Chapter 11 The Fifth Ritual of Jilong Elephant's Birth and the Funeral of the First Emperor

From September until the beginning of winter, Li Si had been making every effort to organize the funeral of the First Emperor. For the state funeral of the First Emperor, Li Si did his best.Hu Hai accepted Zhao Gao's recommendation, and after the funeral, he respectfully worshiped Li Si as the Minister of Burial, and issued an edict: Prime Minister Li Si has full power to handle the funeral of the first emperor, and all the governments, counties, and county offices must obey his orders, otherwise he will be punished by law.Li Si was very excited, and immediately drafted a volume of "Zhilong State Funeral Book" and submitted it, and Hu Hai immediately approved the three vermilion characters "Zhiyueke".Among the hundreds of philosophers in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Li Si's teacher Xunzi was the one who explained the funeral most thoroughly.The axis of Xunzi's "On Rites" is about funerals.The reason why Li Si wrote the letter solemnly was to use the teacher's arguments as the basis, and make the funeral of the First Emperor an unprecedented grand funeral based on the master's theory.Li Si sincerely believes that this is not only in line with the grand plan of the first emperor to surpass the past and the present, but also in line with the essence of the current state of peace.At the beginning of his letter, Li Si quoted his teacher Xunzi's funeral theory at a large length:

Attention all observers, Xunzi's funeral theory provided a necessary path for future generations to interpret the mysteries of the first emperor's tomb, but it was rarely noticed.At least, Xunzi's four basic theories on funerals have been confirmed by the funeral of Emperor Shihuang recorded in historical books and later historical excavations and scientific exploration to a certain extent.First, "an elephant lives to send it to death" - a person's funeral should be consistent with his status in life.This funeral law determined the unprecedented layout of the funeral and mausoleum of the First Emperor.Second, the funeral must be "prosperous", and it must not be harsh (barren) - the funeral of a person is based on the courtesy enjoyed by the deceased during his lifetime, and then maximizes grandness.This funeral law is the reason why the funeral and mausoleum of the first emperor are so rich in engineering and wealth, and it is also the foundation of traditional etiquette and governance accepted by the world at that time.Third, "Kuanglong looks like a house" - the shape and layout of the tomb of the deceased and the underground palace are similar to the living environment during his lifetime.This funeral law determines the present-day basis of various grand scenes such as the Terracotta Warriors and Horses in the funeral mausoleum of the First Emperor, and it is not a fantasy.Fourth, "the image from above is taken from the sky, the image from below is taken from the earth, and the image taken from the middle is taken from people" - the underground palace of the deceased should take the three images of heaven, earth and people, so as to fulfill "the reason why people live in groups and are one".This funeral law, seen in people of different identities, can be described as very different.However, even for common people's funerals, at least there should be some. It is entirely possible to depict the stars and the moon on the bricks and stones above the common people's tombs to resemble the sky.In other words, Xunzi only provided a principle, and the scale of implementation depends on the status of the deceased.

The funeral mausoleum of the first emperor unfolded according to this law, so it is naturally extremely grand. "Historical Records The Benji of Qin Shihuang" says: "...Using mercury as the rivers, rivers and seas, instilled with the machine, with astronomy on the top, and geography on the bottom. With mermaid ointment as a candle, the immortal will last for a long time...The burial is over,... Trees, plants, and elephant mountains." This grand underground scene has been roughly confirmed by the unearthed terracotta warriors and horses, as well as scientific explorations that have not yet been excavated: the vast sky is lined up with stars, and the image is taken from the sky; mercury is the river, sea and river, taken from the sky. The image is in the ground; the terracotta warriors and horses and the temples will be listed in the mausoleum city, and the selection is in the people.

