Before Yu Ku could give any instructions, Lao Ba took out a miner's lamp, put it on his head, and ducked into the hole. His figure quickly disappeared from the ground, and the originally dark hole began to glow.
"Third brother, let's go in and push the stove back."
Old Master Yu had already gone down halfway when, for some unknown reason, he popped back out and gave an order to Old Master Yu.
"Understood, brother. Take this bell with you."
Yu Sansheng handed the bell to Yu Ku and watched as Yu Laoda went downstairs. Yu Laosan threaded the end of the thread through a hollow part of the stove, tied it close to the ground to the table leg, then pushed the stove back into place and put the pried-up blue bricks back on.
After finishing all this, Yu Laosan took out a bottle of wine from under the bed and started drinking it with the braised meat on the table. It wasn't that he was careless, but he had done so much work that he had hardly ever encountered any problems. Based on Yu Laosan's experience, they wouldn't come up for at least two hours, so he figured he might as well have a little wine instead of just sitting there doing nothing.
Old Yu, who was keeping watch outside the orchard, wasn't having such a good time. The orchard was swarming with mosquitoes; he couldn't stay in one place for long and constantly had to swat at the blood-sucking mosquitoes clinging to him. ...
Liujiazhuang is located in a remote area, with mountains to the west. Apart from married daughters returning to their parents' home, few people come here.
But today was an exception. Not only people from the surrounding villages, but even people from the county town drove up in their cars, all because Liu Changfa was getting married. A large group of his classmates and colleagues came, and the banquet had been going on for a day. Occasionally, cars would still drive into Liu's village.
About two miles from Liujiazhuang, there is a tulou (earthen building) by the roadside. It is the kind of building that is constructed by mixing mud and straw with water. After it dries, it becomes very sturdy. In the past, many people's houses were like this.
A Santana sedan was parked in a haystack behind the earthen building, around 5 p.m., perfectly hidden in the shadows of the earthen building and haystacks. When it got completely dark, it was completely concealed in the darkness.
The Santana's front window was open, and a bright spot flickered in the night.
Yu Laoqi had just returned from Wuhan yesterday. After his older brother was killed in Guangdong, the Yu family tomb raiding gang immediately dispersed to all parts of the country. They had money and residences in different cities. Apart from Yu Laoda, no one else knew about them.
However, over the past six months, Yu Laoqi has always felt uneasy and has dreamed of his brother several times. If it weren't for the fact that his passport and money were in Yu Laoda's hands, he would have already run away abroad.
Yu Laoqi got out of the car, stubbed out his cigarette, and started urinating on the haystack. Just as he shivered and was about to pull up his pants, he suddenly heard a whooshing sound behind his ear. Before Yu Laoqi could react, a pair of large, iron-like hands grabbed his neck and shoved him down onto the haystack where he had just urinated.
Ignoring the stench emanating from his mouth, Yu Laoqi struggled desperately, shouting, "What are you doing? What are you doing?"
"pull over."
Yu Laoqi's struggles were in vain. A pair of handcuffs quickly handcuffed his hands behind his back, and then his body was pulled to the front of the car, his head pressed hard against the front of the Santana. A beam of strong light shone on Yu Laoqi's face, and Yu Laoqi, with his eyes half-closed, had a look of despair on his shocked face.
"Yu Zhenjiang?"
A male voice rang in Yu Laoqi's ear. Hearing his real name, Yu Laoqi stopped his futile struggles. He could see clearly now. He was surrounded by heavily armed police and armed police officers, and a police car pulled up beside him.
"Take him away and interrogate him immediately. Report back to me if anything comes up..."
Chen Zhi waved his hand, and Yu Laoqi was taken to the police car, where the old pre-trial investigator would deal with him.
"Squad Leader of Criminal Investigation, what's the situation with the main culprit?"
Chen Zhi asked a middle-aged man in casual clothes next to him.
"Director Chen, we have already arranged for people to follow them. They just left the village and headed towards the back mountain. It's pretty much as we predicted. They should make their move tonight."
The Criminal Investigation Brigade was sent by the Shaanxi police to support their brother unit in the arrest. The people monitoring Yu Laoda's movements in the village were all from the Criminal Investigation Brigade. Because of his accent, and to avoid alerting Yu, Chen Zhi only remotely directed the operation from outside the village once, except for a face-to-face meeting with Professor Meng. ...
The tunnel that Lao Ba dug was sloping, leading from the ground into the tomb passage. It was more than ten meters high, about the height of a three-story building. After descending into the tomb passage, Lao Da immediately released the bell in his hand, letting it hang vertically in the air at the entrance of the tunnel.
