Why did the ancients make such cruel practice of being buried with the living?

Today I will tell you about the most appalling bad habit in feudal society-martyrdom.

In the system of ancient imperial tombs in China, martyrdom was the cruelest thing. In slave society and feudal society, after the death of some important people, some innocent people should be brought in to die in an attempt to ensure the spiritual happiness of the deceased. The people who are generally chosen as martyrs are mainly the wives and servants of the deceased.

Sacrificing the living is the most cruel and barbaric system in ancient society, which is more serious in slavery societies such as Shang and Zhou Dynasties. According to archaeological findings, there are more than 100 bodies in Zhou Youwang's tomb, among which Zhou Youwang is the only male, and the others are all women, so they should all be his concubines and beauties.

Some martyrs include ministers cherished by princes. According to Records of the Historian Qin Benji, after Qin Mugong's death, "77 people died", including three trusted ministers. Their stories are somewhat interesting. Before Qin Mugong died, when drinking with ministers, he said, "We, the monarch and the minister, share happiness when we are alive and mourn when we are dead." Unexpectedly, three ministers, namely Yi Xi, Zhong Xing and Zhen Xuan, echoed his words. Finally, after Qin Mugong died, they really followed him to the grave.

But the most cruel and abhorrent thing was He Lv, the king of Wu in the Spring and Autumn Period. This guy had a daughter who committed suicide because she was angry with him, which made He Lv very sad, so she built a grave for her daughter outside Chang 'an. On the day of the funeral, He Lu ordered people to dance with the crane and beat it all the way. The lively scene attracted hundreds of people to follow. It never occurred to me that this curiosity ruined people's lives. When he arrived at the cemetery, He Lu "made the male and female cranes get started, so", that is, he ordered all the men and women who followed the guards to be driven into the underground palace, and then blocked the tomb door. In this way, these crane watchers were buried in graves and became the martyrs of He Lv's daughter. And his Lu's dry method is more cruel than Qin Ershi's later.

Before Qin and Han Dynasties, the system of martyrdom was very popular. After the Han Dynasty, the rulers felt that this system was too inhuman and gradually abolished it. Incredibly, archaeologists found many ladies' bones in Zhu Yuanzhang's mausoleum. Obviously, when Zhu Yuanzhang died, he practiced the martyrdom system in Qin and Han Dynasties.

As early as the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang, this martyrdom system had spread in the imperial court. In A.D. 1395, after Zhu Shuang, the second son of Zhu Yuanzhang, died, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the two princesses of the King of Qin to be buried with him, so that his son could walk on the way to the grave, accompanied by someone.

In A.D. 1398, Zhu Yuanzhang died and his grandson Zhu Yunwen succeeded to the throne. According to Zhu Yuanzhang's living will, Zhu Yunwen ordered that the childless concubines in the harem be buried with him.

When this order came out, it caused confusion in the imperial court, and the voice of crying was endless. Due to the chaotic scene at that time, many officials took the opportunity to take bribes and pervert the law to announce personal grievances, and some unmarried concubines survived under the protection of some officials; Some concubines who gave birth to children were forced to die because they offended some officials. History books refer to these concubines who were forced to be martyred as "women facing the sky".

The system of human sacrifice is the worst dross in ancient society, which is inhuman and has no positive significance. It was not until Emperor Kangxi completely abolished the bad habit of human sacrifice. Any system that does not attach importance to human rights and ignores the value of life is inhuman, and will always be nailed to the shame column of history and spurned by people forever.