Later generations often marvel at the magnificence and grandeur of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor, and often attribute these miracles of construction and planning to the extraordinary creative talent of Emperor Qin Shihuang himself.In fact, the first emperor was busy with state affairs all his life, and died suddenly at the age of fifty. Regardless of his ambition and time, it was impossible to calmly arrange such a grand funeral behind him.There is only one possibility here: Li Si, whose planning power and imagination are almost equal to those of the First Emperor, based on Xunzi's rules about funerals, created the most extreme grand funeral with an astonishing layout, and the most extreme grandeur that surpassed history. tomb.The reasonable historical logic is: the funeral and mausoleum of the first emperor have almost no necessary connection with the first emperor; people ignored Li Si, who later became gray, and thus turned the tomb of the first emperor, one of the miracles of mankind, into an unsolvable mystery.This is a later story.

After citing Xunzi's theory, Li Si proposed the general plan for the funeral and mausoleum of the first emperor: After Hu Hai approved the letter, Li Si immediately gathered all the doctors under the old Fengchang Hu Wujing's departments and the doctor's palace starry night to discuss and decide the overall layout of the national funeral and the construction of the mausoleum.Hu Wujing and a group of doctors highly praised Li Si's letter approved by the second emperor. The Confucian scholar Shu Suntong summed it up in one sentence: "The prime minister not only understands the essence of Legalism, but also understands Confucian ethics. This funeral plan is deeply in line with Xun Xun. The essence of Confucian burial is great!" So, after three days and three nights of discussions, the overall layout of the funeral and subsequent mausoleum construction was determined.The biggest innovation among them was the unanimous approval of Li Si's plan to build a ground cemetery.

Observers, please pay attention to those who cover the original funeral ceremony in ancient China, there are tombs but no gardens, and there are tombs but no sacrifices.This so-called.That is to say, the ancients of the Central Plains civilization worshiped their ancestors in the ancestral temple (common people call it a family temple), but did not go to the cemetery to worship; but they did not worship the cemetery. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States and the Central Plains cemetery before it were all solitary cemeteries, without ground buildings. And let it annihilate naturally; this is one of the reasons why there are almost no ground traces in the pre-Qin cemetery.Sacrifice at the cemetery was originally the etiquette of the Rongdi nomadic tribe.Because they have no fixed place to live and limited financial resources, it is impossible to build a fixed ancestral temple and family temple, so there is a custom of going to the cemetery to worship every year.The Qin people entered the west from the Yin and Shang dynasties, and struggled for hundreds of thousands of years in the sea of ​​Rongdi tribes with half farming and half herding. The difficulty of survival was no different from that of the Rongdi tribes.Today, the first emperor must have a mausoleum, and the people of Qin must also go to the cemetery to worship. In this case, there is no regret that "elephants live in life" in the cemetery standing alone.Therefore, the reason for Li Si's establishment of the dormitory system is also not the actual purpose.The real goal of Li Si is to build a mausoleum in the form of a grand castle on the ground that can be seen, so that the immortality of the first emperor can be exaggerated.

What is a garden bed?The sleeping garden is also the sleeping garden.That is to say, the garden where the deceased is buried underground is the Garden Bed.The garden system planned by Li Si is: take the Mausoleum of the First Emperor (mountain tomb) as the axis, build a magnificent city divided into inner city and outer city, five miles around the inner city, twelve miles around the outer city, and four in total. The city gate; its shape and scale are far larger than the ordinary modern castles in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States "City of Three Li, Guo of Seven Li". At the same time, the ancestral temple for worship is built on one side for the royal family and the subjects of the world to worship in the temple.The official name of this ancestral temple is "Sleeping Temple", that is, the ancestral temple built in the mausoleum.

