Soon, a Great Wall pickup truck stopped at the other end of the checkpoint. A middle-aged man with gray hair opened the car door and walked towards Liu Yue and the others. Liu Yue said: "He is my master, named Zhang Keming, and he is the leader of the middle-aged zodiac in the archaeology world." The archaeology industry is not as popular as the older you get. The elderly have poor physical fitness and are not suitable for participating in field archaeology for a long time.

"So it was him." Tang Feng had a little impression of this person. Last time he and Chen Yan went to Miyun to search for treasure, Liu Yue and him and other archaeological team members were exploring a stone arch bridge in the seventh year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty. He was Professor Zhang who Liu Yue mentioned.

Professor Zhang greeted the armed police officers and soldiers on duty on the checkpoint, then walked out of the checkpoint, Liu Yue opened the car door and got out of the car to greet him, she said, "Master, you are here."

Professor Zhang smiled and said, "Xiaoyue, don't scream, this is in the workplace, and others will have opinions."

Liu Yue smiled well and said, "I saw that there was no one else calling me."

"It seems that you have excluded him from the scope of others." Professor Zhang did not forget to tease his beautiful apprentice, and he said, "I have a good vision."

Liu Yue whispered: "Oh, Master, don't talk nonsense. After a while, others hear it, and things that are not even missing have become plausible."

Afterwards, Professor Zhang got on the car with Liu Yue. Professor Zhang stretched out his hand to Tang Feng and said, "Mr. Tang, we are meeting again."

Tang Feng reached out to hold him, nodded and said, "Hello, Professor Zhang."

Zhang Keming handed a sign for temporary entry and exit to Tang Feng and said, "Welcome Mr. Tang to join us. In this regard, you are the real expert."

"Professor Zhang, you are so polite." Tang Feng was polite. After the greetings, Zhang Ke made it clear that he said: "We all know what's going on, so there is no need to go around the corner. Your current identity is an intern researcher. I will arrange for you to enter the grave at that time, and the cooperation will be pleasant."

Tang Feng admired Zhang Keming's style of service more, and nodded and said, "Happy cooperation."

Then, Liu Yue drove past the checkpoint, and the Great Wall pickup truck turned around and followed the Wrangler. The checkpoint was very far away from the excavation site. After passing two checkpoints, a dome greenhouse like an aircraft hangar appeared in the distance. Tang Feng said: "The scale of this excavation is quite large."

Zhang Keming nodded and said, "It can be said that this is the largest excavation in history. It is estimated that only the excavation of the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum can be compared with it."

Two cars drove into the greenhouse one after another, and several people got out. Tang Feng began to observe the situation around him. This tomb was completely different from the tombs of emperors in China. Most of the tombs of ancient Chinese emperors were buried deep underground. When the tombs were built, a large amount of soil would be excavated. After the emperor was buried, the soil would be backfilled. When the soil was manually backfilled, the soil would be compacted and suppressed layer by layer. This process was the same as the result of the subsequent results, and it was called rammed earth.

Rammed earth is much stronger and tighter than raw soil, and it is easy for those who are interested to see that there are tombs underground. In order to cover up people's eyes, the rammed earth will be covered with soil, which is a mound. There are usually conical mounds above the underground tombs, which look like ordinary hillsides. Over time, grass and trees will grow on the mound, which can make people mistakenly think that this is a natural soil slope.

The imperial tomb of Song Huizong is backed by a hill about 300 meters high. It is even more difficult for people to see the flaws when combined with the tomb's mounds and natural peaks. Tang Feng understood at a glance at the terrain that the interior of the mountain must be empty, and the underground palace is just below the mountain.

Several people walked into the temporary command center together. Zhang Keming brought Tang Feng and Liu Yue into the office. While controlling the mouse, he said to Tang Feng: "I'll give you a general introduction to the situation here."

Tang Feng came to the computer monitor, and there was a virtual topographic map. Through Zhang Keming's introduction, Tang Feng had a deeper understanding of the terrain here. From the appearance, this mountain is no different from an ordinary hillside. The slope on one side is very gentle, which is the mound of soil that Tang Feng just saw; and the other side of the mountain is very steep, a cliff about 400 meters high, and there is a deep pool below the cliff. Zhang Keming said: "We have measured this deep pool, and the deepest part is below the cliff, which looks like 50 meters."

From the virtual map, we can see that this mountain is actually a huge rock, but the huge rock is covered with a thick layer of soil, which looks like a mountain. In this way, the overall structure of the location of the tomb is revealed. The entire mountain is like a triangle, and the underground palace is in the middle of the triangle.

