1897 - Digging a well 2 km east of a high burial mound marking the burial site of the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, located east of the city of Xian in the Chinese province of Shaanxi, a peasant and his 10-year-old son came across something large and solid.
The muddy water at the bottom of the well at first hid the details of the object from their eyes. They continued to work, digging the ground around the object, and saw a clay figure the size of a man in ancient military clothing. Suddenly, to their amazement, the water left the pit. Seeing this, the father decided that the half-dug figure was some kind of demon and that he should be punished. He dug up the figure completely and left it under the burning rays of the sun. What happened to her further is unknown.
77 years later, in March 1974, peasants from the same community, digging a well in the same area, made a similar find. They had already gone about four meters deep when they heard the sound of their instruments hitting pieces of terracotta, which, to their surprise, turned out to be fragments of life-size statues of soldiers dressed in military uniforms and their horses.
The peasants immediately stopped work and reported their find to the local authorities, who, in turn, turned to the government with a request to send archaeologists. The specialists widened the ditch and began to dig test pits from it. The result was amazing. The site, which was excavated by the peasants, turned out to be part of a vast rectangular ditch measuring 60 meters from north to south and 228 meters from east to west.
Preliminary excavations indicated that 10 wide walls of tamped earth ran along the underground chamber, the roof of which, covered with soil, collapsed many years ago in a fire. The walls divided the moat into 11 corridors. In each of the corridors were dozens, if not hundreds, of terracotta figures armed with crossbows and arrows with triangular bronze heads, halberds with T-blades, swords and other weapons. Most of the weapons still retained their brilliance, sharpness, and strength after centuries of being underground. Clay horses were positioned in fours in six corridors. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of wooden chariots behind the teams.
The enthusiasm of the researchers increased after two more ditches were found in May - June 1976. Excavations revealed that the first of these, located 20 meters north of the eastern side of the first chamber, contained row after row of horse-drawn battle wagons, cavalry, detachments of archers preparing to shoot from their knees, and marching infantrymen. The third, small ditch, which had the shape of an inverted letter "P", was located almost 120 meters west of the second.
It contained only one chariot, 64 terracotta warriors and an incomprehensible combination of 30 spearheads in the form of prisms, antlers, animal bones and bronze rings on which curtains could once hang. The fourth moat, located between the second and the third, turned out to be unfinished and empty, as if the construction had been unexpectedly interrupted.
The size of the find indicated that there may be a tomb of Qin Shi Huang Ti (the First Chinese Emperor), which, although not yet discovered, had a detailed description in Shiji (Historical Notes), a work created 100 years after his death in 210 BC. e.
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“More than 700,000 recruits from all over the country worked here,” the text said. - Many models of palaces, chambers and other buildings were installed in the tomb, beautiful vessels, precious stones and outlandish objects were laid. The artisans were ordered to set up the crossbows so that any thief who entered the tomb would be hit by an arrow. All the rivers of the country, including the Yellow and Yangtze, were created from mercury, which, under the action of mechanical devices, flowed into a miniature ocean. Above shone the celestial constellations, and below lay the countries of the world."
Although it was common in those days to bury images of his servants and courtiers with the ruler so that they could continue to carry out his orders in the afterlife, there is no mention of clay warriors and horses in Shiji. And yet, scientists have found a key phrase in the text. When the emperor learned that the construction of his tomb was almost finished, the text says, he gave the order to establish the boundaries of the territory surrounding the burial place, almost a kilometer from the mausoleum. As you can see, the excavated ditches were parts of the necropolis and the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who was in them, represented the guard of his vaunted army.
In the end, material evidence appeared before the living, which could be considered confirming the messages of ancient documents. After all, most of the texts were written either by the enemies of the emperor, or many years after the events had passed, therefore they may contain distortions, embellished facts and lies. Now before the eyes of the scientists was an accurate reproduction of the army that made the First Emperor the most famous and most damned of all Chinese rulers.
In front of their eyes, row after row, an army passed, conquering many independent states from 230 to 221 BC. e. By their numbers, the silent figures spoke of Qin Shi Huang's immense wealth and power. According to the historical chronicles of Shiji, the tomb of the First Emperor was not inferior in luxury to the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs.
247 BC e. - Immediately after the death of King Zhuangxiang, the 13-year-old Prince Zheng became the ruler of the Qin state. The minister of justice of the previous monarch convinced the young ruler to follow his father's dreams and create an empire.
The next 17 years were spent in wars. "As a silkworm devours a leaf of a mulberry tree," says the Historical Notes, "the forces of the young king conquered six other large kingdoms." Hundreds of thousands were killed or taken prisoner in the conquest, which pushed the boundaries of King Zheng's domain from the western plateaus to the eastern seas, spanning some 1,200 miles, and made him the first ruler of a unified China.
