The command arrows used by generals were mostly made of wood, but those used by the emperor were naturally of a much higher standard. Therefore, Zhuang Rui's first thought was that this must be the "golden command arrow" used by the tomb owner in battle. "Heavens above, this... this must have a name on it..."
Zhuang Rui clasped his hands together, completely forgetting that he had just cursed the women in his family, and muttered incantations, concentrating his spiritual energy on the golden command arrow.
This golden arrow is different from ordinary arrows. It is only two fingers wide and does not have a fletching to control the balance after the arrow is shot. It looks more like a token. On the front of the token, there is a striped tiger standing on auspicious clouds.
On the back of the golden arrow, however, were some strange, scribbled patterns. This discovery caused Zhuang Rui's body, which was lying on its side, to tremble slightly.
"Borjigin Temujin... Temujin... Temujin!" Zhuang Rui uttered a sound that was almost like a dream, and a surge of color rushed to his face. The feeling of discovering and interpreting history made him jump up involuntarily.
Even after his death, he carried this golden command arrow with him, so the identity of the tomb's occupant was truly revealed with Zhuang Rui's shout: this was Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire... Borjigin Temujin!
The tent Peng Fei brought was a small single-person tent. Zhuang Rui jumped up and set it up in one go. Peng Fei, who was guarding outside, quickly lifted the tent and asked, "Brother Zhuang, what's wrong?"
"It's nothing, I was just...dreaming..."
Zhuang Rui's face lit up with joy, and he casually made up a reason.
"Hey, what good dream did you have? Brother Zhuang, you're smiling even more happily than when you saw Fang Fang and Yuan Yuan!"
Seeing Zhuang Rui's radiant face, Peng Fei couldn't help but tease him.
However, Peng Fei was right. When Zhuang Rui was stranded on a deserted island and miraculously reunited with his children, he showed more excitement than joy.
Zhuang Rui glanced at Peng Fei and said, half-jokingly, "I just had a dream. I dreamt that that old Mongolian devil came to see me and said that Genghis Khan's tomb is nearby. Do you think I wouldn't be happy?"
Zhuang Rui was trying to create a false impression for Peng Fei. If they could make other discoveries and successfully excavate Genghis Khan's tomb, it would all be thanks to the dream. If they couldn't find anything else, Peng Fei would think he was talking nonsense and there wouldn't be any other consequences.
"Alright, keep being happy, then go to sleep..."
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Peng Fei couldn't help but roll his eyes. Was his brother telling the truth or not? Why was he constantly talking about dreaming of the Mongolian ghost? Peng Fei had stared at him for a long time but couldn't find anything amiss.
Even though Zhuang Rui had shown many amazing abilities before, Peng Fei dismissed his words as nonsense. What a joke! If dead people really had souls, the number of people who died in China over the past five thousand years would probably be enough to pile up to the moon.
"Hey kid, don't you believe me? Don't go..."
Seeing Peng Fei put down the tent, Zhuang Rui shouted, but Peng Fei managed to suppress his joy, leaving Zhuang Rui feeling incredibly frustrated.
"Wait until I find it, then let's see what you have to say!"
Zhuang Rui said this, but he was really unsure. The Mausoleum of Genghis Khan was hidden hundreds of meters underground, separated by an underground river and rock layers. Even if Zhuang Rui later formed a geological team to discover the mausoleum under the guise of surveying underground minerals, the feasibility of excavating it from the surface was extremely small.
However, if the excavation were to be carried out from the underground labyrinth beneath the Alzhai Grottoes, Zhuang Rui could not explain how he discovered it. Therefore, from the current perspective, there is almost no possibility that this Genghis Khan Mausoleum, which is entirely composed of treasures, will be unearthed and brought to light.
Chapter 1163 Enter
"Alas, what a pity! All these treasures, including the Imperial Seal of the State, are they destined to remain buried underground forever?"
Zhuang Rui sighed inwardly. Looking at such a huge treasure but being powerless to explore it, he felt much like being tied to a bed and harassed by a naked beauty—his blood was surging, but he was helpless.
Zhuang Rui could almost foresee the storm that would rage if Genghis Khan's tomb were unearthed.
