Qin Official

On the 12th day of the twelfth lunar month, at noon, the Anlu County jailer Xi arrived with several county soldiers transferred to him by the county captain. He found that his trip was in vain. Six tomb robbers were killed and five were captured. Even the one Li Jianmen, who was guarding the thief, was also caught in Huyang Pavilion.

Heifu's net was not only cast in time, but also beautifully, and all the criminals were caught in one catch.

The jailers who were gearing up to solve the major case were a little resentful, but Xi was not unhappy at all. He praised Heifu, saying that although the Huyang Pavilion Chief had just taken office, he acted decisively and made the right judgment.

As a pavilion chief, you have to manage the public security of a place, and you have to know when and how to catch thieves. Although Heifu did not wait for the county's order and attacked overnight, this was within the scope of his authority as the chief of the pavilion.

Although one of the tomb robbers died during the arrest, he was violently resisting the arrest with a knife and deserved his death. However, if it was a minor offender, the chief of the pavilion and Qiu Luo deliberately stabbed him to death, he would also be held criminally responsible. Be a Cheng Dan.

Xi finally said: "I should report your merits to the county magistrate and county magistrate. With this meritorious service, you, the trial chief of the pavilion, will soon become the real chief of the pavilion."

In the Qin State, all officials have a probation period, usually one year. If they perform well, they can be promoted to regular positions in advance. After becoming regular officials, they can add the word "zhen" in front of their official positions. Xi said that if things go well, starting from January, Hei Fu will no longer be the "trial pavilion chief" but the "real pavilion chief".

"So, after spring starts, Jing will be able to join the county school as a disciple?"

Hei Fu felt happy and quickly thanked the jailer.

After briefly praising Hei Fu, Xi began to check the stolen goods brought back by Hei Fu and others without stopping.

"Yes, this is indeed Dou Xin's tomb artifact."

He repeatedly checked the tripod and Gui that the tomb robbers had taken out, washed away the soil, and observed the inscriptions on them, which confirmed Li Xian's statement that this tomb was indeed the burial place of Douxin, the Ruo'ao family.

"All the stolen goods are here?" Xi put down the tripod and glanced at Heifu, Li Xian, Dongmen Bao and others, trying to see the flaws in their faces.

Heifu said: "I have sent you a lot of things to report to your superiors, and they are all here!"

Qin's laws have extremely severe penalties for private possession of stolen goods, which is equivalent to the crime of theft. Even if Heifu and the others secretly hide a piece of lacquerware, once they are found out, they will be dismissed immediately. If the value of the stolen goods exceeds 110 yuan, it will not be a matter of losing the official position and being fined, but will be fined as a city den...

Therefore, Heifu looked down upon his subordinates very seriously and told them not to spoil the big thing just because of their greed for money.

Finally, Hei Fu curiously asked Xi: "May I ask the jailer, what should I do with these stolen goods?"

After capturing several tomb robbers, Heifu had already conducted a rough interrogation. It turned out that the tomb robberies in Nan County were the most serious on the Yidao side where the tomb of the First King of Chu was located, followed by Jiangling, and were rare on the Anlu side... …

But in recent years, these tomb robbers have begun to collude with each other. In Nanjun, Hubei and Jiangnan regions of Chu State, there has also been a market that specializes in purchasing bronze artifacts and lacquerware for burials. The public trading of dead people's artifacts is extremely rampant.

He was immediately curious, is there already an antique trade these days?

The answers from the tomb robbers surprised Heifu. It turned out that these people did not rob the tomb to dig up antiques. The lacquer wares are not perishable and can be sold as new after being treated casually, while the bronze wares can be melted back in the furnace to make new copper wares for sale.

Heifu couldn't help but feel a slight toothache. Seeing the exquisite workmanship of the tripod in the tomb, even the tomb-suppressing beast would be a treasure that attracts everyone's attention in future generations and museums.

As a result, tomb robbers in this era actually sold them as copper materials and living utensils.

"Sure enough, no matter what era the tomb robbers are, they are actually short-sighted guys. Such people have no effect except destroying tombs and destroying cultural relics."

Heifu remembered that in his previous life, many people read some tomb-robbing novels and began to talk shamelessly, confusing archeology and tomb robbing, saying that "archeology is tomb robbing allowed by law" and so on.

This is the biggest insult to archaeologists!

It is true that some archeology before and after the Cultural Revolution did have a great negative impact due to the special reasons of the times.

But real archeology is completely the opposite of tomb robbing. Nowadays, there are very few active excavations, and most of them are rescue excavations of ancient tombs exposed due to construction projects and tomb robberies. Therefore, archaeologists are always one step behind the tomb robbers. They sigh when they see the looted holes and the messy tombs all over the place. They can only bow down and clean up the evil deeds of the tomb robbers, but they still have to suffer the injustice of some Internet trolls. of injustice.

Tomb robbing is to steal grave goods and resell them for money. Tomb robbers will use any means to destroy the tombs. The cultural relics taken out will only be selected according to the market value scale, and a large number of cultural relics with important historical value will be destroyed.

