Wake up（64）

 

64

 

This summer, He Jiafu missed his old comrade-in-arms Chai Jianhua very much, so he asked his grandson Nan Shanyun to accompany him to visit Chai Jianhua. When He Jiafu was walking on crutches, he met Li Tiandao, an old man in his 70s. Li Tiandao had just come here from Sichuan to visit his daughter and nephew.

Along the way, Li Tiandao told stories about the customs of Sichuan people who make good wine, and also told some funny jokes in Sichuan dialect.

Not long after, the three of them walked together, preparing to go through the woods and continue on their way.

Suddenly, the old man Li Tiandao said to He Jiafu and Nanshanyun: "Look, it looks like a cemetery there." Following Li Tiandao's fingers, He Jiafu and Nanshanyun saw several stone tombstones.

Nan Shanyun said: "These are unowned tombs. When I was a child, I used to catch crickets and play peek-a-boo with my friends here. We don't believe in ghosts."

The old man Li Tiandao asked: "When did these unowned tombs appear?"

Nan Shanyun thought for a while and said, "About 1960, some old people would come here to burn paper money. Some old people said that those buried here are hungry ghosts."

The old man pondered for a while and said, "Let's go and have a look together." Then, he walked towards the cemetery.

He Jiafu and Nanshan Yun looked at each other and followed them to the cemetery.

The old man fiddled with the weeds in front of a tombstone, and finally saw a few mottled characters. There was no name on the tombstone, but the words of a certain brigade and a certain team of a certain village were engraved on the tombstone. The old man inspected several stone tombstones, and the words were similar.

The old man sighed: "These tombs were built during the Great Famine, and each tomb is a collective burial."

He Jiafu and Nanshan Yun were shocked: What the hell is going on?

The old man said, when I was in my hometown in Sichuan, an old man in the same village accidentally discovered a thousand-year-old tomb when he was renovating the old house, and he dug out a peerless sword. After careful identification, he found that it turned out to be a sword, the sword of a sword The sheath is also very complete. This thousand-year-old bronze sword still shone coldly when it was taken out, and its blade was sharp enough to be seen by the naked eye. The bronze sword in the Bashu area looks like a long willow leaf in appearance, and the people of Bashu engrave the pattern of a tiger on the hilt because they worship tigers, hoping to be as fierce as a tiger on the battlefield. However, the unearthed bronze sword is a dagger without any decorations on its body, which is very simple. Experts can tell at a glance that this is a sword rich in Central Plains culture, a bronze sword, and pushes the identity of the owner of the tomb to the Central Plains.

The old man from the same village discovered this thousand-year-old tomb when he was renovating his old house. The old man was an outsider, and he was very shocked. He never thought that he had been sleeping on the coffin boards of the ancients for decades. The more he thought about it, the more creepy he felt.

Unlike the fear of the old man, when the experts saw the coffin, it was as if they had discovered a treasure. In ancient China, nanmu was the first choice for royal nobles to build temples and palaces, but the owner of the tomb used nanmu as the coffin. Who is buried in the tomb? What kind of story does he have? In the Sichuan area, many large tombs have actually been discovered, such as the Sanxingdui site. However, this is the first time that a tomb with a nanmu coffin has been discovered in Sichuan.

In ancient times, the generation of Yingjing belonged to the Bashu area, so some experts speculate that this tomb may be related to the Bashu culture. In history, the Bashu ethnic group was a mysterious tribe. They fought bravely, and they could still occupy a place among the powerful forces such as Shang, Zhou, Chu, and Qin, and reproduced from generation to generation. In the Sanxingdui site and Jinsha site that have been excavated, the unearthed cultural relics always reveal a trace of mystery, which is unpredictable but fascinating. And this ancient tomb, will it be another Bashu cultural site?

The archaeologists began to excavate in full swing, but the next scene shocked the experts even more.

The internal structure of the tomb is rectangular, and the tomb is made of earth pit and wooden coffin as the bottom. This form of burial was more popular in the Western Han Dynasty, and it is a typical form of burial in the Central Plains. This is what confuses experts. The Sichuan area is humid and rainy, so the ancestors of Bashu used boat coffin burials. Even in floods, the coffins can float up.

Could it be that the previous guesses of experts were wrong? The owner of the tomb is not an ancestor of the Bashu area, but an outsider? Central Plains people or Bashu people?

Archaeologists continue to dig down, hoping to find the answer as soon as possible. Soon, archaeologists discovered some burial objects of the owner of the tomb, which were some lacquerware and painted pottery fragments. After cleaning up, experts found that they were two exquisite lacquered pottery pots with black lacquer as the base and red patterns drawn on them.

After restoration, experts learned that these red patterns are called phoenix birds, and livestock and herders are also drawn on the belly of the clay pot. The totem believed by the Bashu people is the phoenix bird, which confuses the experts. Looking at the form of the tomb, the owner of the tomb is a foreign ethnic group, but these funerary objects are typical characteristics of the Bashu culture. But what makes the experts heartbroken is that the tomb obviously has traces of being stolen. Perhaps there are not many funerary objects left in the tomb. Just when everyone was disheartened, someone suddenly found a metal strip wrapped in black paint.