At the end of the Warring States period, the construction of ancestral temples (sleeping temples) in the cemetery was a new thing that changed the funeral customs of the world.Since Li Si created the Yuanxi Temple, his original intention was not just for the subjects of the world to sacrifice spontaneously, but to become a custom of sacrifice and an authentic royal ritual.For this reason, at the beginning of the construction of the Mausoleum City, Li Si specially signed a letter with the old Feng Chang Hu Wujing, please respect the temple of the first emperor, and use the ancestral temple of the first emperor's mausoleum as the authentic place for worship.The second Hu Hai naturally wrote the three big characters "Zhiyueke" immediately, and made an exception to send Li Sihu Wujing's letter to the officials for resolution.This is about the only time that the second Hu Hai "discussed matters with his subordinates".At this time, the ministers are already panicked, and naturally there is no objection.Therefore, Li Si and Hu Wujing, who presided over the resolution, submitted a letter to the general secretary, clearly formulating it as: "Today, the first emperor is the ultimate temple, and all people in the world will offer tribute, increase sacrifices, and prepare salty gifts, not to add. The emperor's instrument should be worshiped alone. The Temple of the First Emperor, respecting the Temple of the First Emperor is the ancestral temple of the emperor." Since then, the emperor's mausoleum ancestral temple system has been formally established.That is to say, since the Mausoleum of the First Emperor, temple sacrifices and tomb sacrifices have been combined into one.Followed by later generations, the tradition of tomb sacrifices of the Chinese nation has become more and more pervasive, and the Ching Ming Festival has finally become the most solemn day of sacrifice of the year.

Since the establishment of the dormitory system in the First Emperor's Garden, successive royal families have gradually become custom-made.Later historians explained the evolution of the garden bed system as: "".This is a later story. From September to the snowy winter days, Li Si has been deeply involved in continuous grand funerals. There are too many things to do and too many decrees to issue.If it weren't for Li Si's excellent management skills, no one would be able to manage all kinds of extremely complicated affairs in this panic-stricken time.Li Si, who used to be the Prime Minister with a million people's power to fight Jingshui, handed over all the details of etiquette to the old Fengchang Hu Wujing for disposal.Li Si himself only focused on two key points: one was the general layout of the funeral and the general layout of the mausoleum, and the other was the difficulties in the mausoleum project that needed to be solved immediately.The first key point is whether "the etiquette is extremely prosperous" can achieve "the life of an elephant", which naturally has to be decided by Li Si himself.The second key point is related to the success or failure of the huge dormitory project. Although many difficulties are the most practical details, it is precisely Li Si who has to deal with them personally.

In order to solve the difficulty of the mausoleum project, Li Si invited the friendly Zheng Guo. Zheng Guo is already deaf, his eyes are blurred, he is too old to walk, and he has already turned a blind eye to state affairs.Li Si raised his voice loudly and shouted with effort.It was not easy for Zheng Guo to understand Li Si's intentions: one, this is the place where great engineers can use their skills, and Zheng Guo is none other than Zheng Guo;After thinking about it for a long time, this old water engineer who loves water control and has been obsessed with engineering projects all his life finally agreed: "I don't have anything to do with state affairs, I just go and have a look." On the same day, Li Si immediately escorted Zheng Guo secretly and solemnly to the Lishan construction site. , Escorted into the Zhang Han shogunate, and then let out a long breath, feeling a little relieved.Li Sili invited Zheng Guo to come out of the mountain. Naturally, it was not that Zheng Guo was familiar with funerals, but that Zheng Guo was very good at solving engineering difficulties.Li Si was convinced that without Zheng Guo, a prodigy throughout the ages, this unprecedented underground project would not be reassuring.

