In which province is the newly excavated tomb of Cao Cao located?
Cao Cao’s tomb gradually disappeared without a trace after the Song Dynasty due to the lack of ground markings. It has fulfilled many legends about the "seventy-two suspicious tombs" and even "actually outside the seventy-two tombs". This triggered a search for tombs in Anhui, Hebei, Henan, and Jiangsu. When CCTV broadcast the news of "Cao Cao's tomb discovered in Anyang, Henan", Liu Xinchang, who was in his sixties, did not completely dispel his doubts. This scholar, who has been searching for Cao Cao's tomb in the ancient Yecheng ruins in Linzhang County, Hebei Province since 1995, cautiously expressed his opinion to reporters: "For such a big discovery, conclusions should be cautious. At present, first-hand information The evidence is not yet sufficient."
A suspected "feng shui treasure land" in Gaoling of Cao Cao
"Selling incense and selling shoes only hurts the soul, but the sound of singing and playing does not know how to bury the bones. On the ground, who is looking at me from the teaching platform?" Qing Dynasty poet Zha Shenxing wrote in his poem.
From the urban and rural areas of Jiangwu, Linzhang County, Hebei Province to the west, all the way to Cixian County, Hebei Province, there are continuous hills shaped like sealed soil. This is the location of the legendary "Seventy-two Tombs of Doubt". As early as the 1980s, this tomb group had been identified as a Northern Dynasty tomb group, with an accurate number of 134. But Liu Xinchang, president of the Historical Research Society of Handan City, Hebei Province, still feels that compared with Xigaoxue District in Anyang, Henan Province, both places are possible, and "this area is more likely" in Cixian County, Hebei Province.
After Cao Cao's death, he was "posthumously named 'King Wu'" and was buried in Yecheng. This is clearly recorded in the official history - "Jin Shu·Xuan Di Ji" and "Three Kingdoms·Wei Shu". To the west of ancient Ye City, Liu Xinchang first defined Cao Cao's tomb as "an area of about 5 square kilometers in the western part of Jiangwucheng Township and the south-central part of Shicunying Township, Cixian County, Hebei Province." It was in 1997 that this area was about 5 square kilometers away. Xigaoxue Village, Anfeng Township, where Cao Cao's tomb was discovered in Anyang, Henan, is only about 2 kilometers away, and the two places face each other across the Zhang River.
Recalling the terrain of Ci County seen during the field trip, Liu Xinchang exclaimed: "You will know how good the terrain is if you have been there! The terrain of hills and hills is obvious, which is in line with the 'final order'" The poet Wang Bo of the Tang Dynasty wrote, "Look to the northwest from a high platform and look at the breeze with tears." The Wucheng side is exactly in the northwest, and the Xigao Point in Anyang is in the southwest. "
In addition to the judgment of terrain, another theory supported by Liu Xinchang is the ancient Kanyuology, which refers to the theory of Feng Shui - the four phases, yin and yang and other theories. This area in the south-central part of Shicunying Township and the western part of Jiangwu City and Township is "backed by Gangling, with the Zhang River in front, the Taihang Mountains in the west, and an open plain from high to low in the east." It not only meets Cao Cao's requirements after the death of the civil and military ministers The requirement is that it is near the "burial", and it is "a geomantic treasure land that occupies the superior landscape and shape".
"Fighting" for Wei Wu's Tomb
Like the fierce battles that have been launched in recent years around historical sites such as "Zhuge's hometown" and "original site of Chibi", Cixian County, Hebei is not the only one. "Suspected" location. Until 2007, after a long search for "Yexi Circle" failed, Bozhou, Anhui Province came up with a new point of view: According to the general funeral rules of the ancients, if Cao Cao was not buried in the fiefdom, then it was "not impossible" to be buried in his hometown of Bozhou.
