In an ordinary small village in Jintang Town, Chongyang, Hubei Province, Old Man Sun is an out-and-out farmer here. When he was a child, he heard his elders talk about how his ancestors had been "developed".
However, he had been a farmer for most of his life, and before could reach success, there was a "big commotion" in his family's ancestral grave.
Just when he rushed to the grave to take a closer look with a little joy and a subtle feeling of uneasiness, Old Man Sun was furious, and he immediately called the police.
Green smoke rising from his ancestral graves
On October 3, 2018, as usual, Old Man Sun went out early to farm in the fields.
worked all morning, and when he was almost busy, he received a call from a friend in a neighboring village.
A friend said on the phone: "Look! There is smoke coming from your ancestral grave. Go and see what's going on?"
After receiving the call, Old Man Sun hurriedly looked toward the top of the mountain.
Sure enough, there was a piece of green smoke lingering in the jungle on the top of the mountain, which was the location of his family's ancestral grave.
The place where Old Man Sun works is about one kilometer away from his ancestral graves, and he has to climb a mountain.
At this time he couldn't wait to see what happened, but all kinds of thoughts in his heart came out one by one.
When he was a child, Old Man Sun heard from his family that there was a big shot in his ancestors. Could it be that his ancestors really "appeared" this time and were about to become famous?
Old Man Sun has been farming diligently for most of his life. Although he belongs to an ordinary rural family, the graves of his ancestors are indeed different from ordinary people. They have the style of a "big family".
1 years ago, when the town was building a rural road, a corner of the ancestral grave was dug up.
In order not to damage it, the local area deliberately bypassed it by more than half a meter wide. In this way, Sun's ancestors were not "disturbed".
In recent years, in order to protect the mountain environment, people have banned random burning. Where does this green smoke come from?
Several villagers saw the worried look on Old Man Sun's face and were curious about the smoke coming out of his ancestral tomb, so they gathered around and started talking.
A few of us were going home, so we went with Old Man Sun to find out.
Some villagers said that they heard a roar from the other side of the mountain when they were working in the morning, but the old man was concentrating on his work and did not notice it.
Old Man Sun was vaguely worried. When the group reached the foot of the mountain, his worries became more and more serious.
Some villagers saw Old Man Sun's nervous look and comforted him by saying: "There is smoke coming out of the cemetery. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe something happy is going to happen in your family. Don't be so nervous. It makes everyone nervous." Just as nervous."
"It's a good thing that there is green smoke coming from the ancestral grave, but there is something wrong with the smoke."
Old man Sun said to himself, They were still some way away from the ancestral grave, and they already smelled a smell of . Gunpowder flavor.
Old man Sun speeded up his pace involuntarily. Although the smell was a bit "dangerous", he still had a faint fantasy in his heart. What if something good happened?
However, when everyone rushed to the ancestral grave of Old Han Sun’s family, they were all shocked by the sight in front of them.
The ancestral grave was dug, and there are many doubts.
The Sun family's ancestral grave is somewhat famous in the local area. It is very solid and cannot be dug by ordinary people.
But when they arrived at the cemetery, they found that a large hole had been dug in the ancestral grave, and there were some black marks beside the hole, accompanied by a strong smell of gunpowder.
Now the villagers understood that the ancestral grave had been bombed.
Beside the cave entrance, everyone found some scattered ancient coins and some irregular ceramic pieces .
The scene was in a mess, as if it had just been "looted".
Old man Sun's heart suddenly became cold. After discussing with the villagers, he thought it was a tomb robber patronizing , so he quickly called the police.
When the police came, after some investigation, they confirmed that the tomb was blown up by tomb robbers, and the force was not small.
The tomb robbers were so "big-assed" that maybe there were some precious cultural relics hidden in the tomb.
As a precaution, the police notified the local Cultural Relics Bureau.
After experts from the Cultural Relics Bureau arrived, they dug up the site and conducted a careful inspection.
They determined from the fragments on the ground that the tomb was from the Song Dynasty period, and there was a group of tombs from the Song Dynasty around it.
In order to protect the scene, experts immediately decided to block the entire mountain immediately.
According to various surveys conducted by the staff of the Cultural Relics Bureau, there are many robber holes around, and most of them have been visited by tomb robbers.
The ancestral tomb that was blasted open at Old Han Sun’s house is about 3 meters long, 1 meter wide and 2.5 meters deep. It is a civilian tomb in the Song Dynasty.
Although it is not as luxurious as the tombs of those royal nobles, it is thousands of years old and the things in the tomb are also very precious.
In the ancient tombs, the green bricks used to build the ancestral tombs are thinner than ordinary modern bricks, and the bricks are also engraved with patterns, giving them an antique feel.
After the staff carefully climbed in from the entrance of the cave, they found that there were some fragments of ancient porcelain and silk in the cave.
everyone has also collected these fragments. Although they are some fragments, they all have high research value. After
checked inside and out, staff found almost no complete cultural relics, and many of them were damaged.
It can be seen that tomb robbers are "experienced" but bold, and they often destroy flowers with ruthless hands. Some treasures worth thousands of dollars were destroyed in this way.
However, everyone did not find nothing. They found some Song Dynasty coins "Kaiyuan Tongbao".
The coins are covered with green rust, which makes experts very excited.
At the same time, the police's operation to catch the tomb robbers was also going smoothly.
The people in this small village were not complicated, and the police quickly found the suspect.
