Ying Zheng, the king of Qin Dynasty, has always been a mixed figure in history, but almost everyone agrees with Qin Shihuang's characteristic of "hedonism and luxury". The existence of Epang Palace is the best proof, and there are many records about how miserable Qin people are in historical materials. In fact, Qin Shihuang not only loved money and luxury so much before his death, but also built an extremely luxurious mausoleum for himself in order to live a rich and enjoyable life after his death. However, why was the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor discovered 46 years ago? German experts gave the answer with nuclear magnetic resonance scanning.
During the reign of Qin Shihuang, a great deal of folk property was searched, and some of it was naturally stored in the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, which is of great reference value for us to study the history of Qin Dynasty now, but until 2020, Chinese archaeologists were still at a loss about the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang. It has been recorded in historical materials that Xiang Yu, the overlord of the Western Chu Dynasty, led more than 30,000 people to plan to excavate the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, but somehow the excavation ended without results.
1974 In the spring, when local farmers were digging a well near Qin Shihuang's mausoleum, they accidentally dug up a broken pottery figurine head. They thought the terracotta figurine was strange, so they quickly reported it to the local government. The country attached great importance to this discovery, and then quickly organized personnel to dig, making the eighth wonder of the world come into being. But the real terracotta warriors and horses are not khaki as we see today, but colorful. Just a few minutes after people dug them out, these terracotta warriors and horses turned khaki when they encountered the rapid oxidation of the air.
Later, after further research by archaeologists in China, the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum was still well preserved under the soil and had not been stolen for thousands of years. What makes the world most curious is that Qin Shihuang's underground palace was discovered in 1974. Why hasn't it been opened so far?
First of all, the first reason is that there is no perfect cultural relics protection technology in China. In 1950s, China opened the tomb of the Ming Dynasty Emperor Wanli. However, at the moment when the tomb was opened, the funerary objects inside came into contact with the air and were instantly eclipsed. This happened again in the 1970s. When Mawangdui Tomb in Changsha, which shocked the world, was discovered, a large number of textiles, bamboo slips and silk books were found in the tomb. However, due to the lack of perfect protection measures, all those cultural relics were oxidized and deformed at the moment of contact with the air.
Obviously, according to modern technology, scientists can't guarantee to protect the unearthed cultural relics after excavating the underground palace of Qin Shihuang, so once they choose to excavate the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum, the cultural relics inside are likely to be oxidized and deformed in an instant, and even if some cultural relics are saved by luck, they may lose their original research value. So for us, it is better to dig out the destroyed cultural relics and keep them intact underground.
The second reason is that no one can bear the pollution problem caused by mercury leakage in the underground palace. According to Sima Qian's description in Historical Records, Qin Shihuang once injected mercury into the underground palace, which represented all rivers. In addition to Sima Qian's records, many ancient books record that there may be a lot of mercury in the underground palace. Because Qin Shihuang tried his best to live forever, but failed, he injected a lot of mercury into the underground palace to ensure that his body would not rot, so that he could be reborn.
This rumor has also been confirmed by German experts. Even people from other countries want to know about the mausoleum of Qin Shihuang. A German expert used superb technology to scan the tomb of Qin Shihuang by nuclear magnetic resonance, in order to get a glimpse of it. Scanning pictures show that there are not only uneven buildings in the imperial tomb, but also liquid suspected of mercury flowing in it.
If mercury leaks after excavation, it will be no less harmful than a nuclear explosion. Over the years, scientists have also explored near the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, and found that the mercury content in the area near the underground palace exceeded the standard. Obviously, with the current technology, it is impossible to perfectly avoid the mercury area for excavation.
In addition to the above reasons, there is also a crucial reason, that is, time. According to the calculation of relevant scientists, it will take a long time to fully develop the underground palace of Qin Shihuang. Among them, we should also consider a series of issues such as cultural relics protection, sampling and photographic archives. After all, archaeology is a highly professional work, and archaeological excavation is also a complicated and rigorous project.
Although we haven't excavated the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor until now, I believe that according to the development speed of science and technology in China, we are not far from the excavation date. I hope that the cultural relics of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum can help us understand the history of the Qin Dynasty more accurately.