After changing the documents, Zhang Keming pointed to the picture and said, "This is the progress of our excavation. You will understand it when you go to the scene." The excavation shape of the hillside is a trapezoid with a small inside and a large outside. The top of the trapezoid is the entrance of the tomb. Zhang Keming continued, "The outer periphery of this tomb is somewhat similar to Wu Zetian's Qianling Mausoleum. There are iron studs and plates between the stone strips. Each two layers of stones are connected with iron rods, and then the liquid metal melted by tin iron is poured into the stone cracks, which is very firm."

Tang Feng couldn't help but shake his head. Li Jie was indeed a master of architectural design. He used iron rods to connect every two layers of stones. In other words, the stone strips that constitute the outer stone walls of the tomb were connected in pairs. In ancient times, when there was no large machinery involved in the construction, the project was very large.

On the virtual topographic map, the boulders are marked with green, and the red below the boulders are the size of the underground palace estimated by the archaeological department. As Liu Yue said, there is a football field as big as a football field. It can be said that this underground palace is like a stadium buried underground.

Tang Feng thought about it and felt something was wrong. He asked Zhang Keming: "How did you discover this tomb?"

"Oh." Zhang Keming shook his head and said, "It's cruel. A year ago, a mass grave was found in the six kilometers of this place. These corpses were buried layer by layer. Ten thousand people are just a preliminary estimate."

The heaviness of history cannot be carried by understatement. Without numbers, it cannot describe the tragic moment. It means tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of living lives. Feudal society abandoned the bad habit of burying people for slave society, but the death of an emperor often kills tens of thousands of people.

According to relevant historical records, when the Yongtai Mausoleum of Song Zhezong was built, 4,600 craftsmen were used to collect only one stone and 27,600 quarries. These stones were transported from Suzi Mountain, Yanshi, among the steep mountains and ridges, to the mausoleum area, 9,744 soldiers and 500 civilians. Why should we look far away from the nearest and far? According to historical records, the rocks produced in Sushan are warm and moist, and rarely compared to the sunlight, and it is difficult to collapse after a long period of exposure.

In 1100 AD, Song Zhezong fell ill and died within a few days. On the tenth day of the second lunar month, the quarrying team gathered and arrived at the construction site. The emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty had the custom of burying in July. They only chose a site but did not build a tomb during their lifetime. What does it mean? It is that from the day the emperor passed away, the tomb must be completed within seven months.

Time waits for no one. Quarry starts on the tenth of February, and 27,600 pieces of quarry must be completed on May 11th. Regardless of whether it is the emperor's original intention or not, the project is large and the construction period is a fact. In order to speed up the construction period, the officials responsible for the construction of the mausoleum had to force craftsmen to work overload. Due to poor labor conditions and no clean and hygienic drinking water, in just one month, more than 1,700 craftsmen fell ill on the construction site sleeping in the open-air place. Craftsmen die every day, and dealing with the bodies became a problem. So, there were a mass pit, digging a deep pit, burying a group of dead people to fill a layer of soil, and then burying them again. This is the so-called layer by layer burial.

Therefore, as long as a mass pit is found, there will definitely be large tombs nearby. In fact, the bodies buried in the mass pit are "normal deaths"; in order to keep it confidential, after the completion, the craftsmen involved in the construction of the tomb will not be left with survivors. In ancient times, there was no difference between building a tomb and being sentenced to death. Not only craftsmen, but all those involved, whether they are supervisors or responsible officials, are spared, including Li Jie. In 1110 AD, Li Jie suddenly "death". It is not difficult to imagine that the day Li Jie was committed suicide was also the time when the tomb was completed.

What's more, those soldiers who participated in the massacre of craftsmen who were unknown, would also be killed. This massacre lasted for a long time until the emperor personally thought no one knew, and involving tens of thousands of people was just a conservative estimate. Some information shows that after Qin Shihuang was buried, Qin II ordered the massacre to be 700,000 insiders. Of course, there were also fools who committed suicide to the emperor. What's ridiculous is that such people often die. It is precisely because of this that Tang Feng never thought that tomb robbers had any shame. How could the unrighteous people get the unrighteous wealth of unrighteous people?

The construction of the tombs was not only a waste of people but also a waste of money. In October 1063, Song Renzong Zhao Zhen was buried in Yongzhao Mausoleum. Needless to say, the skilled craftsmen and civilians mobilized, as many as 46,700 soldiers participated in the construction of the tombs. The construction of the Yongzhao Mausoleum cost 500,000 taels of silver, 1.5 million stags, and 2.5 million silk pieces, which totaled half of the annual income of the Northern Song Dynasty treasury at that time. It can be imagined how magnificent the tombs that were built with half of the national resources.

