Wang Cheng climbed out of the hole and found himself in a room.
The room is not big, about the size of a single room, only about ten square meters, and the furnishings inside are simple.
There is a table with an oil lamp placed on the table. The light is bright but not dazzling. It burns quietly. The flame emits a calming fragrance.
"Abyssal shark oil!"
Wang Cheng smelled this familiar smell and thought that when he entered the underground royal tomb of the Mu Kingdom, the ever-bright lamps in the royal tomb were also made of the fat of the deep sea sharks.
This lamp oil is worth tens of thousands of dollars. Not only does it last for many years, but breathing the aroma released by the burning lamp oil for a long time can easily make people enter a state of emptiness, which is helpful for spiritual practice.
There are two bookshelves on both sides of the room, but there is no space on the bookshelves, only some powder is left.
Wang Cheng also noticed that there was only a pile of powder left on the desk, but no letters.
"All weathered?"
He remembered a documentary he had watched, which was specifically about royal tombs. Once the underground royal tombs buried for thousands of years were opened, the originally well-preserved letters inside would be quickly weathered.
The tomb of Duke Zhao has been in existence for nearly a thousand years. It is difficult to preserve the cloth and paper, but the bamboo slips are very likely to be preserved intact.
However, the gold-eating insect has already opened up this place. After such a long time, it is impossible for the letter to be left. Even if it is left, who knows whether it will be chewed by the gold-eating insect?
"Pity!"
Wang Cheng shook his head. It must be extremely precious to be buried with Duke Zhao.
After walking out of the room, his vision suddenly broadened.
This is a space the size of a football field.
It is nearly 200 meters long from east to west and nearly 150 meters wide from north to south, and is rectangular in shape.
The bottom is thirty or forty meters high from the earth seal, so some buildings were built.
This is the main body and tomb chamber of this underground royal tomb, that is, the underground palace!
The light in the underground palace is very good. There is a huge luminous sphere under the seal, like a small sun, illuminating the entire underground palace as if it were daytime.
Wang Cheng stood in a corridor, with "single rooms" on both sides.
Not only on both sides, but also on the southeast, northwest, and every side, there are rooms like this.
Moreover, there are rows upon rows, with as many as nine floors from bottom to top, quite like the Longmen Grottoes.
The difference is that the Longmen Grottoes are built outside, but this one is built inside, and the latter is far more majestic than the former.
Wang Cheng stood on the sixth floor, looking ahead, with a panoramic view of everything in the underground palace.
The first thing you see is an underground river. Because it is located in the underground palace, this underground river has become an open river.
This river is still flowing quietly, even after a thousand years, even if it is ten thousand years, it remains unchanged.
Following the direction of the river, there is a mound of earth, but it seems that it is more appropriately called a "mountain".
Although it is only a few tens of meters high, it has a roof, slopes, and foothills, and is integrated with the ground of the underground palace.
There were some plants planted on the hillside, but almost none were alive. There were only a few tree trunks left. For unknown reasons, they were all dead.
The surrounding mist makes the hill look like an overseas fairy mountain.
"Is this the underground palace of the royal mausoleum?"
Before this, Wang Cheng had never seen the true appearance of the underground palace in the emperor's mausoleum. This was the first time he saw it, and it was really beyond his expectation.
It is not as luxurious and extravagant as imagined, some are just the vicissitudes of the years, a generation of emperors are reluctant to leave thousands of miles of mountains and rivers, and some are just magnificent and the guidance of a powerful person.
Suddenly, Wang Cheng's eyes focused on the top of the mountain, where a huge coffin was displayed.
"The coffin is placed on the top of the mountain?"
Wang Cheng was confused. He only hated that he didn't read enough books. If Yang Si was around, he would probably be able to see some clues. There must be a source for placing the coffin like this.
After thinking about it, he still did not go to the top of the mountain immediately, but continued to investigate along the corridor.
There are many rooms on the sixth floor, and the furnishings in each one are the same as the room he entered before.
A desk, an oil lamp, two bookshelves, and the rest was nothing but dust.
"Is this true in every room?"
Wang Cheng walked through the entire corridor on the sixth floor, but he didn't find a complete book, which made him very disappointed.
He jumped from the sixth floor to the fifth floor and walked into a room with the same furnishings as those on the sixth floor.
Originally, he thought that nothing was left on the fifth floor, but unexpectedly, something was preserved in the room he entered.
There are a lot of cloths placed in the spaces on the bookshelf, some of which are in tatters, and some of which are relatively well preserved.
Wang Cheng took a piece of cloth from the bookshelf and unfolded it carefully. What he saw were rows of ancient texts, some of which he didn't even recognize.
In fact, he has not specifically studied ancient characters. He can understand them because there are many ancient books collected in the Martial Arts Pavilion of Ninghou Mansion. He learned some by consulting others and making guesses.
"The post of Grand Sima is in charge of the nine laws of establishing a state, to assist the king in bringing peace and stability to the state. He establishes jis and enfeoffs the state in order to rectify the state; he appoints servants to distinguish the throne to wait for the state..."