Heifu had heard in his previous life that after some tomb robbers took out the gorgeous silks from the Chu tombs, they did not know how to protect them. As a result, in just a few days, the Chu silk clothes that could have become treasures and were carefully cared for by researchers were carbonized. It became a pile of black garbage and was thrown into the smelly ditch.

Imagine again, what would happen if the Yunmeng Qin Slips, which recorded the stories of Xi, Heifu, Jing, and many laws and regulations of the Qin Dynasty, were handled by tomb robbers?

Bamboo slips buried underground for two thousand years are easily destroyed and without good protection, the writing will be blurred and disappear, the bamboo slips will carbonize and turn black, and the Qin laws of more than a thousand slips will return to dust and will not be known to the world.

It's like they never appeared in this world.

However, if it is a formal rescue archaeological excavation, the bamboo slips can be best protected and collected in museums, becoming a window for us to understand the lives of our ancestors. They would become knowledge available to everyone in the country, rather than the private collection of some wealthy foreigner whose historians had to beg their new “owners” for permission to study them.

It is true that the owner of the tomb does not want to be disturbed by anyone, but after thousands of years of vicissitudes of life, most of the tombs have long since stopped eating blood, and their descendants have also moved around, forgetting their existence. By this time, the tomb is no longer a burial place for a person, nor a private sacrifice for a family, but has become the common wealth of this nation and this country!

Confusing tomb robbing with archeology is like confusing violent rape with seeing a doctor for gynecological problems.

So Heifu is very curious, how did Qin in this era deal with the loot from tomb robberies?

Xi stroked his beard and said: "Although Douxin's tomb has been left with manpower to guard it, there are many burial utensils. I am afraid that word will soon spread and attract the covetousness of the surrounding people. Rather than leaving it alone and tempting people to commit crimes, it is better to take out all the lacquerware." , the gold vessels were sent to Jiangling, where they would be disposed of by the county guard, and then the coffins were buried where they were. Without the burial objects, Dou Xin might be able to remain undisturbed..."

As for the fate of those bronzes sent to Jiangling City? Xi said that it was probably melted into a furnace to cast weapons and farm tools.

Heifu was silent for a moment. It seemed that the methods of the Qin government and the tomb robbers were not much different in dealing with the stolen goods from tomb robbers. After all, this was ancient times, a museum? It doesn't exist, unless it enters Xianyang and becomes a decoration in the palace of King Qin.

These funerary objects have not caught up with the good times. In this world, the gorgeous and exquisite tripods are no longer valuable just like the noble blood of their owners...

From bells and cauldrons to swords and plows, perhaps this is the biggest difference between the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period! Troubled times are like a copper furnace. Heroes and common people work together to load carbon and recast everything. The flames of war burned away the elegant decorations, shattering the old era that Confucius longed for, but forging a new form of civilization.

Seven heroes and nine tripods, hundreds of schools of thought, from limbs to core, slowly merge into one. Now the King of Qin is eyeing Shandong, and the fire is burning more and more fiercely. The land and wastelands are about to be unified, and the huge form of China's first empire is ready to emerge!

…

When Xi asked people to load the stolen goods onto carriages and horses and prepare to transport them to the county, the warden Le also ended the first interrogation of the tomb robbers, and asked them about their place of origin and identity one by one, and recorded them on the slips. Overjoyed.

"Prisoner, the young man claimed to be from E, Chu State. He was from the same hometown as the dead tomb robber and was deceived. The remaining four are from Qin, with their native places all over Nanjun, including one from Anlu and two from Xinshi. Jingling is alone..."

Xi glanced at the love letter, and then went to check with the thieves one by one. When he asked "Chang", the leader of the thieves who claimed to live in Xinshi and was Shiwu, Xi seemed to notice something was wrong. His thick eyebrows wrinkled slightly, and he began to carefully observe Chang's appearance, his suspicion getting deeper and deeper.

Xi did not interrupt Chang's statement immediately, but pretended that nothing had happened. He walked to the backyard and said to Heifu: "Chief Huyang Pavilion, is there a wanted order issued by the county in your pavilion?"

Heifu hurriedly said: "Yes."

"Go and get it quickly!"

Not long after, Heifu took the wanted wooden slips that he had only read once from the office hall.

After receiving it, Xi reviewed each piece one by one. Finally, his eyes narrowed and he pinched a piece in his hand!

He asked Hei Fu and others to remain silent, and followed him slowly to the front yard, standing behind the group of tomb robbers.

Xirangle continued to ask the tomb robber some irrelevant questions, while he put his hands behind his back, holding the wanted poster, and suddenly shouted: "Gongshi Ape!"

Subconsciously, the leader of the tomb robbers who called himself "Chang" turned his head blankly and looked...

But in just a moment, he realized that he had been tricked, his expression changed drastically, and he quickly lowered his head!

Dan Xi's face was already filled with the smile of a civet cat catching a cunning mouse.

As for Heifu, he only had a glimpse of the reward for the habitual tomb robber wanted on the warrant, the Jiangling County public gorilla...

"Twenty taels of gold!"