Sure enough, with Zheng Guo in charge, many difficulties in the mausoleum project were solved one by one. First, Zheng Guo immediately changed Zhang Han's practice of using craftsmen on average, and pointed out Zhang Han's law: gather 80% of the skilled craftsmen in Shangfang, the imperial city, into a large industrial camp, and lead 30,000 strong prisoners to concentrate on various underground projects The remaining 20% ​​of craftsmen in Shangfang led all county craftsmen and tens of thousands of people to concentrate on building temples and pottery projects; the remaining hundreds of thousands of prisoners were all led by construction officials and dedicated to drainage, Collection and transportation of various raw materials such as soil borrowing, soil transportation, stone, brick, wood, etc.Zhang Han acted in accordance with the law, and the work efficiency was greatly improved. For a while, he shouted again and again: "The old hydraulic engineering is a god!" The second is the determination of the stone collection place.The Mausoleum of the First Emperor was a huge project, and the amount of underground stones used was more than that of the ground. Where to quarry the stones was a big problem.Zheng Guo didn't go on the survey either. He stretched out the iron ruler far away and tapped the map behind Zhang Han's case. His voice was old and high, for fear that others would not hear him: "Jade material, take Lantian jade! The material is rough and tough, solid and wear-resistant. The rest of the stone materials are the rocks at Ganquankou in Jingshui River! The stone is white and solid, and it will not be destroyed forever!" Zhang Han immediately implemented it, and assigned 200,000 prisoners to quarry and transport stone.So far, torches and candles shine day and night on both sides of the Weishui River in the hinterland of Guanzhong, and the black crowds of cars and horses are constantly flowing; within ten days, the sound of the chant of the heavy dragging of the boulder has turned into a heart-stirring chant song - Yunshi Ganquankou, The Wei River does not flow, a thousand people sing, and ten thousand people hook each other! ...According to the "Picture Records of Guanzhong Scenic Sites" and "Chang'an Chronicles": two miles southeast of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor (in the garden at that time), there is still a stone nesting in the shape of a giant turtle. Eighteen steps long (the Qin step is six feet, roughly more than twenty meters today); this stone is "placed on Lishan Mountain, and it will not move again.""佷" sounds the same as ruthless and means "ruthless"; "佷石" means "ruthless stone", which shows that it is huge and incomparable.There is no reason why such huge stones are excavated and transported!Huangfu of the Tang Dynasty wrote "The Inscription on the Stone" which said: "The stone is so green, it is next to Lishan Mountain. The stone is simple and scarred, and it is in all directions. ...... The stone is located in Beishan, and the foundation is in the tomb. Therefore, it is said that it is named after it. .Since ancient times, there are no seals and no trees. There are roots in the ditch, and there are salaries in the wild. The post-sage has made works, and the fate cannot bear it. For the coffin, it is in the Tang Dynasty... It is a stone, and it will be a thousand springs!" The third is the determination of the place to take the land.Lishan itself is a mountain tomb, and its soil is not desirable.However, the garden is a civil engineering project, and the amount of soil used is huge. How can there be no land for soil?This time, Old Zheng Guo drove around Lishan Mountain in a high-speed car for a few days, and when he came back, he tapped the map with a water-detecting iron ruler and said: "Go east of Lishan Mountain, more than ten miles away from the garden, there is a mountain of earth on the north bank of Xinfengshui. The color is good." Zhang Han immediately dispatched 30,000 prisoners to Xinfeng Shuitu Mountain to collect soil day and night.Later generations "Shui Jing Zhu · Wei Shui Zhu" said: To build a mausoleum and take soil, this earth mountain was dug into a huge deep pit, the ground was silted up deeply, and the water was accumulated into a pool to communicate with Xinfeng water, and fish and shrimps were born.Therefore, later generations called Dakeng a fish pond, and Xinfeng water a fish pond water. Fourth, the dilemma of underground excavation is finally resolved.The underground palace of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor is magnificent and difficult to excavate.One of the difficulties is that the underground springs of Lishan Mountain are abundant, and there are many hot springs. When the ground is dug a few feet, there will be springs gushing across the ground. It is almost impossible to dig tens of feet deep.Zheng Guonai is a talented hydraulic engineer who is proficient in water affairs and even better in water properties. After ten days of investigation and speculation, he planned a