It's twelve o'clock in the middle of the night, Weiping Mountain, the moon is dark and the wind is high.
"Hey, Xiaoxuan! Do you hear me? Is there any problem?"
Soon, Xiaoxuan's voice came from the other end of the intercom: "No one has wind, everything is normal, let's turn on the fire and cook."
Dou Sprout spat and swung the shovel high.
We don't even need to explore the pit. As long as the old man doesn't lie to me, then this is the tomb passage.
According to experience, Song Dynasty tombs in the north are generally buried four to six meters underground, while those in the south are buried at a shallower depth. After digging for a while, I picked up the soil and saw that there was something there.
In less than an hour, I heard Dou Sprout's exclamations coming from inside the thief's cave.
"Damn! This is a bit shallow! It's a brick!"
"Don't shout, keep your fucking voice down."
Going down the rope ladder, I asked Dou Sprouts to help me light up.
A small arched bridge-shaped door about 1.5 meters high appeared in front of me. It was made entirely of blue bricks. It should have been completely sealed with bricks, but it was probably broken open by the old bachelor.
There is a layer of very wet mud around the arch. The reason why the mud is so wet is probably because the orchard above is watered all year round. If we were in the north, it would be freezing at this time of year.
Bean Sprout poked away the mud with a shovel, then Brother Yu took out a paper ball, lit it with a lighter, raised his hand and threw it in.
Seeing that the paper ball burned for a while before being extinguished, Dou Sprout said: "You're not short of oxygen, can you come in?"
"Enter!"
The three of us bent down and got in. Because it was too narrow, it was quite crowded, and it was very dark, so Dou Sprout almost slipped down. I grabbed him.
After Douyazai stood firm, he said, "It's strange. Why is this tomb passage so steep? It's almost like a slide in an amusement park."
Dou Yazai's description is very apt. The tomb passage in front of you is like a slide. Although there are few tomb passages of this shape, there were some in the past, and they were usually made of steps. This tomb did not have steps for some unknown reason.
There was a niche that three people dug out on the wall. It was empty inside and there was nothing. As soon as the three of us slid down, an "earth wall" appeared in front of us. These conditions were exactly what the old man described.
After looking at it carefully with a flashlight, I confirmed that it was a diamond wall made of Sihe soil. It should have been made of loess, clay, tung oil, and glutinous rice juice. Judging from the thickness, it would be very difficult to break through it with a shovel.
"Isn't your bag up there, Mineko? I guess you need to use hot vinegar in this situation. I'll get it."
"No need to go get them, you won't need them."
I raised my head and took a serious look at it, and couldn't help but say: "Interesting, this should be a "boot tomb". The owner of the tomb played a trick. Ordinary tomb robbers might be fooled, but he was unlucky and ran into me."
"What do you mean Mineko?"
I stretched out my hand and knocked on the wall and said, "This is a cover-up. Let alone the tomb, I dare say there is 100% hair behind this wall. The real tomb is still under our feet."
"This is both a diamond wall and a load-bearing wall. Look above your head."
Dou Sprout immediately looked up with a flashlight.
I said, "Have you seen those bricks? There is no mud between the bricks. They are laying three straight and one horizontally. The bricks are laid down at an angle of forty degrees, and most of the stress points are pressed against the wall. If the wall collapses, all the bricks on top will collapse."
After hearing this, Douyazai smacked his tongue: "Fuck, so this is a cleverly designed anti-grave robbery!"
I nodded: "Compared to the Guozhuang Chu Tomb of quicksand and stone formation, this is just childish. This kind of boot tomb has only been found in Jincheng, Shanxi Province in the past. Maybe the tomb owner is from Shanxi."
Douyazai said: "Shanxi is thousands of miles away from here, how come people are buried here after death?"
"Who knows? There is a phoenix pendant here, which means that the tomb owner is most likely a woman. Maybe she was married from Shanxi back then."
Brother Yu said: "Yunfeng, thanks to your experience, I have never heard of this kind of tomb. Do you think we are under a tomb passage or a tomb chamber?"
How can I take over as the leader in the future without this ability? I thought for a while and said: "Brother Yu, the bricks we are stepping on now are 100% the bricks on the top of the tomb. The bottom leads directly to the tomb chamber. Just lay it down to find the coffin."
The boot tomb is very confusing, but the strength of the tomb's roof is average. Leaving aside traps such as accumulated stones and quicksand, the most difficult tomb roof is the "four-corner pagoda dome roof" from the Eastern Wu and Wei and Jin Dynasties. "
That kind of tomb top, if you don't understand the regular order and randomly draw bricks, you only need to draw the wrong one! Then the whole thing will collapse! Therefore, many tomb robbers in that period cooperated with the craftsmen who repaired the tombs. The craftsmen would secretly leave marks on the bricks when they were capping the tombs, and they later got a 50-50 split from both parties.
At the moment when the roof bricks were broken, a dark tomb that was well preserved, never disturbed, and had been sealed in dust underground for nearly 800 years appeared in front of us.
Before he got down, Dou Sprout suddenly sniffed and said, "What does this smell like? It smells so good, can you smell it?"
Brother Yu immediately said that he smelled it, like a perfume, and Douyazai asked me if it smelled like nanmu coffins.
I sniffed, frowned and shook my head: "No, the scent of nanmu is not that strong. It seems to be like the scent of some kind of Chinese medicinal materials. It's not poisonous. We'll find out if we go down and take a look."
After letting the rope slide down, the three of us took a photo with our flashlights. We were all shocked by the scene in the tomb.
The first thing you see is a large number of exquisite brick carvings! Painted character murals all over the wall! The brick carvings are all imitation wood structures, and large areas are painted red. The color is still bright after hundreds of years.
The tomb is not large in area, but it is magnificently made. There are stone tables, stone benches, and stone beds on display. In addition, there is a red-painted coffin placed horizontally on the stone bed.
The overall red coffin is intact, but its appearance is slightly deformed. One end of the coffin is carved with exquisite cloud-head Ruyi patterns, while the other end is plain and without patterns.
There was also a mural painted on the brick wall directly behind the coffin. I was shocked when I shined my flashlight on it!
The mural depicts a door, which is half open. A woman is lying on the door with half of her face exposed, staring at the few of us.
The woman on the mural has white paint on her face, but her mouth is very red, a bit like the Japanese geisha makeup.
Dou Yazai was also startled when he saw it, but he was brave. He immediately jumped on the stone bed and said to the woman on the mural: "Excuse me for your rest, beauty. Let me meet you. I am the most handsome man in Zhoushan, Lu Ziming. I am here today." The purpose of your boudoir is to borrow two dollars from you for spending money. If you don’t say anything, it means you agree, so I’ll take it.” After Dou Sprout said this, he started to pry open the coffin.
I said, "Don't talk nonsense because you don't understand. The woman on the mural is not the owner of the tomb. This pattern of a woman opening the door comes from the Song Dynasty drama and is a common theme in brick-carved tombs in the Northern Song Dynasty."
Dou Sprout didn't listen to me at all. He looked serious and only focused on prying the coffin hard.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, most tombs were buried together. If a woman could enjoy such a luxurious tomb alone, she must have been of high status during her lifetime, and there would definitely be good things in the coffin.
"Fengzi, you are so stunned! This coffin is a bit tight! Come up and help!"
I immediately stepped forward to help, and the three of us worked together to quickly pry it open.
moment! A scent that was several times stronger than before hit my face!
Douyazai held up his flashlight and shined it into the coffin, and the three of us almost screamed at the same time!