It's important to know that this tomb contains not only treasures from China, but also a large number of precious artifacts from Persia, India, and medieval Europe, making its influence worldwide.
"Let's take another look..."
Although we can't get our hands on this piece of fat meat, it's still good to feast our eyes on it. Speaking of which, Zhuang Rui is planning to reveal this place after he dies, so that future generations can have an accurate treasure map, right?
Zhuang Rui explored the main burial chamber where Genghis Khan's coffin was placed again. Perhaps because he was relaxed, he actually found a batch of bamboo slips and several sheepskin scrolls in a corner of the burial chamber.
After glancing at the contents of the bamboo slips, Zhuang Rui discovered that it was actually Sun Tzu's Art of War written in Chinese characters. It seems that although Genghis Khan was the Great Khan of the Mongols, he still had some understanding of the culture of the Central Plains.
As for those few parchment scrolls, they were also covered with writing, but while Zhuang Rui recognized the writing, he did not recognize the characters, because all of them were written in the earliest Mongolian script.
Zhuang Rui could only recognize names like Borjigin Temujin and Borjigin Ögedei among them, which made him feel as if he had been scratched by a cat, because these few parchment scrolls might very well contain secrets about Genghis Khan's tomb.
For example, the exact date of Genghis Khan's burial and the origin of burial objects such as the Imperial Seal of the State may be found in these parchment scrolls.
However, Zhuang Rui was only a mediocre archaeologist, not a linguist, and he simply couldn't decipher these tadpole-like characters.
"Hey buddy, how about I sacrifice myself and reveal the secret of the eyes to uncover this treasure?"
Zhuang Rui had such a thought, but he immediately dismissed it. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life in the laboratory, facing those guys who studied human science like a guinea pig.
After extinguishing that thought, Zhuang Rui continued to wander through the ancient tomb like a lost soul. The feeling brought about by the upgrade of spiritual energy was quite wonderful. Looking directly at this thousand-year-old tomb was like walking through the long river of history.
After reluctantly withdrawing his gaze from the main burial chamber, Zhuang Rui continued to explore the rear. Genghis Khan's tomb couldn't possibly consist of only a few chambers; that would be a disservice to such a massive project and his astonishing status.
Sure enough, after the main burial chamber, there were eight more large burial chambers, all filled with various rare treasures, including works from the five famous kilns of the Song Dynasty, as well as European-style artworks, which dazzled Zhuang Rui.
"Hmm? These porcelain pieces and Buddha statues are a bit strange?"
In the last tomb chamber, Zhuang Rui discovered a large number of ceramic artifacts, as well as various gold and silver Buddha statues and painted Guanyin statues, with a rather strange style that Zhuang Rui had never seen before in China.
In another corner, there were some coins and woven documents, but Zhuang Rui couldn't recognize any of the characters; they were even more like celestial script than Mongolian script.
"It doesn't look like the Indian style. The ceramic designs are somewhat reminiscent of the Song Dynasty, but they're still different from those of the Song Dynasty..."
Zhuang Rui had a deep understanding of ceramics and considered himself to be very knowledgeable about porcelain from various dynasties. However, the porcelain he found in this tomb made him frown because even the Palace Museum did not have these styles in its collection. What troubled Zhuang Rui the most was that none of these porcelain pieces had a signature.
The practice of marking porcelain pieces became widespread during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Porcelain pieces marked during the Song and Yuan dynasties were not numerous, which is one of the main reasons why Yuan blue and white porcelain is difficult to identify. Therefore, Zhuang Rui was also unable to determine the origin of these porcelain pieces from their marks.
Even if there were a signature, Zhuang Rui might not be able to recognize it, because he couldn't identify the script on the coins and silk scrolls in one corner of the tomb.
"Could it be... an artifact from the Western Xia Dynasty?"
A thought suddenly popped into Zhuang Rui's mind. He remembered the Western Xia dynasty, which had once been glorious in history but was eventually destroyed by Genghis Khan.
The Western Xia refers to a feudal regime established in western China by the Tangut people between 1038 and 1227 AD, whose historical roots can be traced back to the early Tang Dynasty.