"Such an insignificant person like me," Zheng said with false modesty, "raised troops in order to punish the rebellious princes, and with the help of the sacred power of our ancestors punished them as they deserved, and finally brought peace to the empire." Such a conquest, he believed, had no analogues in history and gave him a well-deserved right to a new name.
Based on the suggestions of his advisors, Zheng chose the title huang, meaning "august sovereign," to show his superiority over the ordinary wang - king. To the title, he added the word "shi" meaning "first", and the word "di", which after a millennium began to mean "emperor", and originally meant "divine ruler" or "supreme deity." Taking this name, Zheng raised his prestige highly, having issued the title, as it was consonant with the name of one of the greatest characters in ancient Chinese myths and national history - the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi.
King Zheng, taking the name Qin Shi Huang, believed that the great glory of Huangdi awaited him and his descendants. "We are the First Emperor," he announced majestically, "and our heirs will be known as the Second Emperor, the Third Emperor, and so on, for an endless line of generations."
When young Zheng just inherited the throne of the Qin ruler, a huge army of 700 thousand convicts and workers began to build the mausoleum, but it was never able to complete its construction, and 36 years later, when the emperor died.
Archaeologists have been studying this magnificent site since 1974, but in a sense, the work is just beginning. True, scientists have already understood the basis of the structure of the imperial army, its weapons and tactics.
Burial No. 1, the rectangular moat that archaeologists began to excavate first, has been the best studied. It houses the vanguard of the underground army. Dressed in ordinary battle robes, light boots and gaiters, without armor, these warriors stand shoulder to shoulder in three rows at the eastern end of the burial.
By simulating the position of the shooters' hands and using the abundance of bronze crossbow triggers and arrowheads found right there, the researchers were able to determine that initially each figure was carrying a crossbow - a wooden bow almost a foot and a half long, wrapped in strips of leather and varnished, then attached to wooden bed with a slot. The weapon could hit a target at a distance of more than half a mile and was activated by the tension force of a powerful spring, which was enough to pierce any armor. In battle, the arrows, apparently, kept their distance, just as they use modern long-range artillery, and showered the enemies of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang with a hail of deadly arrows.
Immediately behind this vanguard in the western direction were 11 corridors, six of which were wooden horse chariots and groups of foot soldiers in front of them. Near two of these chariots were found two bronze bells weighing 7 pounds each and the remains of drums, leading archaeologists to discover the purpose of these carts - the carts were both war chariots and mobile command posts. One blow to the drum meant for the army the beginning of the march, the second - the beginning of the attack. The sound of the bell signaled that the soldiers must stop fighting, the repeated sound of the bell was the beginning of the retreat.
Lightly armed warriors with swords, spears and axes make up the bulk of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's terracotta army. The number of these light-armored foot warriors is impressive. They are lined up in rows of four behind the chariots, and in three corridors - behind the unarmored spearmen. And although these days the figures appear to be yellowish-gray, in places they still have traces of paint, indicating that their robes once sparkled with all colors, brown armor had red ties, robes and gaiters were green or purple, and brown and white headgear hats were tied with red or purple straps.
Two long rows of ready-to-fight riflemen were excavated along the edges of burial No. 1, on the north and south sides. To the west of the riflemen there is an assembled detachment of horsemen, infantrymen and several chariots. The riders once held a crossbow in their left hand, and the reins of a terracotta horse in their right. On the flanks, the crossbowmen stood facing outward, which protected the inner mass of foot soldiers and charioteers from unexpected attacks from any direction.
But, according to military historians, this was not the only advantage of the system. The terracotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang was distinguished by maneuverability, rare for its time. The army could deploy to fight from the front, and also quickly and easily rebuild to cover the enemy army or penetrate into its center, taking the form of a wedge.
In the eight southernmost corridors of Burial No. 2, it seems that only chariots and chariots are located. Trial excavations that were carried out did not reveal either the tools used to transmit the commands, nor the foot soldiers that were the attribute of similar carts in burial No. 1. These results suggest that the chariots in burial No. 2 constituted a reserve of troops.
In the southern wing of the U-shaped burial No. 3, the smaller of the three burials, dozens of armed soldiers stand at attention on command. Two rows of eleven warriors were in the same corridor in the north wing. Near the center of this burial, archaeologists discovered the remains of a covered chariot drawn by four horses.