In Bozhou, Cao Cao’s hometown, the tombs of the Cao family are concentrated in the Xue family lone pile in the south of Bozhou city. Dozens of tombs of Cao Cao's grandfather Cao Teng, father Cao Song, and eldest daughter Cao Xian are scattered here. If the Cixian and Linzhang areas in Hebei Province have only delineated the approximate range where Cao Cao's tomb may be located, experts from Bozhou, Wei Wu's hometown, have given a bolder and clearer guess: the tombs in the group are related to those of Cao Teng's tomb, The triangular-shaped tomb No. 3 of Cao Song's tomb is inferred to be a "suspected tomb of Cao Cao."
Li Can, the former director of the Bozhou City Museum who is the "first person in Bozhou archeology" in the local area, said: The local funeral custom in Bozhou is: carrying the grandson with the child on the right, carrying the child on the left, and Cao Teng's tomb, The tomb of Cao Song and the suspected tomb of Cao Cao are in the shape of a triangle, with Cao Teng's tomb as the center, Cao Song's tomb on the right, and the suspected tomb of Cao Cao on the left. This layout fits perfectly. "If Cao Cao's tomb is not in the Cao family tombs, why are the tombs of his two generals Zhang Liao and Xu Chu there?" Li Can asked.
The front and middle chambers of Tomb No. 3 near Cao Teng’s tomb have long been stolen, and have not been excavated so far, and there is no archaeological evidence to support it.
This situation is no different in Hebei's "Yexi Circle" - in 1983, the Han and Tang Dynasty Research Office of the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences established a Yecheng archaeological team there to excavate the sites and relics around ancient Yecheng. , and carried out rescue and protection of some tombs, but no clues related to Cao Cao's tomb were found.
In contrast, theories such as the "Zhanghe underwater theory" and "Xuchang theory" which are not supported by orthodox historical materials are even weaker. Liu Qingzhu, director of the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an expert on Qin and Han archaeology, even believes that "Not worth arguing about".
The "mysteriously missing" cemetery
Jinshan, Yaxi Town, Gaochun County, Jiangsu Province, is located at the junction of Lishui, Gaochun and Liyang counties and cities. The ancient forest here is lush and green. According to local villagers, there is Cao Cao's tomb on Jinshan Mountain.
"I heard that there is Cao Cao's tomb on Jinshan Mountain, fellow villager, do you know where it is?" Strangers often appear in several villages near Jinshan in Gaochun County. When strangers enter the village, they ask about "Cao Cao's tomb". The local villagers are quite sensitive, because there is indeed a rumor circulating in the villages near Jinshan that there is a "Cao Cao Tomb" on the mountain. The villagers have always been cautious about outside inquiring, and kept silent whenever someone came to inquire about the tomb, because they knew that most of the outside inquiring people were tomb robbers, and they mostly came for the cultural relics in the tomb.
Mr. Rui, a 62-year-old local resident, said that when he was a child, he heard that there were tombs on the mountain, and there was always a rumor in the village that the tomb on Jinshan Mountain was the tomb of Cao Cao. In the 1960s, someone in the village excavated the mountain and unearthed three gates and antique gray bricks. On the gray bricks were the phonetic inscriptions "The fourth year of the Taiping Order of the Marquis of Cao Jun". The font was very simple, and there were also small terracotta warriors and horses. The second door has a sword, and the third door has a compass. According to local legend, the tomb took 3 years and 6 months to build and contained 9 gates and 100,000 spike arrows. Because the tomb was too deep and had a mechanism, no one dared to dig and stopped. A few years ago, someone contracted to excavate rocks in part of the mountain. However, they did not excavate at the original location, but moved to a place with tombs. After a while, all the excavators left. They must have excavated something. . Since then, the rumor that there is a "Cao Cao Tomb" on Jinshan Mountain has spread throughout the village and outside the village, and many people from outside the village have come to inquire about it.