During the height of its power, the Western Xia dynasty annihilated tens of thousands of elite Song troops in the northwest and defeated Emperor Xingzong of Liao, who led 100,000 elite troops in the Battle of Hequ, thus establishing the tripartite division of the world into Song, Liao, and Western Xia.
A strong nation often signifies economic development. During the most prosperous period of the Western Xia Dynasty, the wool textile industry, weapons manufacturing industry, salt mining industry, papermaking and printing industry, gold and silver manufacturing industry, jade processing industry, and winemaking industry were all highly developed.
The Western Xia originally did not have porcelain; they initially obtained it entirely by plundering the Song people.
During the reign of Emperor Yizong of Western Xia, Western Xia began to build porcelain kilns and start producing its own porcelain. Its porcelain absorbed the advantages of the Central Plains region, as well as the characteristics of its own people, such as simplicity and honesty, thus forming a unique style of Western Xia porcelain.
Zhuang Rui suspected that the porcelain he was seeing was made by the Western Xia people, since Genghis Khan died during his westward expedition against the Western Xia, and it would be reasonable for a large number of Western Xia funerary objects to appear in his tomb.
In this way, those difficult-to-decipher characters can be traced back to their origins. It should be noted that the Western Xia script used by the Western Xia Dynasty had become a dead script that no one could recognize by the Ming Dynasty after the fall of the Western Xia Dynasty.
Although later generations have deduced some meanings of the Western Xia script based on some Western Xia relics, today there are very few people in China who study the Western Xia script, probably not even a handful.
"Damn it, this is another discovery that could shock the archaeological world and even unravel the reasons for the rise and fall of a dynasty..."
The relics left by the Western Xia Dynasty are no more numerous than those of the Yuan Dynasty, and even fewer are of value. These written materials are enough to unravel many mysteries for historians.
Zhuang Rui looked at the room full of items, shook his head helplessly, and suppressed the urge to explore the tomb carefully, turning his gaze elsewhere.
After leaving the tomb, Zhuang Rui discovered three more burial pits. One of them was filled with the skeletons of cattle and sheep, while the other two pits contained human sacrifices. From the still-unrotted clothing on the skeletons and the wear on their teeth, Zhuang Rui could tell that these were all young women.
"With three thousand beauties in life, one is accompanied by beauties even in death; no wonder everyone wants to be an emperor..."
Zhuang Rui sighed inwardly. In ancient times, women's status was extremely low, especially before Mongolia was unified. Women's status was not much higher than that of cattle and sheep. It was not until Genghis Khan unified the grasslands that women's status improved.
This Mongol Khan, who single-handedly conquered the largest territory in Chinese history, had his wife abducted when he was young, and she even bore him a child. However, this didn't stop that woman from later giving birth to three more sons for Temujin. ...
As the morning star appeared in the sky above the grassland, the sky was already beginning to lighten. Zhuang Rui rubbed his slightly sore eyes and vigorously rubbed his face.
After a night of preliminary surveying, Zhuang Rui had examined the entire tomb structure. Although he hadn't slept a wink all night, the exploration of history filled him with excitement.
Unlike the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, which was built by excavating the entire mountain, Genghis Khan's underground palace made full use of complex underground caverns. Although the number of people who worked on it was certainly not as many as those who built the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum, its scale was by no means inferior to that of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum.
Of course, the number of burial objects in this mausoleum is far less than that of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. Perhaps the Mongolian ceramic firing technology was not advanced at that time, or perhaps Genghis Khan did not have the idea of leading thousands of troops to conquer the world in the underworld.
Therefore, apart from the burial goods looted, there were very few handicrafts made by the Mongols themselves. In Genghis Khan's time, Yuan blue and white porcelain had not yet been invented.
However, in terms of the quality of these funerary objects, Zhuang Rui judged that they were superior to those of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. After all, after one or two thousand years of development, by the end of the Song Dynasty, ancient art had reached its peak.
Not to mention the unparalleled porcelain of the Song Dynasty, even Europe at that time had many exquisite works of art. Zhuang Rui even discovered two gold masks with a strong Egyptian influence in a tomb chamber, which Genghis Khan had looted from which country.
In addition, the Imperial Seal of the State, made by Qin Shi Huang himself, makes Genghis Khan's Mausoleum more valuable than Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum in terms of the burial objects alone.
