Cao Cao's tomb was stolen. Who has a detailed explanation?

72 suspected graves

Imagination map of Cao Cao's tomb

In February 220 AD, Ding Mao and a group of people carried the coffin out of the gate of Yecheng and went deep into the wilderness. On this day, Cao Cao, Emperor Wu of Wei, was buried. The History of the Three Kingdoms records that Cao Cao was buried in Yecheng after his death.

However, with the passage of time, Cao Cao's tomb disappeared mysteriously. After countless generations of hard pursuit, Cao Cao's tomb disappeared like air.

The bigger mystery is that in the eyes of historians, Cao Cao is a rare politician, strategist and poet in the history of China. After he wiped out the northern heroes, his accumulated strength finally ended the dramatic era of Wei, Shu and Wu in the history of China, and completed the reunification of China.

But after Cao Cao's death 1300 years, the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, a famous novelist in the late Ming Dynasty, came out. This novel has been processed by later generations, and the suspense that attracts special attention is that the protagonist Cao Cao in the novel has 72 suspected graves in Yecheng after his death. In the novel, Cao Cao became a sinister villain in troubled times, and his seventy-two suspected graves proved his treachery.

□ In June, 2008, the Yecheng Archaeological Team of China Academy of Social Sciences excavated a well-preserved ancient city wall at the Yecheng site in Linzhang County, Hebei Province.

From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yecheng was the capital of six dynasties, including Cao Wei and Hou Zhao, and ruled the north of China for 126 years.

Around today's Yecheng ruins, there are many tall mounds. These mounds are the legendary suspected graves of Cao Cao.

Such a legend can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. At that time, it was said that Cao Cao had 72 suspected graves in his life. These suspected tombs are distributed outside Yecheng, shaped like mounds, and it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, but there must be a real tomb among them.

However, the official History of the Three Kingdoms, Wei Zhi, did not describe the tomb of Cao Cao, but clearly recorded that Cao Cao was buried in Yecheng Gaoling after his death. This is quite different from the description in Romance of the Three Kingdoms and folklore.

In 233 AD, Chen Shou, the editor of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, was born in Han An, Brazil, which is now Nanchong, Sichuan. He was born 13 years before Cao Cao's death, when the hegemony of the three countries had ended.

In 268 AD, five years after the fall of Shu, 36-year-old Chen Shou left his hometown and went to Luoyang, the capital of the Western Jin Dynasty, where he worked as a writer, specializing in compiling historical books. 12 years later, Dongwu was destroyed by gold, ending the separatist situation. At the age of 48, Chen Shou began to write The History of the Three Kingdoms.

Historians believe that when Shu died, Chen Shou was 365,438+0 years old. The History of the Three Kingdoms, edited by him, belonged to modern history at that time, and he had experienced and heard many things. Later, historians called Shiji, Hanshu, Houhanshu and The History of the Three Kingdoms as the first four histories, which were considered as biographical historical masterpieces. So the reflection should be credible.

In Chen Shou's works, Cao Cao is an extraordinary person and a peerless outstanding figure. In the chaotic world, Wen Tao's military strategy has made remarkable achievements. Cao Cao's tomb is located in the west of Yecheng, which is well known all over the world and called Xiling.

More than 300 years after Chen Shou wrote The Three Kingdoms/KLOC-0, Luo Guanzhong, a native of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, also wrote a novel describing the history of the Three Kingdoms, which is almost a household name.

In the popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the image of Cao Cao is quite different from that depicted in The History of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao became an insidious political strategist. He is cruel and heartless, and will do whatever it takes to achieve his goal.

At this time, the people have already spread. Suspicious by nature, Cao Cao built 72 suspicious tombs for himself to prevent the tombs from being stolen or destroyed by the enemy a hundred years later.

-So, what happened in the more than 300 years1that made Cao Cao's face change so much? Cao Cao's tomb has also become a mysterious tomb that puzzles the world?

In the spring of 645 AD, an army came to the north from Luoyang, led by Emperor Taizong and Li Yuan. The Tang Dynasty began with the conquest of the Korean kingdom in Liaodong.

On this March, Emperor Taizong passed Xiling. Therefore, he visited Cao Cao's tomb and wrote a eulogy entitled "Sacrifice to Wei Wudi". This eulogy of Emperor Taizong compares Cao Cao with Yi Yin of Shang Dynasty and Huo Guang of Western Han Dynasty.

This shows that before the Tang Dynasty, not only the specific location of Cao Cao's cemetery was determined, but Cao Cao was not the traitor image depicted by later generations, but was respected by the world. In the Tang Dynasty, another emperor, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, also worshipped Cao Cao.

Tang Xuanzong was nicknamed man, just like Cao Cao's. If Cao Cao was notorious, why did he take such a nickname? It can be seen that Cao Cao's reputation at that time was not bad. Du Fu wrote a famous poem for General Cao. The first sentence says that General A Tong is a descendant of Wei Wudi, while General Cao is a descendant. These three examples show that Cao Cao's image was not bad at least in the Tang Dynasty.