Military historians believe that the soldiers in burial No. 3 are guarding the command center of the entire terracotta army, and this kind of chariot could possibly be used to urgently transmit orders to troops on the battlefield. The presence of deer antlers and animal bones in this burial led scientists to the conclusion that burial No. 3 had another purpose: it was a special place where they gathered for sacrifices and prayers and where they wanted to get a prediction regarding the results of the upcoming battle.
Despite the fact that the weapons found in the burial have been underground for more than 2 thousand years, they are perfectly preserved. This indicates a high level of development of metallurgy during the Qin dynasty. Chemical analysis showed that most of the swords, arrowheads and spears were made of bronze and tin interspersed with rare metals, and their surface was covered with a thick layer of chromium oxide.
The finds of archaeologists in burials No. 1, 2 and 3 explained how this terracotta army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang was created XXII centuries ago. The fragments of the heads of horses and warriors are mostly halves. The horses' heads split along the seam that ran between the eyes and nostrils, and the warriors split along a line that began on both sides of the neck, went up behind the ears and passed along the crown. Fingerprints on the inside of the halves led the researchers to the conclusion that they were made by pressing clay into previously prepared molds.
It is curious that thousands of images of warriors (and, according to scientists, there should be more than 6 thousand) are, as you can see, portraits. Some of the archaeologists speculated: perhaps, instead of being buried alive, the soldiers were forced to pose in front of the sculptors. And one more interesting fact: the height of these clay warriors exceeds 180 cm, that is, exceeds the growth of real imperial soldiers.
The debris also explained a lot. Straw marks on the inner surface of the horse figures suggest that the animals were made using straw-covered molds. Rope marks on the thighs of some warrior figures indicate that the rope wrapped around the thighs helped the figure maintain its shape by relieving pressure on the legs as the clay hardened during drying. After that, the traces of the rope were hidden by combat robes.
However, even such a magnificent army could not protect Qin Shi Huang Ti, and with him his state, from a quick and tragic end. The wizards convinced the emperor that his transformation into a divine creature was hindered by the knowledge of his subjects about where he was, and he eventually decided to hide from the eyes of ordinary mortals as carefully as possible. He ordered to connect all his palaces in the vicinity of Xianyang with covered passages, protected by a wall, so that he could pass from palace to palace unnoticed, and threatened with death anyone who divulged the secret of his whereabouts. Thus, the emperor unwittingly gave himself over to the power of several confidants, initiated into the secrets of his movements.
How much this secrecy regime, imposed on himself by the supreme ruler of China, threatened the dynasty, it became clear in 210 BC. e., when, during his fifth trip around the country, he unexpectedly fell ill and died, and members of his retinue - Prince Huhai, one of the emperor's younger sons, Zhao Gao, a eunuch who served as a mentor to Huhai and Li Si - decided to hide his death.
This conspiracy was able to change the course of Chinese history. Instead of announcing the death of the ruler of the rightful heir, Prince Fusu, Zhao Gao and Li Si were silent about what happened, and everything went on as before. They entered the emperor's palanquin, ostensibly to consult with their master and brought food there. The conspirators issued an imperial edict, according to which the feeble-minded and obedient Huhai was declared the crown prince and sent a letter to Fusu demanding suicide. The prince obediently obeyed the order. "When a father demands the death of his son," he said before his death, "how can you talk about some kind of confirmation?"
By this time, an eerie stench had begun to emanate from the summer heat from the imperial palanquin; to hide the stench, the conspirators ordered a cart loaded with salted fish to be carried next to the cortege. When Huhai arrived in the capital, he announced the death of his father and proclaimed himself Er Shi Huangdi, the Second Emperor. Then, as a sign of special reverence and respect for the First Emperor, he ordered all the childless concubines of his father and all the artisans who took part in the construction of the mausoleum and, therefore, who knew about the treasures and secret chambers, to be buried with him.
Unfortunately for the Second Emperor, riots began almost immediately after the workers bricked up the huge door to the First Emperor's tomb. The capital was captured, the palaces were set on fire, and the rebels broke into the tomb of the First Emperor.
“After 30 days of robbery,” an ancient story tells, “they (the rebels) still haven't emptied the contents of the mausoleum. The bandits smelted coffins to get bronze and to set fire to the entire tomb. The fire lasted more than 90 days. Researchers believe that the flames blazing in the corridors where the figures of the terracotta army were located, so weakened the beams holding the heavy earthen roof that it collapsed, destroying many of the figures and filling them. The wreck remained under the ground until the well builders from the local commune began work in 1974 - almost 22 centuries later.
The underground palace of the First Emperor is hidden under a mound and remains unexplored. At present, the height of the burial mound is 76 meters, and its circumference is 1,250 meters.
A. Ermanovskaya