Wang Cheng picked a few sentences that he could fully understand, and he immediately knew that the content recorded in this silk scroll was exactly the "Rites of the Great Zhou Dynasty" that Zhao Gong had spent ten years working on.
The "Chengkang Rebellion" broke out, and Zhao Ping was responsible for the turmoil. He summarized the reasons and believed that the turmoil occurred because Zhou people were disrespectful of etiquette. Although there were also classes such as public ministers and scholar-bureaucrats, the division of their rights and responsibilities was not clear.
Duke Zhao believed that it was because these nobles did not understand their responsibilities and interfered in court affairs that they caused turmoil. If everyone performed their duties, such a thing would not happen.
After reading this volume of silk books, Wang Cheng entered the next room and also found several relatively well-preserved volumes.
After exploring the entire fifth floor, he almost knew the contents of the silk books collected on the fifth floor.
The silk books collected on the fifth level are divided into three major categories. One category is of course "The Rites of the Great Zhou Dynasty", the other category is "Strategies for the Governance of the Country", and the other category is "Notes on Zhao Gong's Daily Life".
A few years before Duke Zhao came to the fiefdom of Wuyuan, King Kang would often send people to ask for his opinions on matters governing the country. He did not hide his opinions and submitted his opinions in the form of memorials.
Over time, he compiled these strategies for governing the country into books. In his later years, these books could not be loaded on several carriages, and they were finally buried with him in the royal tomb.
Among these three types of silk books, "Zhao Gong's Daily Notes" is the least eye-catching, but its value is not inferior to the first two.
It is said to record Zhao Gong's daily life, but in fact most of the content is the discussion between him and his disciples, and the content is all-encompassing.
There are astronomy and geography, anecdotes from ancient and modern times, reflections on life, and the spring and autumn of family and country. More than half of the dozens of rooms on the fifth floor contain these.
Although Wang Cheng was a science student, he had received higher education. He knew very well that these silk books contained great value and could be said to be the work of Duke Zhao throughout his life.
"Pity!"
He couldn't help but sigh, it was a pity that such a precious thing could only be buried deep in the underground palace and dissipate with the years.
Except for "The Rites of the Great Zhou Dynasty", most of the remaining silk books are single copies. As a result, many of them have been weathered and will never be reappeared in the world.
Arriving on the fourth floor, the compactly arranged rooms are still the same as before.
There are stacks of bamboo slips on the bookshelf, which are well preserved, but the words written on them are even older, and Wang Cheng basically doesn't recognize them.
But thinking that these slips must be very precious to be buried in Zhaogong's mausoleum, I opened my clairvoyant eyes and used the photographic memory function to "scan" all these words into my mind.
Jumping to the third floor, there are several bronze cauldrons placed in a single room, with some more ancient characters engraved on the walls of the cauldrons.
Wang Cheng was completely illiterate. These words looked familiar, but he didn't recognize any of them.
I walked around several rooms in a row. Most of them were bronze tripods, but there were also some fragments of clay pots with words engraved on them.
"Golden inscriptions?"
Wang Cheng recalled the history of the evolution of Chinese characters explained by his Chinese teacher in middle school.
From oracle bone inscriptions recorded on oracle bones and animal bones, to bronze inscriptions recorded on bronze vessels, to seal script recorded on bamboo slips... the evolution of writing is also accompanied by changes in the tools used to record writing.
Rather than saying it is the evolution of writing, it is better to say it is a history of the evolution of human culture.
After completing the entire third floor, Wang Cheng had a bronze alchemy furnace about half a meter tall in his hand.
It's not that he doesn't want other things, but those cauldrons and cauldrons are heavy and heavy. He can carry them, but it's too difficult to leave with them.
This alchemy furnace was the smallest of all the items on the third floor. As for the pottery pots, he was not considering them at all. Although they were antiques, they were of little use to him.
However, he took note of all the words engraved on these things.
Second floor.
Bookshelves appeared again in those single rooms, but instead of letters, they contained some animal bones and armor pieces.
"What an oracle!"
Wang Cheng was thoughtful and quickly finished the second floor. He picked out a few animal bones and tortoise shells and came to the first floor.
There are no single rooms on the first floor, replaced by flat walls with some murals painted on them.
Standing on the bottom floor, he looked up and a three-dimensional view of the entire underground palace appeared in his mind.
Wang Cheng's expression changed drastically. It turned out that the entire underground palace was not square, but was large at the bottom and narrow at the top. It was actually a pyramid-like structure, and the things placed on each floor had extraordinary significance.
First floor: mural
Second layer: turtle shell, animal bones
The third layer: bronze inscriptions and pottery fragments
The fourth layer: bamboo slips
The fifth layer: cloth
Level 6: Paper
Seventh floor:
The eighth floor:
Ninth floor:
A term suddenly flashed in Wang Cheng's mind and he blurted out: "Nine-story Demon Tower??"
His whole body was shaken, and all that appeared in his mind were the plot of the movie "Nine-Storey Demon Tower", as well as some ominous things such as monsters and monsters.
"impossible!"
Wang Cheng shook his head. How could Duke Zhao be associated with such evil things?
Suddenly, he thought of something and immediately turned back to look at the mural behind him.