Cao Cao was listed as a hero in The Heroes of the Three Kingdoms during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, but before the Tang Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, Cao Cao, like Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, was not only a hero in the story of the Three Kingdoms, but such a heroic image had penetrated into the people. Literati chanting poems of Cao Cao's Xiling also implies the memory of Cao Cao.

The geographical work "Yuanhe County Records" completed at the end of the Tang Dynasty also clearly recorded the location of Cao Cao's tomb: "Wei Wudi Xiling is thirty miles west of the county." Obviously, the location of Cao Cao's Xiling was very clear at this time, which shows that Cao Cao's tomb was not a mystery before the Tang Dynasty.

But in the Northern Song Dynasty, the images of Cao Cao and Liu Bei, the top figures in the story of the Three Kingdoms, began to change dramatically.

In the first month of 960 AD, in Chen Qiaoyi, a small village more than forty miles away from the capital Bianjing, Zhao Kuangyin, a general of the later Zhou Dynasty, staged a mutiny in Chen Qiaoyi, and the Song Dynasty in China's history began.

The founders of the Song Dynasty absorbed the weakening of centralization caused by the separatist regime in the late Tang Dynasty, and not only took measures to consolidate the central government militarily, but also took measures to strengthen imperial power ideologically.

At this time, the people of the Three Kingdoms and their historical stories, which were widely circulated among the people and had great influence, became the first objects to be cleaned up by the Song government.

In the view of the Song Dynasty government, Liu Bei, a descendant of the royal family of the Eastern Han Dynasty who fought tirelessly with Cao Cao, the powerful minister of the Han Dynasty, maintained the orthodoxy and centralization of the Eastern Han Dynasty because he always insisted on playing the banner of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, the Northern Song Dynasty government established the image of Liu Bei in order to strengthen centralized rule ideologically.

When Liu Bei became a positive figure loyal to the monarch, Cao Cao, a lean man, naturally became a negative representative of the powerful minister and traitor.

Later, this orthodoxy, which became the ruling ideology of the government in the Northern Song Dynasty, was strengthened, and an ideological system that influenced China's feudal society since the Song Dynasty was formed, which was Zhu Cheng Neo-Confucianism. At that time, as the latest development of Confucianism, the core idea of Zhu Cheng's Neo-Confucianism was benevolence and righteousness. This theory had a great influence on the figures in the Three Kingdoms and gained popularity among the people.

Since then, Cao Cao has been vilified as a white-faced traitor in his works of art, in sharp contrast with other historical figures such as Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang. Cao Cao's sinister and ruthless image is deeply rooted in people's hearts through novels, plays, storytelling and other forms.

With the subversive change of Cao Cao's public image at that time, Cao Cao's Xiling was abandoned in the passage of time, and Cao Cao's tomb became a mystery. Cao Cao's mausoleum became a proof of his cunning and sinister, and at this time, the legend of Cao Cao's "seventy-two suspected tombs" began to spread among the people.

Who is the author of the original version of Seventy-two Suspected Tombs? It's difficult to verify. It was Wang Anshi, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, who mentioned Cao Cao's suspected burial earlier. He wrote a poem "Suspected Tombs": Castle Peak enters Zhangzhou like a wave, and Bronze Quetai west eight falls in nine months. The ants returned to the empty ridges and acres, and the fish scales were buried for several spring and autumn.

Wang Anshi, a senior official in the Northern Song Dynasty at that time, thought Cao Cao was an outstanding hero and was deeply dissatisfied with the growing condemnation of Cao Cao's world style. But the world recognized that Cao Cao was among 72 suspected tombs.

However, the ugliness of Cao Cao's image is accompanied by the growing crisis in the Northern Song Dynasty.

In the first month of 1 126, a powerful cavalry team crossed the Yellow River and approached Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. It was this unit that later wiped out the Jin Army in the Northern Song Dynasty. The government of the Northern Song Dynasty hastily offered generous terms to negotiate peace with the Jin Army ... However, the weak regime of the Northern Song Dynasty lasted only one year, and Kaifeng, the capital, was breached, and the Northern Song Dynasty established in 168 perished. This is the change of Jingkang in the history of China.

In the second year after the Jingkang Revolution, Lin 'an, Zhao Jian, the royal family of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is now Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, established the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Southern Song Dynasty, * * * lasted for nine emperors. From 65438 to 053, the territory was basically around the Huaihe River and Qinling Mountains, facing the Jin State in the north.

At this time, a dramatic contrast appeared.

Geographically, the Southern Song Dynasty was very similar to Shu in the Three Kingdoms period more than a thousand years ago, and the biggest crisis it faced was the strong military pressure from the powerful enemy regime in the north. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Shu was the orthodox successor of the Han Dynasty, while Jin, the arch enemy, was Wei in the Three Kingdoms period.