The tomb passage is about 1.6 meters high and more than 2 meters wide, which was necessary for placing the coffin at the time. Yu Laoda had to bend over to walk through it. There was even a drainage ditch on the side of the tomb passage. According to Lao Ba's analysis, this was very likely connected to an underground river.
Using the light of the miners' lamps, Lao Ba and Yu Lao Da walked one after the other into the depths of the tomb passage.
Although the entrance to the tomb passage was sealed off by Yu Laosan, the air inside the tomb passage was not stuffy. Having operated here for several years, Yu Laoda had done more than just quarrying huge stones. He had even had Lao Ba make three ventilation shafts. Yu Laoda had thoroughly explored the entire perimeter of the Wenzong Mausoleum.
The tomb passage is 28 meters long, and the sides and top are made of stone bricks that fit together tightly and are smooth and flat. It can be seen that this tomb of Emperor Wenzong is no less impressive than those royal tombs that have been unearthed.
In fact, Emperor Wenzong was imprisoned by eunuchs and was not valued during his reign. Originally, his tomb would not have been of such a scale. However, according to custom, a new emperor would build his own mausoleum as soon as he ascended the throne, and Emperor Wenzong was no exception.
Moreover, after Emperor Wenzong was imprisoned and died by eunuchs, these eunuchs, in order to avoid public criticism and to prove their innocence, also gave Emperor Wenzong a grand funeral. Therefore, Emperor Wenzong's tomb is no less magnificent than that of the previous emperors.
Five meters ahead of the tunnel, a ladder made of alloy was laid out on the ground. Lao Ba and Yu Ku carefully climbed over the ladder. Below them were a series of trapdoors. The Cui brothers had fallen here the first time they entered this place.
After getting over the series of trapdoors, Boss Yu turned around and pulled the ladder over, because there was another place like this ahead, and he could fall if he wasn't careful.
It took the two of them nearly ten minutes to walk the twenty-meter distance to reach the main gate outside the tomb. It was a white marble door, a pair of doors made of whole pieces of white marble that fit together perfectly. Only a few millimeters thick blade could be barely inserted into the gap between the doors.
On each of the two doors, there is a bronze qilin head on the left and right. The heads have wide-open eyes and each holds a bronze ring in its mouth. Over a thousand years of erosion have made the rings rusty.
This door was the last obstacle between Boss Yu and the tomb pit. If the archaeological team hadn't moved into Liujiazhuang, Boss Yu would have opened the door long ago. Although there was a self-locking stone blocking the door, it couldn't stop the tomb raiders.
The self-locking stone is a simple yet ingenious anti-theft device; to put it more bluntly, it is a bolt that locks the tomb door from the inside.
However, the ancients still put some thought into making the stone door lock automatically from behind them.
They first made the top and bottom ends of the stone door hinges into spherical shapes, then carved a raised groove in the same place between the two stone doors, at the same level as the door seam, and then carved a groove that was shallow in the front and deep in the back on the stone paved ground not far from the central axis inside the door.
Before closing the stone door, people would place a fairly wide stone strip in the groove in the ground and slowly tilt it forward until it made contact with the stone door. After people withdrew from the tomb, the stone strip, with the pressure of its own tilt and the "ball bearings" at the end of the door hinge, would automatically push the stone door to close until its top fell into the groove on the shoulder of the stone door.
At this point, anyone who wanted to push the stone door open from the outside would be indulging in wishful thinking.
Many people have visited the Ming Dingling Mausoleum in Beijing. The gate to the underground palace of that imperial mausoleum was also sealed with a self-locking stone. In order to enter the underground palace, the archaeologists spent a lot of effort and finally opened the gate by referring to the talons used by ancient tomb raiders.
The so-called "knob" is a metal device with a long handle at one end and a semi-circular shape at the other. When opening the tomb door, the knob is inserted through the gap in the door, and then the semi-circular part is placed on the self-locking stone. The self-locking stone is slowly lifted while the tomb door is pushed until it stands upright on the ground, at which point the tomb door can be fully opened.
However, not everyone who wants to open the tomb door will rack their brains to find a way to break the mechanism of the self-closing stone. In 1928, when Sun Dianying was looting the Dingdong Mausoleum of Empress Dowager Cixi and the Yuling Mausoleum of Emperor Qianlong, he also encountered a self-closing stone blocking his way. At that time, the bandits tried everything they could to open the tomb door but could not. In the end, they could only use explosives to blast it open. At that time, the stone door collapsed with a crash and landed on the stone coffin containing Qianlong's remains, which had drifted to the tomb door due to the rise in groundwater.
Later, during the excavation of Empress Dowager Cixi's tomb, Sun Dianying, fearing further damage to the treasures inside, mobilized more than forty people to forcefully break open the tomb door with thick, round logs. After the tomb door was opened, the self-locking stone inside was broken into several pieces.