According to local villagers, the name Jinshan also comes from the tombs containing treasures on the mountain. Villager Master Zhang lives in Yongqing Village, not far from Jinshan Mountain. He is familiar with the paths on the mountain. He volunteered to be a guide. He also visited the location of the tomb a few years ago. Less than a few dozen meters up the mountain, the road into the mountain was cut off. Master Zhang said that there used to be a road leading to the mountain a few years ago, which was built during quarrying. Now if there is no quarrying here, no one comes here, and the road is blocked by jungle weeds. The reporter and his team found another road in the jungle weeds, with obvious traces of people walking on it. "Basically no one comes to the mountain. Most of these footprints are left by grave seekers," Master Zhang said. After that, the reporter and Master Zhang walked forward along the traces, slowly groping forward, and finally found an open area, which was the quarry site back then. We searched around the site, but found no trace of the existence of the tomb.
"Is it true that the tomb has been dug out, or have we found the wrong place?" In order to find out the truth, we decided to go down the mountain to find out the situation from Rui Bishou, the old party secretary of Jinshan Village. Rui Bishou is 78 years old. He has served as the village party secretary of Jinshan Village for more than 40 years. He is very clear about the tomb. He pointed at Jinshan and affirmed that Jinshan is surrounded by jungle and the tomb has not been dug. Rui Bishou said that he could not tell as to which dynasty the tomb belonged to and whether it was Cao Cao's tomb. But he heard from people of the previous generation that the first person to discover the tomb was a villager named Rui Zulin. When he went up the mountain to collect firewood, he found a ditch full of antique gray bricks, so he went up the mountain every day to bring back some gray bricks to put away. At home, there is still fire paint on some gray bricks, and the words "The fourth year of the Taiping Order of Cao Junhou" are engraved on the gray bricks. The reporter tried to find the gray bricks engraved with "The fourth year of the Taiping Order of Cao Junhou", but not a single one was found in the village.
The ancient tomb "should not be excavated if possible"
Before there is any unearthed evidence, the debate about Cao Cao's tomb site has been circulating in the analysis and inference of theory and literature for several years. .
In "Research on Cao Cao's Tomb" published in 1997, Liu Xinchang elaborated on six major arguments for inferring the location of Cao Cao's tomb: the location of Cao Cao's "Final Order", the location of "Book of Jin·Xuan Di Ji" and "Book of Three Kingdoms·Wei" Records include descriptions of landform features in Cao Pi's "Cewen" and Cao Zhi's "Elegance Wen", Lu Ji's retelling of the "Final Order" in "Wei Diao of Emperor Wu of the Wei Dynasty", poems and essays by Wang Bo and other later generations of literati, and the Wei and Jin Dynasties. The "Four Phases" and other theories of political science have appeared.
As for at least the first three points, the same material was also cited by Anyang this time as the basis for confirming Cao Cao's tomb.
Spontaneous research by local scholars and enthusiasts is in full swing, but the national cultural relics and archaeological institutions are unwilling to join in the fun. The attitude of the archaeological community is calm, "Our principle has always been: do not dig as much as possible. "When asked about the public's concern and interest in Cao Cao's tomb, Liu Qingzhu was a little helpless: "Our Yecheng archaeological team is mainly doing archeology of the capital, and there are many research methods on ancient buildings and ruins. Why must we dig the tomb? What? ”
Pan Weibin, associate researcher at the Henan Institute of Cultural Relics and leader of the Anyang Xigao Tomb Archaeological Team, also supports this statement. "We are doing rescue excavation." He emphasized many times. When the excavation started in 2008, the Xigaoxue Tomb was only judged to be a "large princely tomb during the Han and Wei Dynasties", and it was speculated that it "may be related to the tomb of Cao Cao" or "one of the accompanying tombs". During the excavation, it was only closed in accordance with conventional protective measures, far less armed than the on-site special police today.
Liu Qingzhu said: Unless evidence is found during the excavation process to prove the identity of the tomb owner, "we will not do this kind of work." "This kind of work" includes targeting a specific historical figure and actively searching, inferring and delineating the location of his tomb in a vast sea of cultural and historical materials. Because of this, there is still no generally accepted conclusion as to where the tombs of Cao Pi, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, who were proclaimed emperors in the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty, are.