The bold and cunning tomb robber
The police visited several households in the small village. Based on the clues provided by the villagers, they found that Lu and Song were the most suspects.
Song and Lu, a retiree, had been sneaking around the Sun family's ancestral grave several times before, as if they were trying to do something wrong.
No one usually pays attention to it, but after the Sun family's ancestral grave was bombed, some villagers recalled it.
After the police arrived at their home, the two suspects found that they could no longer hide, so they had to confess and took out some stolen cultural relics.
Song took out several old plastic bags, and the contents inside were in pieces and incomplete.
It includes some fragments of iron jars with patterns, some broken porcelain pieces, two ancient copper coins and an iron tool.
However, Song was also very cunning. He insisted that he was just passing by and denied that he and Lu had blown up the grave . He said that these cultural relics were picked up casually and he wanted to sell them as scrap metal.
Song also said with an "innocent face": "I just picked these things because they looked interesting. If I knew they were such important cultural relics, I wouldn't have taken them away."
He went to such great lengths to go to war and blast them just to pick up some junk. The reason for selling iron for scrap is too far-fetched.
Song’s pretense of calmness could not escape the sharp eyes of the police.
After investigation, the police found out that Song and Lu were the ones who teamed up to blow up the Sun family's ancestral grave.
The Sun family’s ancestral tomb is on the top of a hill, and there are relatively few villagers coming and going, so Song and Lu found a time when no one was around and secretly carried out “blasting operations.”
When the two committed the crime that morning, many villagers went to work in the fields.
Although some people heard the strange roaring sound, they didn't pay attention and thought it was firecrackers being set off somewhere.
It wasn’t until the thick smoke after the explosion dispersed and the green smoke was lingering on the mountain that everyone noticed the abnormality.
By the time the villagers arrived at the scene, the two of them had already taken their things and left. After
teamed up to blow up the grave, the two divided the stolen things.
However, because the noise was too great, he was caught before he could take action.
After repeated investigations, the two recovered some stolen goods, including conversion bottles, porcelain bowls, bowl-shaped handles and some ancient coins.
Among all the cultural relics, the ceramic conversion bottle is well preserved.
There are also some patterns engraved on it. The conversion bottle is also called the "soul bottle". It is long and thin in shape, like a cannonball. It is also commonly known as the "cannon barrel" and is mostly used for sacrifices.
The two tomb robbers and Old Man Sun were both from the same village. They usually did not see each other when they looked up, but they did this kind of thing, which made Old Man Sun very angry.
The villagers talked a lot, and they all felt that these two people were greedy for profit, not to mention that it was really unethical to dig up other people's ancestral graves.
Severe penalties for stealing cultural relics
Although Song and Lu handed over the cultural relics, they still could not escape the punishment they deserved.
According to the provisions of my country's Cultural Relics Protection Law: Underground cultural relics are owned by the state. When cultural relics are found, they should be reported to the local cultural relics management department in a timely manner. If they are excavated and hidden, which constitutes a crime, criminal responsibility will be pursued.
At present, in the newly promulgated criminal law of our country, the death penalty has been canceled in the statutory penalty for obstructing the management of cultural relics and theft, but the highest penalty is still life imprisonment.
The more precious the stolen cultural relics, the higher the sentence. The National Level 3 Cultural Relics Department provides a fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, , criminal detention or surveillance, and also imposes a fine.
who steals national second-level cultural relics shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years, and shall also be fined.
If the tomb robber steals a national first-class precious cultural relic, he will be sentenced to more than ten years or life imprisonment. In serious cases, he will be imprisoned.
In addition to jail time, there is also a fine or confiscation of property.
Lu and Song also used explosives in the process of stealing cultural relics, which caused extremely serious damage to the ancient tomb cultural relics and the preservation environment. The sentencing will also consider aggravating the punishment as appropriate.
In addition, and the two are also suspected of illegally manufacturing, trading, transporting, mailing, and storing explosives.
If the weight of the explosive exceeds one kilogram, the person will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years.
In 2019, all the recovered cultural relics from the ancestral graves of Mr. Sun’s family were placed in the museum in Chongyang County.
Unfortunately, some of the cultural relics that should have been paired are only single ones, and the staff will continue to look for scattered cultural relics.
In July 2022, Chongyang County Museum ushered in its official opening after its relocation.
will be open to the general public free of charge during this period, and citizens will have another good place to check in and relax.
Currently, there are a total of 5 large exhibition halls in the museum, with more than 2,750 cultural relics on display for citizens to visit.
Old man Sun has already renovated his ancestral tombs. Now the things in those tombs have a safe and secure place. This is also a kind of comfort to his ancestors.
Culture is the soul of a city, and cultural relics show the city's cultural heritage. Those simple, solemn, gentle and elegant cultural relics still shine with dazzling light after the baptism of time.
People often refer to sudden good luck as "smoke coming out of ancestral graves", but it seems that smoke coming out of ancestral graves may not necessarily be a good thing.
Instead of relying on those unattainable dreams, it is better to firmly grasp the present moment. Those metaphysical knowledge are not reliable.
Reference:
Xianning News Network: Ancestral tombs were dug up... A thousand-year-old tomb from the Song Dynasty in Xianning was stolen, and some cultural relics have been recovered! 2018-10-10
Legal broadcast: Smoke was coming from the ancestral tombs of farmers in Hubei, and archaeologists dug them up and looked at them: Applying for police cooperation 2022-01-01
