experts and scholars had come to discuss with the captain Zhao Qichang many times, he still couldn't show a smile, just squatted quietly on the side and smoked, pondering the problem.
That night, Zhao Qichang lay in bed, thinking repeatedly, he couldn't sleep, he kept thinking: What is the problem?
The rain became heavier and heavier, and thunder sounded in the sky from time to time, and Zhao Qichang was awakened in a daze. He immediately jumped to his feet, intending to wake up his teammates, only to find the muddy water in the ditch muddy.
This left the archaeological team and migrant workers at a loss. Just as they were in trouble, a team member panted and ran over: "Oh no, go and see, the sitting beast in Minglou was struck by lightning!" ”
Hearing the news, the migrant workers began to show fear and anxiety on their faces. Someone sighed: "I said a long time ago that digging the emperor's grave is to cut off the ...... of children and grandchildren."Others thought, "Don't say it, this must be the emperor's warning to us." ”
I'm afraid there are other things waiting for us, this time it's really killing chickens for monkeys. ”
Zhao Qichang frowned, and before he could refute this group of superstitious migrant workers who fanned the flames, an even more shocking news came: Zhang Li, who was guarding the Dingling Tomb, was struck by lightning and was seriously injured and died, and is currently being rescued in the county health center, while another guard, Gu Shui, was directly killed by the thunder fire.
Everyone was shocked at this time, and even the elderly migrant workers knelt directly in front of the Ming Tower, kowtowing, and wept bitterly while repenting of their "sins": "Your Excellency, you can forgive ...... sins."Zhao Qichang and Bai Wanyu had a headache when they saw this chaos, because there are often thunderstorms in the local area during the thunderstorm season, which caused buildings and livestock to be struck by lightning, which was already a headache.
What made people even more headache was that within two days, a mentally disturbed old man came to the construction site, this woman was unkempt, her hair was all white, and she was wearing a tattered red coat on her upper body, laughing and crying for a while, which was very strange.
Please, don't hurt anyone again, I don't dare to ...... anymore”
An old woman with a strange expression appeared on the construction site, and her every move made the migrant workers feel creepy, and some people even speculated that she was possessed by a fox demon. When the excavation work could not be carried out, Zhao Qichang asked the migrant workers to drive her away, but when the old grandmother saw that someone was trying to drive her, she collapsed directly to the ground, rolling and refusing to leave, and her mouth still let out a beast-like terrible cry from time to time.
In desperation, everyone had to push her to the ground, carry her out of the cemetery, and throw her into the field, and sent two migrant workers to hold the gate of the construction site, strictly prohibiting her from blending into the construction site again.
Just when everyone was puzzled, some chilling strange phenomena appeared in the villages around the mausoleum, which shrouded the entire construction site in an atmosphere of mystery and horror.
Rumors spread about the excavation site of the Dingling Tomb, as if a contagious disease had spread in the villages surrounding the Imperial Tomb. Some of the team members who stayed overnight at the villagers' homes told Zhao Qichang what they had heard: In Yuling Village, there was a middle-aged woman who was just going to move grass from the haystack, and suddenly fell to the ground and had convulsions, and Dr. Langzhong could not diagnose **.
In desperation, his family invited a well-known local goddess. Seeing the unconscious appearance of the woman, the goddess slowly pulled out a silver needle half an inch long, dipped a little spit in her mouth, found the position of the woman's person, and pierced it vigorously.
In an instant, the woman let out a terrifying scream, then jumped up, pushed through the crowd, and ran towards the street: "It's not my fault, it's not my fault, a group of people have come to Dingling, they want to dig my nest, I can't stay any longer, save me......."Locals spread the word that the middle-aged woman was haunted by the emperor's "ghost".
At first, Zhao Qichang and Bai Wanyu only felt angry and funny, and ignored it at all. However, as the news of the women possessed by the "fox fairy" and haunted by the "ghosts" continued to come from the surrounding villages, their hearts couldn't help but become heavy.
Although they did not believe in the stories of these bulls, ghosts, snakes, and gods, they were deeply worried about the resistance of the locals.
One day, a migrant worker found Zhao Qichang and said that his wife had hit an evil spirit at home, and all the pots and pans in the house were smashed to pieces. Zhao Qichang was furious in his heart, because these days, the excavation work has stagnated, strange rumors have spread, and the migrant workers seem to be absent-minded, which makes him very irritable.
Now, I have finally found an outlet to vent my emotions. He rushed to the migrant worker's house and found that the woman was still screaming and throwing things at home, Zhao Qichang grabbed a brick, squeezed through the crowd of onlookers, rushed to the woman, and yelled at her: "The surname Zhao is here, what do you want to do?" ”
Zhao Qichang's roar shook the entire compound, and even the barking of chickens and dogs could not be heard. The woman stopped holding the crockpot in her hand and looked at Zhao Qichang, too frightened to move.
Seeing this, the crowd snatched the jar and dragged the woman into the house, where the woman snorted a few times and stopped going mad, ending in a farce. In fact, these villagers have lived near the imperial tomb for generations, and some of them are even descendants of the mausoleum protectors, who have been poisoned by the imperial power.
The farces of the past few days are not so much the so-called "ghosts and gods" as the remnants of imperial power eroding the minds of the villagers. Behind all this, there are some people with ulterior motives who are manipulating and directing them to prevent the archaeological work from proceeding.
The experience made the migrant workers suspicious, but both the operators and the migrant workers were well aware that once the excavation began, there was no turning back.
The atmosphere on the construction site gradually turned from elation to dreary, and the archaeological team members and migrant workers had to grit their teeth and continue the construction. However, the emperor paid off, and a few months later, the tomb was finally successfully opened.
In September 1959, the Dingling Museum was officially established and opened to the public on September 30. This mysterious underground palace finally reveals its majestic grandeur to the world in its deep and solemn way.