"Alas, no matter how good something is, it can never see the light of day..."
Zhuang Rui wished he could grow a hand in his eyes to pull the "Imperial Seal of the State" out of the coffin; once it was in his sight, it was impossible to remove it.
With a wry smile, Zhuang Rui shook his head and expanded the range of his spiritual energy survey. He planned to do a final check to see if there were any missed tombs before withdrawing his spiritual energy and ending this archaeological expedition that was destined to be fruitless.
"Huh? Why is there an underground river behind this tomb chamber? Something's not right..."
When Zhuang Rui expanded the range of his spiritual energy search, he suddenly discovered that more than 30 meters above and to the side of a burial pit, there was an underground river that existed above the mausoleum.
Chapter 1164 Entering (Part 2)
According to Zhuang Rui's previous estimation, this large tomb might not intersect with the underground river for another one or two hundred meters, but now the underground river has appeared at a depth of more than thirty meters, which surprised Zhuang Rui.
This only proves one thing: the entire tomb was not built in a parallel manner, but rather the terrain gradually rises, which is why if the tomb continued to develop in depth, it might intersect with an underground river.
What Zhuang Rui found strange was not just that, but that he discovered a hidden door on the bluestone wall in the corner of the last tomb chamber. This hidden door was only one meter square in size and was made of a single piece of bluestone. Its size and shape were exactly the same as the one next to it. The reason it was called a hidden door was because behind this bluestone was a passageway that was more than thirty meters long.
"Could it be a tomb robber's tunnel?"
The first thing that came to Zhuang Rui's mind was the word "tomb raider's tunnel." The reason he had this reaction was simply because the ancient people's tomb raiding skills were too advanced; there were almost no tombs they couldn't enter.
During his journey, Zhuang Rui saw that almost all the tombs had been looted, with some having only one or two looter holes and others having dozens.
The mausoleum of Genghis Khan is also full of traps and mechanisms. Almost every tomb chamber is full of hidden dangers. So although there are no signs of looting in the entire mausoleum, it cannot be guaranteed that no tomb raiders have entered here. Perhaps the tomb raider who made that hole has already died in the tomb?
"It doesn't look like a tomb robber's hole..."
Zhuang Rui then dismissed his own idea, because not only were there no signs of the mechanisms being activated, but the tomb raiders would not have been so gentle as to cover the tunnel with a bluestone slab after digging it up.
"It was left behind by the craftsmen who built the tomb..."
Looking at how seamlessly the bluestone slabs blended with the surrounding walls, Zhuang Rui guessed the origin of the tunnel behind the bluestone. Only the craftsmen who built the tomb at that time could have dug such a tunnel, which was more than 30 meters long, hundreds of meters underground.
Moreover, they had ample reason to leave tunnels in secret. As is well known, to ensure the secrecy of imperial tombs, the craftsmen who built them were usually killed. This was even more true for the Mongols, who had always preferred secret burials. Once the tomb was completed, those craftsmen had no hope of survival.
These artisan slaves from the Central Plains and Western Xia must have been well aware of this situation. Therefore, during the construction, they secretly left such a tunnel for themselves, intending to use it to escape after the emperor's coffin was placed in the tomb and the dragon-slaying stone was lowered.
Such situations are not uncommon in ancient tombs that have been unearthed, and there are even instances of craftsmen successfully escaping.
In the mid-Tang Dynasty, an emperor died, and the main people in charge of designing the imperial mausoleum were left in the mausoleum as funerary objects. However, more than ten years later, a large number of funerary objects belonging to this emperor suddenly appeared in the public.
At this time, the Tang Dynasty had not yet been overthrown, and the imperial tombs were guarded by the army, making it almost impossible for them to be looted. So how did these burial objects come out? The emperor at the time immediately ordered a thorough investigation.
The results of the investigation later shocked the emperor, because a person who should have been dead for more than ten years suddenly appeared in the public eye.
After some interrogation and questioning, it was discovered that when they were building the tomb, they had secretly left a hidden door. After the dragon-slaying stone in the tomb was placed to separate the living from the dead, these people quietly slipped out of the tomb through the hidden door.