The first thousand two hundred and ninety-one chapters
Before arriving at the Diamond Wall, various rumors circulated among the local people and excavation workers, saying that there were flying knives, hidden arrows, poison gas, traps, etc. in the tomb. There were sharp knives planted under the traps and covered with stone strips.
As soon as you step on the stone, it will fall over. If you hit the stone on the top and stab the bottom with a sharp knife, you will definitely die. New...m
Even if there are no legends about the traps in ancient tombs, they definitely exist, let alone legends about this.
However, it is indeed not that easy to excavate an emperor's tomb. The discovery of such a tomb can be said to be a coexistence of crisis and opportunity.
Judging from records, whether it is the pyramids in the West or the tombs in the East, some of them do contain the bodies of tomb robbers. However, it is not yet known whether the death of these tomb robbers was due to the impact of internal forces in the tombs or the infliction of external forces.
Find out.
This phenomenon is not uncommon in some tombs in China. Once some tombs were opened, there were three or four corpses of tomb robbers inside.
However, it can be concluded from the shape, demeanor and environment of the tombs of most of the corpses that they were mostly caused by the invasion of external forces.
This imperial mausoleum must have never been robbed before. What is the shape of the inside and whether there are hidden weapons or mechanisms need to be treated with caution, especially the gas inside.
In order to prevent the body from decaying and deteriorating, some protective chemicals may be added. These chemicals mix with the decaying gases in the underground palace and may become poisonous gases that harm humans.
Most of the royal tombs after the Tang Dynasty contained hidden arrows, crossbows, and poisonous gases, but most of them were looted by later generations.
As for whether and how much role these hidden arrows, crossbows, and poisonous gas played in the excavation, there is no record in official historical materials. Only some unofficial histories describe the details of the tomb robbers' tomb robbery and the power of the hidden weapons, but this is not enough to be relied upon.
Although the rumors and unofficial history are not credible, this large mausoleum is more than 600 years old, and it is eerie in itself.
As the saying goes: A man dies like a tiger, and a tiger dies like a sheep. No one is afraid when a tiger dies, but after the death of one's own relatives, the relatives are still a little timid, let alone the tomb of a great emperor!
Folk rumors, unofficial records, and the mysterious old man... formed a series of mysteries that swirled in the minds of the excavators.
Although many people are worried, Han Peacock does not think there are traps or hidden weapons. This mausoleum has been built for more than 600 years. Even if there are these protective facilities, they may have failed long ago. Even if they have not failed, they have been transformed. I don’t know.
How much can be retained?
But excavating this imperial mausoleum is not a trivial matter after all, and it is better to be cautious, because no matter who builds the mausoleum, he will not be ignorant of the fact that most of the tombs of emperors in the past have been stolen. In this case, precautions will not be taken in the design of the mausoleum.
.
Regarding poison gas, it is an exaggerated legend to say that poison gas was released in advance, because it was not possible to master chemical poison gas at that time.
But there is certainly no shortage of antiseptic and other materials in the underground palace. Based on the 600-year history of Daling alone, the gas inside is somewhat poisonous to the human body. This is what people call "poisonous gas".
In order to stabilize the mood at the excavation site, Professor Wang had no choice but to warn the work team at the excavation site: "It is better to believe that something exists than to believe that it does not exist. Proper preparations must be made to ensure the absolute safety of people and cultural relics."
Han Kongque, who knew some medical skills, was more specific: "There is corpse poison in the ancient tombs, you must pay attention to it."
Since the discovery of the Diamond Wall, Han Kongque has been with the excavators almost every day, providing on-site guidance, and his ability is obvious to all, so what he says will naturally be taken seriously.
In order to specifically prevent various dangerous situations that may occur after entering the underground palace, Professor Wang equipped the work team with gas masks, horse lanterns, mine safety helmets, rubber gloves, formalin, etc.
We also accepted the advice of the photographer arranged by the government department, and chose to open the diamond wall at night to avoid the extremely uneven sunlight in the trench for better tracking and shooting.
Now comes the demolition work of the King Kong Wall. The excavators all put on gas masks, and two team members carried lanterns. They climbed up the ladder to the top of the Gui-shaped gate and began to pull out the first wall brick weighing 24 kilograms.
Since the bricks are built without mortar, it does not take much effort to pump.
At this time, everyone present held their breath and stared at the top brick of the key-shaped ticket.
When the bricks were pulled out, there were no hidden arrows or rocks shooting out of them. Only an unpleasant smell came out of the hole and lasted for a long time.
After the smell in the cave was exhausted, everyone continued to remove the door tickets. When they reached the 15th floor, the entrance of the cave was more than two meters high. At this time, Han Peacock announced that he would stop removing the tickets.
In order to completely discharge the harmful gases in the cave, the excavators did not enter the cave immediately, but let it dry for a day.
To be cautious, before entering the cave, Professor Wang asked a migrant worker to buy a dog outside and try to put it in to see if there were hidden arrows, traps, poisonous gas, etc.