When Yu Laoda saw the tomb door, he originally wanted to open it using the same method as opening the Dingling Mausoleum. However, things didn't go as planned. Lao Liu's failure in Guangdong and the arrival of the archaeological team left him with no time to specially order that kind of tool, so explosives became his first choice.
One meter above the ground, at the spot where the stone door blocks the entrance, Yu Laoda had already chiseled out a fist-sized, about 20-centimeter-deep round hole. This was where he planned to place the explosives.
Old Yu dared not act as recklessly as Sun Dianying when he raided tombs. Several hundred meters away from here, there was a squad of armed police guarding the excavation site. If there was too much noise, it would definitely alert them.
The self-locking stones are usually not very big. Boss Yu wanted to use the impact force generated by the explosion of explosives to break the self-locking stone at the entrance. He had used this method before when he was robbing Ming and Qing tombs. At a depth of more than ten meters from the ground, the noise was not very loud.
The light in front of the stone gate was a bit dim. Boss Yu took out two glow sticks from his backpack, bent them, and threw them on either side of the stone gate, which immediately made it much brighter. Boss Ba stood in front of the gate, took out detonators, explosives, and sealing tape from his backpack, and prepared to fix them in the center of the stone gate.
"Eighth Brother, slow down, our fuse isn't long enough, let's use this instead..."
Suddenly, Yu Laoda stopped Lao Ba, walked over, put the detonators and explosives into his backpack, and stuck the clay-like thing he was holding onto the stone door, pressing it in so that a large part of it seeped into the door crack.
When Lao Ba saw what Yu Ku was holding, he couldn't help but take a few steps back. He recognized the thing; its full name was C4 plastic explosive, or C4 or plastic bomb for short. Its main component was polyisobutylene, which was made by mixing gunpowder with plastic and had great power.
Plastic bombs are made from a mixture of high-performance explosives such as TNT, Semtex, and white phosphorus. They can be ground into powder, filled into rubber materials, and then extruded into any shape. If an adhesive material is attached to the outside, they can be placed in very concealed locations and adhere firmly like chewing gum. Hence, they are called cruel "chewing gum." These plastic bombs are resistant to high pressure, crushing, and even waterproof. Except when detonated by a specific fuse, they will not explode automatically due to high temperatures or fire. Unlike gunpowder bombs, they do not easily injure the user upon slight impact.
The plastic bomb in Boss Yu's hand was bought from the Hong Kong black market years ago. It can easily evade X-ray security checks. He brought three with him back then, and now only this one remains.
After sticking the bomb to the door, Boss Yu took out a small metal piece, about the size of a fingernail and resembling a watch battery, and carefully inserted it into the plastic bomb in the crack of the door. Then he called out to Boss Ba, and the two of them quickly retreated.
They retreated all the way down to the bottom of the tomb before stopping. After putting on a gas mask, Yu took out a car remote from his pocket, exchanged a glance with Lao Ba, and pressed it hard.
"boom!"
A muffled thud was heard, and the ground beneath Boss Yu's feet shook almost imperceptibly. The commotion was not significant; it's likely that no one would have felt the tremor unless they were standing directly above the blast point. Even the copper bell hanging next to Boss Yu did not ring.
"It's done!"
Yu Ku excitedly pumped his fist, a greedy glint in his eyes. However, he didn't rush forward. Instead, he stood quietly, waiting for the gases in the tomb to dissipate before entering. ...
Yu Laoda, who was underground, had no idea that the wooden house above him was already packed with people, and Yu Laosan, on whom he had placed his hopes, was now being pressed to the ground like a dead dog.
Only then did Yu Laosan remember his eldest brother's words: drinking can lead to trouble. In fact, when Yu Laosi was captured, the copper bell had already been rung. Yu Laosan also heard the clear sound of the bell and the barking of the dogs. However, his mind was a little sluggish after drinking. Instead of ringing the copper bell immediately, Yu Laosan went to the door to look around. He was then rushed up by the police who had been lying in wait at the door and was pinned to the ground.
The tremor from beneath their feet startled everyone in the wooden house. Yu Laosan, who had been pinned to the ground, seized the opportunity to break free. Without even standing up, he crawled to the table and pulled hard on the rope connecting the copper bell to the ground.
Although Yu Laosan was subdued immediately, the signal had already been sent out.
"Ring ring, ring ring..."
The crisp sound echoed through the tomb passage. Yu Laoda and Lao Ba, who had already reached the flip-up door, immediately changed their expressions and hurriedly retreated.
"Quickly, find the entrance to the tomb..."
Chen Zhi didn't have time to interrogate Yu Laosan. He kept giving orders. Although they had already trapped the criminals, Chen Zhi still didn't dare to be careless. If the criminals felt they had no way out and went so far as to destroy the tomb, he would have no way to explain it to Professor Meng.
