Chinese believed in serving death as if it were a matter of life, especially in ancient times when science was not developed. It was believed that what was buried in the tomb with the dead could be used by the dead in hades, and that "thick burial" was popular in some dynasties, with the aim of allowing the deceased to enjoy the glory and wealth of the other world.
As a result, the rich treasures in the mausoleum have become the coveted wealth of people on the ground, which has gradually formed a profession - tomb robbery.
Since you want to rob the tomb, then, naturally, it is more to steal a property, so the imperial tomb has become the best choice for getting rich. After all, the emperor is the lord of the world, and he can be buried with anything he wants, whether it is a popular thick burial or a thin burial, and the royal tomb will not be empty.
Up to now, many emperors' tombs have accepted the "patronage" of tomb robbers, and some have even been stolen again and again, and the heavy organs in the mausoleum cannot stop the tomb robbers. However, there is also a mausoleum that has been coveted because of the huge treasure buried in it, but no tomb robbers have been able to achieve their wishes, and even archaeologists dare not easily excavate, that is, the tombs of Wu Zetian and Li Zhi. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the emperors and empresses were mostly buried together, and the "two saints" joint burial tomb of Qianling husband and wife was unique.
Qianling is the only tomb with a double city wall found in the tombs of the Tang Dynasty emperors, the inner city symbolizes the imperial city of the capital Chang'an, and the outer city is equivalent to Guocheng, where officials and natives live, reflecting the overall pattern of the ancient Chinese capital at that time.
This mausoleum took a full twenty-three years to build, it can be said that it took a lot of painstaking efforts by craftsmen, and the Tang Hui Wants records that in the fourteenth year of Tang Dezong's Zhenyuan (798), 378 houses were built during the renovation of Qianling. When Wu Zetian was in power, the Tang Dynasty was very prosperous, and it is conceivable that the treasures of the funeral are innumerable, according to modern expert estimates, there are at least five hundred tons of gold and silver jewelry in it! However, this mausoleum has never been stolen, not because there are no tomb robbers, but because a batch of tomb robbers have never been able to succeed.
It is said that the mausoleum was "visited" four times by famous thieves, who tried all kinds of means and tried all kinds of methods, but still failed to take away the treasures in the tomb.
The first time the mausoleum was excavated on a large scale was in the last years of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the Tang Dynasty had exhausted its strength, there were wars everywhere, the masses were divided, and the Yellow Nest was also unveiled, hoping to show its glory in the chaotic world. However, his roots were shallow, the money and food were insufficient, and the rebel army often fell into a situation of food shortages. After being in trouble again, Huang Chao tried to find money to support the development of the army, and in the end, he chose a business that had no profit, that is, tomb robbery.
Huang Chao's plan was very good, after attacking Chang'an, he took his soldiers to dig up the imperial tomb, and then, with the treasure he had obtained, he continued to fight the world.
After successfully entering Chang'an, Huang Chao led people to the front of the imperial mausoleum, and at his command, the small soldiers under his command swarmed up, and did not pay attention to any rules, but dug up with brute force. Although it is relatively slow to use brute force, it is also very efficient for so many people to go together. However, the mountain was about to be dug up, and they didn't even touch the edge of the imperial tomb.
Huang Chao came with excitement, not willing to return from defeat, and gave his men enough gas to let them continue digging. However, the men ran out of strength and still failed to dig out the imperial tomb. However, a large ditch more than 40 meters deep was dug, and it had to be abandoned, and to this day, there is still a deep ditch called "Huangchao Ditch" on the west side of the main peak of Liangshan.
There was no way, in the end, Huang Chao could only take people away in ashes.
From this experience of theft, it can be seen that this mausoleum that buried two emperors must have something extraordinary, otherwise, under the strength of Huang Chao, who did not dig up the tomb and never give up, how could it successfully escape from danger?
The second time, some people did not know the height of the sky to dig this tomb, that is, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period of the festival of Wen Tao. Wen Tao came with hundreds of thousands of troops, full of confidence, to rob the tomb, thinking that he would definitely return with a full load. After all, hundreds of thousands of troops, even if the flat land can dig a big pit, what is the difficulty of digging a mausoleum?
In this way, the entrance to the imperial tomb was really found by Wen Tao, seeing that thousands of treasures were in front of him, Wen Tao was very excited, and with a wave of his hand, he was ready to take his men into the imperial tomb to move things. What people did not expect was that just before Wen Tao stepped into the imperial tomb with one foot, the wind and clouds between heaven and earth suddenly changed color, and the weather was originally clear and the sky was clear, but for a while it was actually cloudy and the wind was fierce.
Wen Tao was frightened by this sudden change, he thought it was a warning from heaven, worried that if he ignored the imperial tomb, then the thunder and lightning in the dark clouds would kill him. Before he was born and died, he was so frightened that he didn't even want the treasure that was about to arrive, so he withdrew with people. "Those who are in the territory of the Tang Tombs have been excavated and taken from the golden treasures they have hidden." ...... But the Qianling wind and rain cannot be sent. ”
After these two times, many of the tomb robbers who were eager to move had a bottom in their hearts, believing that they did not have the strength of the first two, and naturally pressed the heart that was eager to move, until modern times, the imperial tomb was poisoned for the third time.
The third time the imperial tomb was poisoned was during the Republic of China period, and sun Lianzhong, in addition to bringing a large group of people and horses, also brought a lot of tools that were not available in ancient times, such as explosives. With explosives in hand, it must be much smoother to dig up, and he also thinks that he can bring out the treasure in the tomb.
Sun Lianzhong first made preliminary preparations, and then, put the explosives at the entrance of the mausoleum, ready to directly explode the entrance. He didn't have any sense of protecting cultural relics, but he just wanted to enter the tomb quickly.
A pile of explosives went down, the gate of the mausoleum was blown open by him, just when Sun Lianzhong wanted to go in and loot the treasure, but the tomb floated out of the smoke, accidentally inhaled the smoke soldiers immediately vomited blood and died, it turned out that the smoke was hidden in the poison!
Seeing the situation, Sun Lianzhong did not dare to think about the treasure anymore and quickly fled.
At this point, people finally realized the extraordinary nature of this tomb, and no one dared to enter it easily anymore.
Until 1958, several local farmers set off cannons to blow up stones and inadvertently blew up the graveyard. The excavation situation is the same as that of the Old Book of Tang and the Biography of Yan Shansi, "Qianling Xuanque, whose door is blocked by stone, whose stone gap is cemented, and whose cast iron is fixed in it".
After that, Guo Moruo planned to excavate Qianling and reported the "Qianling Excavation Plan", but the result was: "We can't finish the good things, this matter can be left for posterity to complete", and then the State Council issued another notice asking "do not dig before the national imperial tombs", and the excavation of Qianling was stopped.