When the migrant worker led the dog, the dog bit someone and the migrant worker did not dare to lead it.
Seeing this made Han Peacock dumbfounded, so he had to persuade Professor Wang to forget it, saying that if the dog got in, it would destroy the things inside.
The dog test failed, so Professor Wang asked the team members to buy a big rooster again. This time Han Peacock had no reason to object. This was the normal method for digging ancient tombs.
And the reason why he is so sure that there is no danger inside is that it is obviously not used by ordinary people. It is considered a cheating method. But now, he is more interested in this ordinary person's method. After all, anyone can learn this method.
use.
Professor Wang asked the team members to throw the chicken into the hole to try. The team member held the chicken, climbed up the bamboo ladder and threw it down from the hole. As a result, it was dark inside and the hole was bright, and it flew out from the hole again.
Both tests failed, and Professor Wang had no choice but to let a team member enter the hole.
At that time, this team member was a little scared and looked embarrassed.
Professor Wang said directly: "I have prepared it for you. The danger is there but not too great."
So the team member put on a gas mask, held a lantern, and went down through the opened hole.
Just in case, Professor Wang tied one end of a long rope around his waist, and the other end was held by the person at the entrance of the cave.
After the team member went down, he used a lantern to illuminate the road. The lantern was as dark as a bean fire in the cave, so he had to use a flashlight to shine.
Where his feet landed, there was a "shushing" sound. He followed the electric light and saw that there were rotten wooden boards, ropes and the like scattered on the rocky ground.
After taking a few steps forward, he saw that there were no flying knives, hidden arrows, or traps, so he shot a bolt of lightning toward the entrance of the cave. This was a predetermined signal. If the lightning flashed back, it meant that nothing happened inside the cave.
After seeing the signal, Professor Wang asked the team members to put on gas masks and go down into the cave. He also put on the mask and went down.
At this time, the photographer lost no time in taking pictures.
This is a rectangular tomb passage. As the team members groped forward in such a large tomb passage, the "squeaking" sound under their feet became louder.
Suddenly, several people shouted: "Underground Palace Gate!"
Han Peacock followed the electric light and saw two huge stone doors as white as jade suddenly appeared, standing high in front of people.
These are two stone doors made of a whole piece of white marble. The door is 3.3 meters high and 1.7 meters wide. After more than 300 years, it is still as crystal clear as jade and as white as snow.
There are milk-shaped doornails on each door, 9 rows vertically and horizontally, a total of 81 nails. On the door surface opposite the two doors, there is a carved animal head with a ring in its mouth, called the "auxiliary head", which makes the stone door look particularly solemn and majestic.
A team member pushed the door, but it didn't move.
Everyone pushed hard together, but the door still stood firm.
Han Kongque had seen this kind of stone door design in Luobu Bo, so he used his flashlight to shine along the two-centimeter-wide crack in the door, and saw only a stone strip holding the door tightly.
At this time, Professor Wang and others also saw it, and he only sighed: No wonder everyone can't do anything about it no matter how hard they try.
In order not to damage the cultural relics, Professor Wang asked everyone to stop and discuss the strategy of opening the door.
While everyone was trying to figure out how to open the stone gate, all the Gui-shaped gates made of layers of city bricks were dismantled, and the secrets behind the diamond wall were all exposed. It was a rectangular tunnel with an area of more than 60 square meters.
We have put a lot of thought into studying the method of opening the stone door. As archaeologists, we must push the stone door open without damaging the building. Even the top stone strips must be preserved intact.
To try to remove the stone strips inside the door from the outside, you must first carefully study how it was closed in the first place.
The stone bars blocking the stone door could not have been done by slaves loyal to the emperor from inside, because the underground palace was the place where the emperor and his empress were buried, and other people could not share the same cave with the emperor and empress.
Although Han Kongque had seen such a portal before, he had seen it cracked by force. This would not only destroy the stone strips at the back, but also the white marble gate in front would not be preserved.
Sun Dianying did such a thing back then, leaving big holes blasted out on those white marble gates. Obviously they can't do that now.
If you can't crack it violently, you have to find the right method. How did the ancients do it?
Han Kongque had read a lot of ancient relics, and was especially interested in some ancient books involving ancient tombs. Originally, when he had no money and strength, he naturally didn’t have much contact with them, but later, under Bai Xiaoyi’s search,
He has seen more.
After searching through his memory, he soon got the answer. It was actually very simple.
Analysis of the gap between the two stone doors shows that the stone door was held up from the outside. There should be a tool that can pull the stone door from the outside. The "turning nail key" is such a tool.
According to "Susong Lu", in 1644, Changping Prefecture official Zhao Yigui used a crutch key to open the stone door on the first floor of Yuling Mausoleum in order to bury the hanged Emperor Chongzhen and Queen Zhou.
This record is very inspiring for opening the stone gate of Dingling. The nail key is undoubtedly a metal tool used to open and close the stone gate.
But where to find the nail key? Everyone is in trouble again. (To be continued.)