Cao Cao, the pioneer of Wei State, became an imaginary enemy accused by thousands of people in the Southern Song Dynasty, threatening the national security and people's well-being at all times. He set up 72 suspected graves, deceiving the sky before his death and deceiving others after his death, which was extremely insidious.

Zhu, a Neo-Confucianist in the Southern Song Dynasty, changed the evaluation of Cao Cao in Sima Guang's A Mirror of Capitalism and Tongzhi in the Northern Song Dynasty. He denounced Cao Cao as a "usurper" in the Outline as a Mirror, and satirized and cursed Cao Cao in his works. Since then, Cao Cao's treacherous court official image has moved from the folk to the authoritative academic hall.

In the upheaval of the change of mountains and rivers, Cao Cao's Xiling eventually evolved into a 72-doubt tomb that is difficult for the world to distinguish between true and false.

In the Yuan Dynasty, drama flourished, and the ugly Cao Cao's play was put on the stage. Artists use drama art to castigate Cao Cao's cruelty and treachery, and further vilify Cao Cao's image in society.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Luo Guanzhong introduced a lot of folklore on the basis of the History of the Three Kingdoms, and finished the book The Popular Romance of the History of the Three Kingdoms, which finally depicted a generation of treacherous men for Cao Cao.

In fact, in Luo Guanzhong's novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there is no description of the seventy-two suspected tombs built by Cao Cao to prevent future generations from stealing, and Mao Zonggang, a novel critic in the early Qing Dynasty, added this content.

When Mao Zonggang and his son commented on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, they thought it was a "suspected tomb"

Legends are very useful for shaping Cao Cao's suspicious and treacherous image, so they are rendered. At this point, the rumor of Cao Cao's "suspected burial" is almost a household name.

Until the Qing Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in China, the condemnation of Cao Cao remained strong.

In Xuchang, Henan, there is a long-standing story of the Three Kingdoms. Just when Cao Cao accepted Guan Yu and made him a senior official, Guan Yu sealed his golden seal and went to find his righteous brother Liu Bei. In China, Guan Yu is regarded as the embodiment of loyalty.

After Guan Yu's death, his status improved step by step, and he was finally named emperor. The mythical road of Guan Yu, a figure in the Three Kingdoms, is exactly the opposite of the ugly process of Cao Cao.

Cao Cao, the antithesis of Guan Yu, became more and more clear and spurned by the ruling and opposition parties as Guan Yu stepped onto the altar step by step.

Guan Yu's status became higher and higher, and he was crowned king in the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing dynasty, his position surpassed Zhuge Liang and even Confucius, which was related to the philosophical ruling thought at that time. What they emphasize is the relationship between the monarch and the ministers, mainly the unconditional obedience of the ministers to the monarch, which is an obligatory relationship. In this case, of course, Cao only reprimanded more.

When Ji Xiaolan, a famous person in Qing Dynasty, was ordered to compile Sikuquanshu, he was going to include in the book the story of Mizhou Temple in Wei Wudi written by Mu Xiu, a scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty, to praise Cao Cao's achievements. When Emperor Qianlong saw this inscription, he was furious. He thought that Mu Xiu was "rewarding usurpation and helping the inverse" and ordered the deletion of this article.

After a long period of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Cao Cao finally became a super traitor in the history of China.

After Cao Cao was condemned and rejected by the world for a long time, his fate changed dramatically. This time, Mao Zedong, both a leader and a poet, paid attention to Cao Cao.

/kloc-in the summer of 0/954, Mao Zedong said in a chat with his health care doctor, "Cao Cao is a white-faced traitor and an unjust case created by feudal orthodoxy. Cao led the troops to fight and understood the sufferings of the people. Cao Cao's poems are magnificent and inspiring. They are real men, generous. "

A year later, Guo Moruo, then president of China University of Science and Technology, published an article entitled "Repeating the Case for Cao Cao", which demonstrated Cao Cao's great contribution to the history of China from many aspects, indicating that he was an outstanding hero in the history of China.

The mystery about the authenticity of Cao Cao in history has made his mausoleum even more confusing, and it has been a mysterious mystery that has plagued the hearts of the world for thousands of years. Even today, more than 700 years after Cao Cao's death, Cao Cao's tomb is the goal pursued by modern archaeologists.

In 1980s, with the approval of National Cultural Heritage Administration, cultural relics workers collected and rescued the "72 suspected tombs" in Cixian County, Hebei Province, and the long-standing mystery of suspected tombs was finally uncovered. The so-called 72 suspected tombs of Cao Cao are actually 134, all of which belong to the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties.

In 2008, the National Middle Route Project of South-to-North Water Diversion passed through the legendary "72 Suspected Tombs" area of Cao Cao, and archaeologists conducted a detailed rescue archaeological excavation.

In the face of modern archaeology, the mystery of Cao Cao's seventy-two suspected tombs, which has undergone a long evolution, has finally faded out of the noisy drama stage and folk rumors, and it is purely false.