Following the line connecting the copper bell, the tomb-raiding hole under the stove was soon revealed. The dark entrance was completely dark, and Chen Zhi and the others dared not go down rashly, because according to their information, this tomb-raiding gang was armed.
Chen Zhi snatched a megaphone from a policeman next to him and shouted into the tunnel, "Listen up, you're surrounded! Put down your weapons..."
Before he could finish speaking, a gunshot rang out from below the tunnel, but since the tunnel was sloping, the shot couldn't reach the people above.
Tear gas!
A look of anger appeared on Chen Zhi's face. Immediately, several armed police officers stood above the tunnel and fired several tear gas canisters downwards. Then they pulled over the straw mat that Yu Laosan used to sleep on and covered the tunnel entrance.
Chapter 251 Saving the Master
As soon as Chen Zhi entered the tunnel, he sensed something was wrong. The smoke from seven or eight tear gas canisters was enough to obscure everything within a 70-80 square meter area. However, the smoke inside the tunnel was very thin, indicating only two possibilities: either the underground space was too vast, or there was something else hidden below.
Upon reaching the exit of the tunnel, Chen Zhi turned off the flashlight, plunged headfirst into the tunnel, braced himself on the ground with his elbows, bent his head and back, rolled over, and held his breath, remaining motionless in the darkness. However, the expected attack did not occur.
"Turn on all the flashlights!"
After about a minute, Chen Zhi still hadn't heard anything. Then the second group of people came down. Fearing being accidentally injured by his own men, Chen Zhi had no choice but to turn on his flashlights. This time, there were five or six people, and their four or five powerful flashlights immediately illuminated the tomb passage. However, apart from them, there were no other people present.
"Director Chen, it's a 9mm Browning pistol..."
On the ground below the tunnel, a team member found a bullet casing and, after examining it, drew a conclusion.
Although this 9mm Browning pistol can be considered an antique and is mostly used by collectors, the performance and lethality of the 9mm Parabellum pistol cartridge should not be underestimated, and the group became more vigilant.
The tomb passage wasn't straight; there was a bend every seven or eight meters. The possibility that the criminals were hiding ahead couldn't be ruled out. Chen Zhi gestured to his men, and two of them immediately stepped forward, walking along the tomb passage towards the bend. All of them were wearing bulletproof vests. Chen Zhi also took a helmet from one of the team members and put it on. After all, the gunshots and the shell casings on the ground indicated that the criminals were armed.
Before the bend, an alloy ladder lay on the ground. Its purpose was unclear, but in this eerie graveyard, no one dared to be careless. A SWAT officer, his submachine gun slung across his chest, carefully climbed the ladder, his feet making no contact with the ground.
"It's alright, come here... Ah!"
The SWAT officer climbed to the top of the ladder, put one foot on the ground, and turned around to call the people behind him to come over. But the place where his front foot stepped was empty. Fortunately, he was facing the ladder and reacted quickly, grabbing the ladder with his hands. However, the sharp pain from his foot made him scream, and the series of flippers hit him hard on the back.
Seeing the situation ahead, Chen Zhi and the others rushed out. However, the ladder could only be passed by one person at a time. After Chen Zhi climbed over, he found that only one hand was holding onto the ladder, and his whole body was covered by the flap.
Unable to lift the trapdoor and rescue the person by himself, Chen Zhi shouted behind him, "Watch your step! Someone come and help..."
Knowing there was a trap on the ground, the group started walking by first extending one foot to test the solid ground before daring to proceed. What angered them was that the area around the alloy ladder was entirely solid, with no trapdoors or other obstacles.
Chen Zhi used all his strength to lift the trapdoor upwards. The other two immediately grabbed the collar of the fallen team member and pulled him up. The team member had suffered a severe injury to his foot, and the trapdoor that had flipped over had slammed into the back of his head. He was now unconscious. If it weren't for a strong will that made him hold on to the ladder tightly, he would probably have been swallowed by the trap.
What was shocking was that the police boots worn by this team member had been completely pierced by a sharp object, and blood was dripping down. When they shone their flashlights into the trap below, they also found some torn clothing and bloodstains on the sharp blade inside. Clearly, this place had swallowed up tomb raiders, but their bodies had been taken away.
"Oh shit!"
Chen Zhi cursed, knowing without a doubt that this was a trap deliberately set for them by the people inside.
"No need to go any further, turn around and check carefully..."
The ladder was behind the trap, which meant that Boss Yu and the others were not inside. Chen Zhi reacted very quickly; there must be an exit behind it.
Sure enough. In a hidden spot behind the tomb robber's tunnel, a hole had been pried open in the huge tomb passage stone. After the stones blocking the entrance were removed, the dark opening showed that Boss Yu had escaped from there.