Leigudun, about 2 kilometers northwest of Suizhou City in Hubei Province, is surrounded by mountains and rivers, making it an excellent Feng Shui treasure. Legend has it that during the Warring States Period, in order to quell the rebellion of Prime Minister Dou Yuejiao, King Chuzhuang personally beat drums here and commanded the army to fight. The soldiers fought hard and put down the rebellion in one fell swoop. Because of this fierce battle, the name of Leigudun has been passed down to this day.
At the end of February 1978, on a hill on the outskirts of Sui County (now Suizhou City), a radar repair station of the Wuhan Air Force was expanding its factory in the east Tuanpo area of ??Leigudun. The mountain was blasted and red sandstone was blasted out. A large layer of brown soil, Zheng Guoxian, the factory leader who came to inspect the work, suspected that it was a large ancient tomb.
On March 10, the joint exploration team was established. On the 19th, Tan Weisi, then deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Museum and captain of the archaeological team, rushed to the scene together with two technicians. Starting from March 20, archaeologists began drilling and excavation of the tomb. They held exploration shovels and dug holes into the ground to detect. As more and more holes were drilled, the scope of the tomb became clearer and clearer. Detection showed that the tomb was 21 meters long from east to west and 6.58 meters wide from north to south, with a total area of ??220 square meters. The coffin chamber alone is more than 190 square meters, which is six times larger than Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui in Changsha, 14 times larger than Tomb No. 168 at Fenghuangshan in Jiangling, Hubei, and larger than Chu No. 1 at Wangshan in Jiangling, Hubei where the sword of King Goujian of Yue was unearthed. The tomb is 8 times bigger. Such a large wooden coffin was the first of its kind in China at that time, and this type of rock-pit shaft tomb built on the rock was the first to be discovered in the south.
As expected, after preliminary exploration, it was found that the upper level of the tomb had been severely damaged, and groundwater overflowed, making it impossible to protect it intact. Tan Weisi suggested starting excavation immediately to save the cultural relics to the greatest extent, and this suggestion was approved. However, an even more worrying situation occurred. The explorers discovered a robbery hole with an area of ??about 0.5 square meters in the north of the middle of the tomb. Will the cultural relics in the ancient tomb be lost? Heavy questions mixed with a bit of despair enveloped the staff at the scene. Tan Weisi led the team members to carefully clean the Robbery Cave and found that it was filled with silt and there were several scattered stone slabs. This was another bad sign, indicating that the ancient tomb had been flooded. Many people at the scene were discouraged, thinking that this was an ancient tomb with no excavation value. The cultural relics inside were likely to be robbed and eroded by water, making it difficult to preserve them intact. However, Tan Weisi insisted on excavation. Under his strong advocacy, the exploration team applied for excavation to their superiors and received approval from the Hubei Provincial Party Committee and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
After nearly two months of planning and preparation, on May 11, 1978, the excavation of the tomb of Zeng Hou Yi officially began. After the remaining filling of the tomb was completely removed, the 47 giant stone slabs covering the tomb were fully exposed. Archaeologists used a large crane to uncover the stone slabs and found that there was rammed earth about 250 centimeters thick under the stone slabs. There was another layer of 10 to 30 centimeters thick plaster mud under the rammed earth, and another thick layer of plaster mud under the rammed soil. The total amount of charcoal, this thick layer of charcoal, reaches 60,000 kilograms. On May 22, the charcoal was removed, and the coffin boards on the upper floor of the tomb were undoubtedly exposed. Archaeologists used a large crane to uncover the stone slabs and saw a pool of muddy water inside the coffin, with several wooden coffins floating on the water. While pumping water, in order to prevent the wooden coffins from damaging the funerary objects underneath, a crane was used to lift out the floating wooden coffins one by one. Opening the coffin lid, there were the remains of some women, aged between 13 and 25 years old. There are 23 such female corpses in the entire tomb. Experts determined that these female corpses should have died for the people buried with the owner of the tomb. In recent years, some scholars have believed that these women were the musicians who performed songs and dances for the owner of the tomb, Zeng Houyi.