construction strategy: plug with aragonite, then use red lacquer, block the water spring and then excavate it. Due to the simplicity of historical materials, later generations have no way of knowing exactly how this strategy was implemented.We can only roughly describe it as: building a wall with patterned huge stones, supplemented by iron bars, and painting some kind of paint similar to red lacquer (red lacquer) on the outside of the water blocking wall to block the leakage of the gap, and then continue to excavate.Under this construction strategy, three layers of underground springs (Chuan Sanquan) were drilled continuously, and three layers of underground springs (Xiagu Sanquan) were successfully blocked. At this time, the underground excavation suddenly encountered a strange situation. "Han Jiuyi" describes this situation as: "It's so deep that it can't be drilled in, it can't be burned, it can't be burned, and it's empty, like the world!" This is the second biggest difficulty: the underground rock layer.Zheng Guo, who was struggling, was carried down by Zhang Han to the underground construction site on a military couch led by guards.Under the torch, Zheng Guo surveyed all the underground stone layers that were empty, and finally sighed: "Heavenly craftsmanship, I am helpless! The current situation, I can only dig sideways. No matter how deep the attempt is, there is no hope." Back on the ground, Zhang Han immediately reported Zheng Guojue's decision to the prime minister's office.Li Si immediately wrote to Hu Hai, the second generation, please act according to Zheng Guo's law: it can be broad but not deep.After the second generation Hu Hai asked Zhao Gao for advice, he approved two lines of text that seemed to be quite assertive: "Zhi said: If you chisel it, you can't penetrate it, if you burn it, you can't burn it, and it will stop if you walk three hundred feet beside it." So far, the huge underground project of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor has ceased deep excavation, and no longer seeks to be extremely poor. After all the difficulties in the project were resolved, Li Si's last busy task was to coordinate and plan the layout of the underground palace of the First Emperor's Mausoleum and store all the belongings.Among Li Si's original plans for the funeral, there was one item of "extremely rich collection".In Li Si's view, the collection of the underground palace must also be "the life of an elephant", which not only satisfies the first emperor's admiration for the world's rare treasures, but also demonstrates the amazing wealth of the unified empire.Since the items stored in the mausoleum must be taken directly from the royal treasury, Li Si specially wrote to Hu Hai for this purpose, requesting that 30% of the royal treasury's wealth be stored in the late emperor's mausoleum.Hu Hai didn't ask Zhao Gao this time, and immediately gave a judgment arbitrarily, and his words were astonishing: "Zhi said: The burial of the former empire should be thick and rich, and all the rare treasures used by the late emperor during his lifetime should be buried together! The late emperor did not have children in the harem." If it is not appropriate to go out, they will all die!" When Li Si received the edict, he felt very uneasy. Wealth is rare, but it is also possible to store it thickly.This person died, but the appalling old system that had been abolished as early as the early Warring States period, how could it be reproduced in the Great Qin New Deal?On the other hand, the Warring States period abolished human martyrdom, which was initiated by Duke Xiangong of the Qin Dynasty. Today, the restoration of human martyrdom is not only suspected of perverting the law, but also of blaspheming the ancestors. Isn't it an absurd act!Although, Li Si is also clear about the actual point of the Huhai edict: it is to let the concubines and maids who had served the late emperor's bedroom but had no children die together, instead of teaching all the women in the harem to be buried together.Even so, there are probably hundreds or even hundreds of people, how cruel it is!Li Siben wanted to remonstrate, and he spoke out enthusiastically just like the "Book of Remonstrance and Chasing Guests" back then.But after Li Si contemplated for a long time, he still dispelled his remonstrance.After all, I am the chief burial minister, and it is I who insisted that the elephant should be as prosperous as possible; moreover, Hu Hai's reason was that it was inappropriate for the women who served the late emperor to be released to the people. Returning the women from the Six Kingdoms in the harem is precisely one of Li Si's follow-up new policies. At this time, he is admonishing for the women in the harem, and the follow-up purge of the harem is bound to make Hu Hai unhappy.Of course, the more fundamental thing is that if Li Si wanted to minimize his resistance to becoming a regency, he had to tolerate Hu Hai in some small matters that were not related to the big politics; If you