? Since the pre-Qin period, China has said that "things die like things live" and "things die like things exist". Even in ordinary people's homes, what the deceased thought was precious before his death was generally buried with coffins, not to mention the magnificent tombs of princes and nobles. Whether it is the well-known Terracotta Warriors in the Qin Mausoleum, the female tombs in the Yin Ruins, or the recently excavated tombs of the Han Dynasty, there are countless treasures in the tombs.
Luxury burial will inevitably lead to poaching. In the classic book "Confucius' Family Story" in the pre-Qin period, it was recorded that after the death of Ji, an official of the State of Lu, his son and his subordinates prepared to take exquisite jade and jewelry as funerary objects. After hearing this, Confucius went to persuade him, "It's still a shame to give it to Baoyu. Explain that the people are guilty, but they kill people. Safe use? Moreover, the dutiful son does not love danger, and the loyal minister does not refer to rape to trap the king. "Finally persuaded to deal with the aftermath. Confucius equated thick burial with corpse exposure, which actually reflected that grave robbery was common as early as the pre-Qin period.
As mentioned above, grave robbery was very common in the pre-Qin period, and by the end of the Warring States period, the tombs of princes and princes were frequently stolen. Later emperors also knew this, so they began to install tomb-robbing prevention facilities at the same time. Taking the Qin Mausoleum as an example, Sima Qian recorded the construction process in Historical Records of Qin Shihuang: "At the beginning of the emperor's accession to the throne, he penetrated Mount Li and melted into the world. More than 700,000 people in the world went through three springs to drop copper, which reached the tombs and Gong Zhongqi objects. Let the craftsman make a crossbow, and people who wear it at close range need to shoot it. Taking mercury as a hundred rivers and seas, all organs instill each other, with astronomy on the top and geography on the bottom. Taking mermaid cream as a candle will last for a long time. "
Although there has been a saying in ancient books that the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was stolen, according to today's archaeological technical inspection and data analysis, the underground palace at the core of the Mausoleum of the Qin Dynasty has never been excavated on a large scale except for the burning and serious damage of the Terracotta Warriors 1 pit. According to the analysis of historians in Qin and Han dynasties, it is likely that Xiang Yu and Shi's father and son dug the imperial tomb, which only caused damage to the official temple and some tomb facilities in the cemetery.
? Later scholars mentioned the theft of the Qin Mausoleum many times in their works, mostly to express their willingness to advocate frugal burial and oppose extravagance and waste, and to give the king a warning that "it is a pity to die thick, but it is a pity to abandon decency." The luxurious, grand and mysterious Mausoleum of the First Qin Dynasty is like an eye-catching coordinate in the history of grave robbery in China, and several legends about its theft just sum up the two main motives of "official theft" in history: taking money or political revenge.
Some people think that Cao Cao's military group's "touch the mountains and touch the gold" comes from the crusade movement, which is suspected of "polluting its disadvantages", but Chen Lin, the author of this article, later took refuge in Cao Cao. Cao Cao once mentioned this essay to him, saying, "The first time that Qing moved a book, it could only be an orphan crime. Evil stops the body. Why is it evil for fathers and ancestors? " It can be seen that Cao Cao's main accusation is that Chen Lin scolded his father and ancestors in the election campaign. His words such as "great sin is solitary" and "evil will hinder it" seem to be understood as Cao Cao's default attitude towards accusing him of setting up a gold captain and other positions in the election campaign to carry out grave robbery. Interestingly, Cao Cao, as the first monarch to formally set up a special tomb-robbing position, set up many "suspected graves" to prevent tombs from being stolen after death.