As the water level dropped little by little, people discovered that this was a wooden coffin tomb with a vertical cavity, dug in red gravel, with a polygonal plane and no tomb passage. The tomb pit is 21 meters long from east to west, 16.5 meters wide from north to south, and more than 13 meters deep. The wooden coffin has 12 coffin walls. The coffin is 3.1 to 3.5 meters high. It is made of 171 long wooden boards and reaches 380 cubic meters. According to the orientation, the tomb is divided into four chambers: east, middle, west and north, all of which are rectangular. The width of the middle, north and east chambers is the same, 4.75 meters.
The main coffin is placed in the east chamber. The coffin has two layers, inner and outer, both made of wood.
The outer coffin is inlaid with a bronze frame, 3.2 meters long, 1 meter wide, 19 meters high and weighs 3.29 tons. There are 12 copper buttons distributed on the top coffin lid. The bronze frame of the coffin lid is made of 2 longitudinal beams and 4 cross beams joined by mortise and tenon. The coffin walls are decorated with patterns such as openwork, relief, and round carving, including cloud patterns, triangle patterns, etc., especially the dragon pattern, which has complex changes, bright colors, strong contrast, and smooth lines. What is even more peculiar is that there is a door hole at the bottom of one side of the outer coffin. Some people speculate that this may be specially designed to allow the soul of the person in the coffin to enter and exit freely.
The inner coffin is 2.49 meters long, 1.27 meters wide at the head, 1.25 meters wide at the foot, and 1.32 meters high. It is made of wooden boards connected with tenons. The patterns on both sides of the inner coffin are extremely unique. There is a double lattice door painted in the middle. Around the upper, lower, left and right sides of the lattice door, there are images of dragons, snakes, birds, beasts, etc. The content is mysterious and magical, with a total of more than 900 images. Warriors are painted on both sides of the door. They have two horns on their heads, their bodies are like fish and beasts, they are holding two halberds and their eyes are staring ahead. Some people say that this is probably the image of the soldiers in the underworld imagined by the painter. They hope that their king will have soldiers standing guard in the underworld after his death to protect his safety. The mythical beast painted on the coffin has beautiful horns like a deer, but has the long neck and wings of a crane. In ancient China, cranes and deer were auspicious animals, and gods often flew on cranes. Perhaps, this deer-antlered crane is the divine bird preparing to carry its master to heaven. After preliminary identification, it was found that the person buried in the coffin was the owner of the tomb, a male, 1.61 to 1.63 meters tall. Combined with the Ge unearthed next to the main coffin and engraved with the inscription "Zeng Hou Yi's bed Ge", it can be concluded that the person in the coffin is a prince of Zeng State during the Warring States Period, named "Yi", so he is called "Zeng Hou Yi". And this short sword is the weapon used by the guards of Zeng Houyi's palace.
The middle chamber of the tomb contains burial ritual vessels and musical instruments. At first, the archaeological team was surprised to find three sets of bronze chimes hanging on three wooden frames on the water. There are several more floors below the wooden frame. Will there be more and larger chimes underwater? Tan Weisi judged that the coffin chamber was 3.3 meters deep, and now only about 1 meter was exposed. There was still more than 2 meters of water below, and there must be supports underwater. Through the waves on the water, he could vaguely see a huge shadow. Worried that the bell frame would lose its balance and cause it to collapse, Tan Weisi ordered to slow down the pumping speed. Time passed bit by bit, and everyone anxiously and excitedly watched the gradually falling water surface. On May 24, many Yong bells were unearthed. There were more than 20 bells on the central bell frame on the second floor, 9 bells on the south frame, and 15 bells on the west frame. On May 25, the large Yong bell was exposed on the third floor chime frame, and the bronze figure on the northwest shelf was also dug out of the mud. At this point, a set of large-scale and majestic chimes finally revealed their true colors. The entire bell frame is supported by several bronze figures. The bronze figures hold up their hands and wear a bronze sword at their waist. They look straight ahead with a calm and calm expression. The workmanship is fine and lifelike.
There are 13 wooden coffins for deceased people in the west room, and weapons, carriages and horses are placed in the north room. A total of 15,404 pieces of ritual vessels, musical instruments, lacquered wood utensils, gold vessels, jades, weapons, chariots and horses, and bamboo simple items were unearthed from the four tombs. Many of the vessels have unique shapes, lifelike images, and gorgeous decorations, which fully reflect the southern Chu culture and The characteristics of the northern and central plains culture blending together everywhere.