think about it carefully, the relationship between the monarch and his ministers who has just reached a tacit agreement is likely to die... Finally, Li Si did not write a letter to dissuade him.At a time when the world needed Li Si's boldness the most, history did not leave behind a majestic text like "Book of Remonstrance and Exorcism".Li Si was noncommittal, kept silent about the sacrifices, and only went all out to manage the layout of the underground palace and the types of objects. The layout and rich material collection of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor have been recorded in many dynasties. A few representative descriptions are as follows: "Historical Records Qin Shihuang Benji" says: "(The Mausoleum of the First Emperor) pierces the Lishan Mountain...Through three springs, the copper is lowered to the outer coffin, and the palaces, officials, and rare artifacts are full of treasures. Let the craftsman make a machine Crossbow arrows, those who have penetrated close to shoot them. Use mercury as the rivers and seas, and instill them with astronomy, and geography below. Use mermaid ointment as a candle, and those who are immortal will last for a long time." In this record, it is worth Note that the "mermaid" thing. "Historical Records·Justice" quotes "Guangzhi" saying: "The salamander sounds like a child's cry, has four legs, and is shaped like a snakehead. It can cure cattle and come out of Yishui." It can be seen that this mermaid is the salamander that still exists in southern Shaanxi today. .It also quotes "Story of Foreign Objects" saying: "The mermaid looks like a human being, more than a foot long, and it is unbearable to eat. The skin is good for the mackerel, and the sawn wood is in. There is a small piercing on the neck, and the air comes out from it. The mermaid paste was used as a candle in the tomb of Qin Shihuang. They come out of the East China Sea, and they are found in Taizhou today.” From this we can see that at that time, there were still many places where these mermaids were produced. Although it was difficult to catch them, they were not as rare as in later generations. "Hanshu Liu Xiangzhuan" says: "The first emperor was buried in Lishan Mountain, and the three springs were imprisoned... The stone coffin is the swimming pool, the human paste is the lamp candle, the mercury is the river and the sea, and the gold is the wild goose. The collection of treasures, machinery The changes, the beauty of the coffins, and the prosperity of the palace halls are incomparable." "Hanshu·Jiashan Biography" says: "The first emperor died and was buried in Lishan Mountain...He went down to the three springs, mined gold and stone, smelted copper to imprison it, painted the outside, decorated it with pearls and jade, and decorated it with emeralds. It becomes a sightseeing tour, and it becomes a mountain forest.” "Shui Jing Zhu·Wei Shui Zhu" says: "Qin Shihuang's grand burial... cut mountains and chiseled stones, imprisoned three springs, and used copper as the outer coffin. The surrounding area is more than 30 miles. The upper part is painted with the images of astronomical stars, and the lower part is made of mercury. Destroying hundreds of rivers, five mountains and nine states, with geographical power. Palaces, hundreds of officials, rare implements, and treasures are filled. Let craftsmen make machine crossbows, pass them close, and shoot them. Use mermaids as lamps and candles, whichever is inextinguishable. For a long time...Xiang Yu entered the pass, sent him out, and transported 300,000 people for 30 days. The thieves in the Guandong, sold the coffins to get copper. The shepherds searched for sheep and burned them, and the fire lasted for 90 days." In addition, there are descriptions in "Taiping Yulan" citing various historical materials, and there are also descriptions in "Book of Jin·Ziji 7" about Shi Jilong's robbery of excavating the tomb of the first emperor and taking copper pillars and castings.All the records of later generations are generally derived from "Historical Records", and many of the rules in it are not believed by later generations, and they are often questioned.For example, how thick the collection is, historians often question the scale of Xiang Yu's wealth when he robbed the tomb, "300,000 people can't be poor by transporting things for 30 days".Up to the present day, the above-ground city of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor has long since disappeared, and after underground excavations have yielded many results, and scientific exploration has also partially confirmed historical records, people still cannot believe that such a huge and brilliant miracle could be created more than two thousand years ago. come out.And history will surely prove that Sima Qian's account of going to the Qin Empire for a hundred years is largely correct, and the doubts of future generations and modern people are mostly the result of losing historical imagination. --------------------------------------- Notes: