Two and a half days later, at noon.
Panpan hurriedly came to me. She said that she had talked with Aji, a professional herb collector. He said that it was okay to climb up, but she wanted 30 yuan for hard work. Can she ask me?
"30 yuan?"
I heard it was too cheap! It was not proportional to what they had paid, so I directly gave him 300 yuan as a benefit fee.
At around two o'clock in the afternoon, I saw someone.
The herb collector, Aji, is not tall, very young, very thin, and a bit taciturn. If I don't take the initiative to talk to him, he will never speak.
"Well...brother, do you think we should schedule the operation during the day or at night?" I asked.
This man said a few words, but I couldn't understand them, so I asked Panpan what he meant.
Panpan acted as a translator and said: "Ah...Aji said he can do it day or night. He also wants to ask you what you are doing in those coffin holes."
I was well prepared and immediately showed him the archaeological certificate we obtained in Zhengding. The certificate had a seal and a photo on it, and it looked very formal.
I smiled and said: "Brother, we are from the Hebei Cultural Relics Team. We went up to take a look just to study the historical development of our local area."
This guy looked at me and grinned, showing his white teeth.
In fact, even Panpan didn’t know our true identities as northern tomb robbers.
In the evening, it was dark.
A group of us were shocked to see it!
This young man named Aji climbed too fast. He was like a humanoid ape, swinging back and forth on the steep and straight cliffs. He quickly climbed up to a height of over 100 meters, and the whole process was done smoothly and in one go. .
Seeing this scene, Xiaoxuan couldn't help but complain to me and said: "Hey, King of Tree Climbing, have you seen this? This is what he is capable of!"
Brother Yu rushed up and shouted: "Brother! Fix the rope and put it down! Then you come down!"
Soon, a mountaineering rope was lowered, with just enough length, and then the man grabbed the rope and slowly slid down.
Douya said: "Okay Pan'er, take this guy back first. We'll call him if we need him."
Panpan had some reluctance on her face and said she wanted to go up and play with us.
Dou Sprout hugged her shoulders and coaxed with a smile: "Oh, it's really no fun! It's too dangerous. I'm worried about you getting hurt! Be good, go back and wait for me."
Don't tell me, the little chubby girl really did this. After a little coaxing from Dou Sprout, she went back with a blushing face.
Tightening my shoelaces, putting on my gloves, checking my headlamp, I started the first climb up.
I have visited many underground tombs, but this was the first time I touched the cave tomb hidden in the sky. With the help of a rope, it was much easier to climb up. It took me more than 20 minutes to climb up.
After going up, I waved my flashlight downward to tell them that I was up.
There was a lot of wind at the entrance of the cave, and the ground was full of gravel. There were two ancient coffins placed in front of me. They had been exposed to wind and sun for too many years, and they were already rotten.
I put on my headlamp and walked carefully around the coffin. There were no antiques at all, only gravel.
Pushing open the lid of the coffin, I looked inside with a flashlight and saw a broken human skeleton, with teeth and other things still there.
The strange thing is that this man's skull was placed between his feet. I guess it may have been hit by some external force, which caused the skull to roll to the side of his thigh.
At that moment, I couldn't help but say: "Brother, why is your family so poor? Why don't you have any decent burial objects?"
This kind of person is called "poor coffin" in the industry. It is really so poor that apart from the bones and bones, there is not even a piece of clothing.
When we encounter such a poor person, we usually give him something to show him. This is considered a rule.
I felt around and found a dollar bill in my back pocket.
So I stuffed the one-dollar steel bouncy ball into the skull's mouth, and it happened to be stuck in the skull's teeth.
I smiled and said, "That's great. Brother, at least you can be buried with me."
After I finished, I pushed the coffin lid back again.
I don’t know how many years later, if other colleagues come up to open the coffin and see the steel jump in the owner’s mouth, what their expressions will be.
"Boss! Brother Yu! Don't come up here yet! This might be a big fucking pit! I'll go in and take a look!"
Brother Yu waved his flashlight underneath, meaning to be careful.
I don’t know how deep the cave is. The ceiling is about thirty or forty meters high. Traces of man-made digging can be seen everywhere around the cave wall. I stepped on gravel under my feet and walked forward for about thirty meters. Suddenly, something appeared in front of me. Build a huge artificial stone wall.
I held up my flashlight and looked carefully.
How much labor and time would it take to build such a tall stone wall?
There is a small arch in the middle of the stone wall. I lowered my head and crawled through the small arch, and the space suddenly opened up.
Everywhere you look, there are ancient coffins everywhere... It is estimated that there are at least one or two hundred coffins.
These coffins were all lifted off the ground and nailed to a "well"-shaped wooden frame.
According to my previous understanding, the coffin supported by six pillars and three "well" frames is for men, and the coffin supported by four pillars and two "well" frames is for women.
Spring has already begun. There is no wind here, but I feel very cold.
It means that there are too many dead people buried in caves here, and the yin energy has accumulated too much. This phenomenon is like walking alone in the cemetery at night in summer, and you will also feel cold.
You can tell by looking at the shape, workmanship and standard that the coffins with flat and flat heads are crudely made and should be coffins from the Ming Dynasty. On the other hand, those with bulging and curved lids are coffins from the Qing Dynasty.
