The Twenty-four History is the official history of ancient China, which recorded in detail the history of seventeen years from ancient times to Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty. Later generations included the Draft of the History of Qing Dynasty, which together with the original twenty-four histories are called twenty-five histories. But why did Liang Qichao say that the twenty-four histories were just "genealogy of twenty-four surnames"?
Because these history books have spent a lot of time recording the main deeds of twenty-four royal families and describing in detail the rise and fall of the dynasty created by the royal family, most of them have touched on the development of science and technology and the living standards of the people. To put it bluntly, they only pay attention to princes and princes, but ignore social development.
This makes us want to study the forging, smelting, textile and other technologies of the ancients. Most of the time, we can only carry out relevant research by robbing tombs, and we simply don't know how many ancient scientific and technological achievements there are.
For example, the mysterious bronze sword 19 from the Qin imperial tomb, especially the 19 originally thought to be "scrapped", played an unexpected and wonderful role. Is it that the level of science and technology is far beyond modern times or is there something else to hide? We continue to look down.
In fact, everyone knows the location of the Qin Mausoleum, but after the founding of the People's Republic of China, experts have argued countless times about whether to rob the mausoleum for archaeology. A group of people headed by Guo Moruo made up their minds to open the mausoleum. In their view, these emperors of feudal society who have passed away should contribute to today's archaeological research.
However, many scientists believe that our archaeological work should be based on rescue excavation. What is rescue excavation? We don't want to touch those intact tombs, but only take care of those damaged for special reasons, such as natural disasters such as earthquakes, or the cultural relics department will take over when grave robbers break ground.
But his arm can't twist his thigh. At that time, Guo Moruo and others had a particularly high position in the field of history and archaeology, so they ignored everyone's dissuasion and wanted to open the imperial tomb. Which imperial tomb is he aiming at? The Ming Tombs. Guo Moruo's original intention was to take the lead in "cutting" the tomb of Yongle Emperor Judy, but the tomb of Yongle Emperor was too strong to open anyway.
At this time, a small piece of Wanli Ming Dingling suddenly collapsed and was discovered by Guo Moruo, so it was planted. The excavation of the Ming Dingling Mausoleum has always been a great pain in the archaeological community. Due to the lack of protective measures at that time, many precious treasures were instantly reduced to ashes when the tomb door was opened.
The preserved cultural relics are not pleasing. At that time, experts didn't know how to cherish cultural relics at all. Not only did they damage many cultural relics, but even the body and coffin of Emperor Wanli himself were discarded. Later, because of the times, the archaeological work was put on hold, so the poor emperor Wanli was set on fire by nearby villagers, and the coffin board was also used as firewood.
After tossing Dingling, Guo Moruo turned his attention to the dry mausoleum of Wu Zetian and the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. Now everyone disagrees with everything they say, and has specially formulated a rule that it is not allowed to open tombs at will for 100 years, which has saved these famous tombs.
It is estimated that some people will ask, didn't they say that it is not allowed to dig the imperial tomb? How did the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shihuang come from? This is really an accident. 1974 villagers in Xiyang village inadvertently dug up some "tile heads" while drilling wells for drought resistance. What do you mean, Waye? Statues enshrined in ancient temples. At first, everyone was afraid. Only a farmer named Yang Zhifa read some books and found something was wrong. So he took a tile head and turned around to find the cultural relics department, only to find that this is the famous Terracotta Warriors pit.
After discovering the terracotta warriors and horses that attracted worldwide attention, scientists also discovered a number of very mysterious bronze swords. These swords are carried by pottery figurines, so they are called "back sword figurines". There are 19 swords, but 19 fell pottery figurines bent into a corner, and the rest of the swords are well preserved.
Many people may not know the status of bronzes in the field of cultural relics. After all, we usually watch some treasure hunt programs, including the antique market. Basically, it is not ceramics or gold, silver and jade articles, and there are no bronzes at all. In fact, this is not because bronzes are worthless, but because they are too valuable.
The Cultural Relics Law clearly stipulates that bronzes should not be sold, especially in the pre-Qin period, so these bronze swords immediately captured the eyes of experts present. With the further study of these Jian Qin by experts, they found that the secrets hidden in these swords were beyond everyone's imagination.
Experts measured the shapes of these Jian Qin and found that the blades of these swords have eight edges, and the error between the edges is less than one millimeter. The shape of each sword is completely unified, comparable to the standard equipment produced by modern industrial assembly lines. This skill is amazing enough, but more amazing things are yet to come.
It has been more than 2,000 years since the Qin Dynasty, but Jian Qin, with copper as the main raw material, has not rusted or corroded. How can the Qin people have such a small error between swords? I'm afraid we can't verify it until further documents are unearthed. So experts focused on Jian Qin's anti-rust technology, trying to solve the mystery that bronze swords have not rusted for more than 2,000 years.
It is found that there is a layer of chromium metal compound with a thickness less than 0.6 micron on the surface of Jian Qin, and it is under the action of these chromium that these Qin bamboo slips can be immortal for thousands of years. In modern history, chromium was officially discovered by humans in 1797. Although Qin people didn't know that this batch of metal was called chromium, it was used more than two thousand years earlier than modern people.
What is even more incredible is that the melting point of chromium is 1970 degrees Celsius, and various data show that the highest temperature can only be 1300 degrees Celsius with our ancient smelting technology. So how did the ancients cast swords with chromium when the temperature was not enough? Or does the Qin people have any mysterious technology that can reach a high temperature above 2000 degrees Celsius? However, the historical materials are basically silent about all this.
However, scientists have worked out how Qin people chrome their swords. They adopted a technology now called chromium salt oxidation, which soaked the sword in a compound containing chromium salt and heated it, thus giving the sword corrosion resistance. This technology was not applied by Germany until World War II, and then it was patented by the United States. But look at these bronze swords. China's chromite oxidation technology has been ahead of them for more than 2,000 years.
The biggest surprise among these bronze swords comes from the mysterious 19 sword, which is curved. What's the magic of this 19 sword? When scientists took the sword out from the bottom of the Terracotta Warriors, the original curved blade slowly bounced back to a straight state! This situation directly killed everyone present.
There is a technology in modern science called memory metal, which can actually achieve this similar function, but how could Qin people master this technology two thousand years ago? It's incredible. Technology is not necessarily far beyond modern times, but it is definitely far beyond a hundred years ago. As for how the Qin Dynasty possessed such magical technology, perhaps all the mysteries can be solved in the underground palace of Qin Shihuang's mausoleum.
The Qin Dynasty was the first feudal unified dynasty in ancient China, and the excavation of Jian Qin proved the powerful national strength and advanced technology of the Qin Dynasty. As more cultural relics about the Qin Dynasty are unearthed, we will learn more anecdotes and allusions about the Qin Dynasty in the future. In fact, so far, some people still can't understand why Qin was the worst country among the seven warring States, but it finally swept the six countries.
After truly understanding the history of the Qin Dynasty, we will find that none of the monarchs in the Qin Dynasty was overthrown. Ying Zheng achieved the feat of dominating the world by the efforts of generation after generation.