Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history, used her lifelong legend to tell the world what is the real scarf and not to let the eyebrows be shaved. In addition to the endless scenery before her death, she is still debated after her death, in addition to the wordless monument we are familiar with, another site in Qianling is also full of this eerie and terrifying atmosphere, which is the headless stone man.
There are a total of 61 stone figures at the site of Qianling, and they all bow their hands in the direction of Qianling, and they all wear foreign costumes, all of which are foreigners. And the most frightening thing is that these stone statues do not have heads.
What kind of secrets are hidden behind these headless stone people? Why did they guard the spirit for Wu Zetian? Where are their heads?
On the first question, we basically share the same views. During the reign of Wu Zetian, the Tang Dynasty was unprecedentedly strong, and all the vassal states on all sides respected the Tang Dynasty, and it was even more common to worship and pay tribute, so these foreign-looking stone people were no one else, but the leaders and emissaries of these vassal states.
The reason why Wu Zetian used their stone statues in his mausoleum was to prove to the world and the world in the way of stone people that she was the co-lord of Zhuyi when she was born, and after her death, she was also the ghost hero of the souls.
The second question, why the stone people have no head, today's historians do not have a conclusive conclusion, only the following conjectures.
First, the destruction of villagers
It is said that during the Ming Dynasty, the farmland near Qianling was destroyed from time to time, and the people guarded the periphery of the farmland day and night in order to catch the thieves who destroyed the grain, but there was no harvest from squatting continuously, and the farmland was still constantly destroyed.
Just when everyone did not know what to do, the saying that a "stone man became a fine man destroyed the farmland" did not go away. The villagers were very scared when they heard this, but these stone statues were all guards of Qianling, and they did not dare to destroy them, for fear of retaliation from the dead Wu Zetian.
So after deliberating, they decided to cut off the heads of these stone statues. In this way, the stone man without a head cannot do evil.
Second, the cause of the earthquake
In addition to man-made reasons, there are also natural disasters that destroyed the stone statues. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were two big earthquakes in the Shaanxi-Gansu region, and these two earthquakes not only caused countless deaths and injuries to the local people, but also caused the Qianling Underground Palace to collapse, so these stone statues would stand on their heads.
In the local county records, there are also records of the stone people being shaken down, so this has become the most credible statement. But the strange thing is, why are these stone people all shocked off their heads? Where did the head go after the shock, and there is still no result.
In addition to the above two statements, there are many theories such as the destruction of the Eight-Power Alliance and the destruction of tomb robbers. The reason for the severed head may be revealed when the evidence of a certain head is more abundant in the future.