After careful research, the experts found that this bronze sword is very similar to the Goujian sword of the king of Yue discovered before. That is to say, it is a Chu-style sword. Could it be that the owner of the tomb is from Chu? At this time, the experts' minds suddenly opened up. The phoenix bird totem found on the clay pots made the experts confine their attention to the Bashu area. In fact, in addition to the Bashu culture, Chu people also have a soft spot for phoenix birds. Then the question arises again, since the owner of the tomb is from the state of Chu, why was it buried in the hinterland of Bashu?

Around the bronze sword, two jade ornaments were also found, both of which were used to decorate the bronze sword, and also symbolized the noble status of the owner of the tomb. Although the Chu State and the Bashu region are far apart, there is a possibility that the Chu people will come back to the Bashu region, and that is war. According to historical records, in the pre-Qin period, the Chu State and the Bashu region had indeed been in constant conflict. From this, some experts speculated that the owner of the tomb might be a general of Chu State, who died in battle later, and his subordinates buried him on the spot.

Which battle will that be? Who was this Chu general defeated by? In such a chaotic situation, can we still get nanmu as a coffin? One question after another came to the minds of the experts, but unfortunately, apart from the bronze sword in this tomb, the archaeologists have never found any new funerary objects.

Could it be that the identity of the owner of the tomb has really become an unsolved mystery? General or businessman? Just as experts were confirming the identity of the owner of the tomb, another major discovery was made at the archaeological site. It turned out that the archaeological team discovered another tomb near the old man's ancestral home. The archaeological team immediately carried out large-scale exploration in this vicinity, and the results were exciting. This is actually a group of tombs, with 11 ancient tombs, large and small.

With the excavation of these ancient tombs, experts have determined that this tomb group belongs to the early Western Han Dynasty. A group of Chu people traveled thousands of miles to the hinterland of Bashu. What did they come for? During the excavation, the experts were pleasantly surprised to find that one of the coffins was quite well preserved. So the experts immediately decided to move the coffin to the indoor switch. Perhaps from this coffin, we can know the origin of the Chu general or the entire tomb group.

Through a gap, the experts felt a piece of golden light in front of them. The experts couldn't wait to open the coffin, but what caught everyone's eyes was golden mud. Why is silt golden yellow? Where is the body of the tomb owner? Questions came to the minds of the experts one after another. In order to reveal the answers, they carefully cleaned the coffin.

In this coffin, experts discovered a hook made of sterling silver, with a black surface and the shape of a goose beak. The appearance of this object made experts look forward to it even more. A large amount of cinnabar and citronella appeared in the tomb, which is to remove peculiar smell, prevent corrosion and moisture. However, it is disappointing that the remains of the owner of the tomb in the coffin have long been volatilized, and only some tooth fragments were found, which proves that the owner of the tomb existed. However, in other tombs, the archaeological team successively discovered more than 700 coins, as well as a large number of exquisite lacquerware. These also include lacquerware for warming sake, which are beautifully depicted. From this point of view, the life of the owner of the tomb was also very luxurious. On a lacquer plate, experts accidentally discovered inscriptions, namely "cheng" and "shi". So what do these two inscriptions mean? "Cheng" actually refers to Chengdu, the place where lacquerware is manufactured. In ancient Sichuan, the lacquerware industry was very developed.

Through these cultural relics unearthed one after another, although it did not specifically specify who was buried in this tomb group. But experts already have a coherent guess in mind. Connecting Chengdu with Ya'an and extending southward, this happens to be an ancient trade route. This is the Southern Silk Road, starting from Chengdu, Sichuan, passing through Yunnan, connecting Myanmar and India, and further leading to Southeast Asia, Europe and other regions. And Yingjing is an important node on this trade route. Through this ancient road, the Chu people brought the culture of the Central Plains into the land of Bashu and further afield. Some of them just passed by in a hurry, but the owner of this tomb group chose to stay here to live. Perhaps they were not generals who died in battle, but a group of businessmen who contributed to the development of the Southern Silk Road. As for whether they have left their names in the long river of history, we can only look forward to the next archaeological excavations.

When the old man said this, he stared blankly at He Jiafu and Nanshan Yun: At that time, after discovering this thousand-year-old tomb, the experts were very excited and wanted to continue digging. Unfortunately, except for the bronze sword in this tomb, archaeologists have never found any new funerary objects.

But after the news spread that the thousand-year-old tomb was dug out, the local people began to hunt for treasure and dig the tomb. The results of it? Something creepy happened. Local farmers actually discovered many unowned cemeteries, and most of these unowned cemeteries are a wooden tablet except for a few stone tombstones. Whether it is a stone tombstone or a wooden tablet, the recognizable mottled inscriptions on the inscriptions have no names, and only the words of a certain village and a certain team are carved or written.

The old man said: These newly discovered unowned cemeteries, and those unowned cemeteries we see before us, are all products of the era of the Great Famine, and each tomb is a group of burials for collectively hungry people. There are wandering ghosts everywhere.

He Jiafu and Nanshanyun imitated the old man's example and bowed to those unowned cemeteries.

The young Nanshanyun curiously asked the old man and He Jiafu: "What is going on with this famine? Why are there so many unowned cemeteries?"