The earliest of these old coffins may be from the late Ming Dynasty, and the latest may be from the Guangxu Tongzhi period, which means that no one has been buried here since the Republic of China.
I also saw that many coffins had a large package of old and yellowed "oil paper" weighed down with stones. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that these oil papers were made into clothes that could be worn with two arms.
Why put an oil paper coat on the coffin board? I don’t quite understand, maybe it’s some custom of the local Miao people.
After walking a few steps with the flashlight, I found a few old bowls covered with dust on the ground. I picked one up and wiped it with my hand, revealing the pattern of the porcelain bowl itself.
I saw a big word "longevity" painted on the bowl with red glaze.
"Holy shit, that's unlucky!"
I threw away the porcelain bowl and quickly wiped my hands.
This is a longevity bowl in the past. After a person dies, a layer of whole grains will be sprinkled on the bottom of the bowl, and then half-cooked rice will be placed on it, which is meant to be eaten by the person who is hungry on the way to death.
There are rumors that the hands of living people cannot touch the longevity bowl, otherwise they will compete with the dead to eat, which will attract those unclean things.
I just wanted to turn back.
Suddenly, a hand from behind lightly tapped my shoulder.
"who!"
I grabbed the headlamp and turned around to look!
It's bean sprouts...
He was holding a flashlight and shining it on his chin.
I was so angry that I immediately yelled: "You're fucking scaring people to death! Didn't I tell you to wait down below? When did you come up!"
"Haha, Fengzi, look at how timid you are! I'm worried about your safety, so let me come up and take a look at you."
"How's it going? Have you gained anything?" Dou Sprout asked.
"What a heck of a harvest, I just came in, let's take a look!"
Then Douyazai and I separated to search for the funerary objects. Douyazai pushed open the coffin lid fiercely while singing. He rubbed his hands and sang: "Baby, Baoer, where are you hiding? Don't let my brother find you." ......."
Some of the coffins had coffin nails, which needed to be pried with a crowbar. As I was prying, I heard Dou Sprout complaining loudly: "Damn, why are we so poor? We don't even have a copper coin! I didn't have any at home before." Deposit."
"Alas! There is a copper coin here! Fengzi, come here and take a look! I found a copper coin!"
Dou Yazai showed me a copper coin he found. It was bare-backed and the inscription on the face could not be seen at all, because the front face with the inscription had grown together with the rotten linen and was rusty, making it difficult to separate.
Douyazai asked in confusion: "Which dynasty's copper coins are there, and why are there linen cloths?"
I explained: "This is called carrying money on the back. The reason there is linen is because people were wearing clothes when they died, and because the copper coins are placed on the back, they will grow together over time."
Nowadays, you can still occasionally see this kind of copper coins with cloth on them in the market. One hundred percent of them come out of coffins, and they are all used as advance money.
I took out a knife and scraped hard for a long time. Finally, I scraped off a layer of linen and saw the word "正" on the front of the copper coin.
"Damn, it's worthless, it's just a broken Yongzheng Tongbao, so hurry up and look for it!"
When we searched for the coffins in the cave, the situation gradually improved, and some silver objects began to appear. Most of them were silver jewelry worn on the body, including silver bracelets, large silver earrings, silver crowns, silver hairpins, etc. , the number is quite a lot.
I speculate that those buried in the outer layer are poor people, and those buried in the inner layer may be rich people with family backgrounds.
Miao people love silver, and these various silver jewelry are exactly what I want. Although they have become oxidized and blackened over time, the original exquisiteness of these silver jewelry can still be seen, especially one with a silver head. The crown is made of bas-relief craftsmanship and is of excellent workmanship.
Dou Sprout put all these messy silver items in a sack and suddenly, Dou Sprout said: "Fengzi! Look up there, there seems to be a statue there!"
I looked up and took a photo with my flashlight, and it turned out that Bean Sprouts had really sharp eyes!
There is a statue that is as black as ink and about 40 centimeters high. It seems to be wearing a hat on its head. I don’t know if it is made of copper or wood.
"This may be a valuable item. Let's find a way to get it." I said immediately.
"Fengzi, it's a bit high. Even if I step on your shoulders, I won't be able to reach it."
I thought for a while and said: "There is a way. Let's stack the two coffins together, and then you get up, and I will step on you."
Just do it.
I picked two lighter coffins and stacked them together, and then I stepped on the bean sprouts to reach the statue.
"I'll go... why is it so heavy!"
I almost didn't hold it, it wasn't made of copper, let alone wood, it was made of iron! It is a pure iron statue! It's probably from the Ming Dynasty!
This iron statue wears a square hat on its head. The face is very thin, the corners of the eyes are slender and closed, and the sides of the cheeks are shrunken and fleshless, giving people the impression that it is hard to speak and has a sharp mouth and a mean monkey's cheeks. .
Moreover, the clothes it wore were a bit special, with a row of butterfly buttons on the chest and exposed shoulders, a bit like today's tube tops.
I looked left and right and studied for a long time, but I couldn't figure out what kind of god it was.
Dou Sprout lit a cigarette, frowned and said, "Oh! Fengzi, I seem to know what kind of god this is!"
"What is it?" I asked.
Douyazai flicked the ashes from his cigarette, pointed at the big iron statue and said, "Isn't this the god of the night?"