The funeral procession was very large. There were more than 1,000 people pulling the coffin alone, with a vast carriage and horse stretching for dozens of miles. Obviously, there were not many people who returned alive.

Zhang Keming finally said: "That's what we have so far."

Tang Feng nodded to show his understanding, and he said, "Can you go to the scene to see it?"

Zhang Keming nodded and said, "No problem, I will take you there now."

After a while, Tang Feng, Liu Yue and Zhang Keming arrived at the excavation site. The excavation site gave people a two-word feeling, which was spectacular. The trapezoidal excavation opening was wide on the outside and narrow on the inside. The entire tomb passage was 6 meters wide and 250 meters long. The depth of the extension downward was 100 meters. Tang Feng roughly inferred based on the trigonometric function relationship between the slope and length of the tomb passage. The depth of the underground palace here may have set a national record. In ancient underground construction, the first thing to do was to consider ventilation. Historical records show that when Li Si made a project report on the Lishan Tomb tomb to Qin Shihuang, the excavation until the oil lamp is not flammable, indicating that the underground palace of Qin Shihuang’s Mausoleum had at least been excavated to the stage of hypoxia.

In order to prevent collapse, the mountain walls on both sides of the trapezoid were dug into a step-shaped step. Zhang Keming pointed to a place where fire was spraying outwards in the distance and said, "It was this thief hole that made us infer the fire tomb, and we temporarily gave up the plan to force the tomb door."

Tang Feng understood the state of fire-breathing. This thief must have penetrated deep into the underground palace. Only in this way can the combustible gas inside the underground palace be released. This is the fuhuo. Ancient tombs with fuhuo are called "fire pit tombs", and some tomb robbers in some places are commonly called "fire cave".

There is a passage like this in the archaeological document "Changsha Antiquities List" - once it is released, the fire is roaring, and then, the phosphorus fire is sprayed out from the gap, reaching five feet high, making a sound. At this time, the pits are full of fire, and the kiln workers are buried in the fire kiln. Tang Feng is very clear about this matter, but explosive fire scenes often occur in fire pit tombs, which is an ancient tomb that tomb robbers are terrified of. However, the path is one foot high and the demon is one foot high, and the tomb robbers are not unable to enter the fire pit tomb. This is the rooster destroys evil.

Today, when tomb robbery novels are prevalent, many tomb robbery methods have been weirded by the novelist, such as roosters destroying evil, manure and water to remove filth, father and son do different things, etc. In fact, these strange methods are very scientifically based.

The rooster destroys evil in order to prevent poison. After opening the tomb, in order to prevent poisoning in the tomb, the tomb robber will put a rooster in first. The combustible gas is definitely poisonous. The rooster is unwilling to go in if it is beaten to death. Forcibly stuffing it in is a dead end. If there is combustible gas in the tomb, then you must ignite the fire and burn it out like now.

Why does an explosive fire occur? The reason is actually very simple. Combustion requires oxygen. Once the combustible gas comes into contact with oxygen, as long as it encounters a little spark, a gas explosion will occur. No one present will be spared. These combustible gases are not phosphorus fires, but biogas decomposed into organic matter in a closed environment that is hypoxia.

There is still controversy in the academic community about whether Fuhuo in the ancient tomb is an anti-tomb robbery design, because they do not know whether the ancients deliberately put organic matter into the ancient tomb to decompose it or by chance. Regarding this, the ancestors of the Tang family believed that this must be the guys who built the ancient tombs were making trouble. Theft and anti-theft are always contradictory. The ancestors of the Tang family inevitably added ideological views when commenting on anti-theft skills.

After putting the rooster in, the tomb robber will block the light from the hole. After the rooster cannot find the direction, it will run around, which will detect every corner of the tomb. When the time is over, the tomb robber will let the light penetrate. The rooster is light-taping. The only light in the tomb chamber is the excavated hole, so it will come back by itself. After the rooster comes back safely, the tomb robber can enter the inside of the tomb with confidence.

The manure water removes filth to crack the tomb walls poured by iron. This is to use highly acidic manure water to rust iron parts. This method is a stupid method and often takes a long time.

The difference between father and son is not because they are afraid of hitting ghosts, but because they are too dangerous to rob the tomb. The father and son must leave one person to pass on the family line and continue the glorious and great profession.
Chapter completed!