The size of the stone gate at the end of the Shinto Road is inexplicable to all those involved in archaeology.

This stone gate is located ten meters below the horizon, and the stone gate is five meters high. And the stone gate is made of two complete stone slabs.

The five-meter-high stone slab was not easy to chisel during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Moreover, this is not easy to chisel, not only is it huge, but also the smooth and abnormal smoothness of this stone slab shows that the craftsmanship of the excavation workers is extremely high.

The crowd tried to push the stone door, but it didn't move.

This stone gate looks very heavy, saying that it weighs more than a thousand catties, but no one has measured it.

Professor Zuo Qingming took everyone to look at the stone slab together, and he looked at Li Mingwen first, "How to open this stone door?"

Li Mingwen is more of an official than a scholar, he is a good hand at administration, but he can't do archaeological research, Li Mingwen shook his head, "Professor Zuo, you can come here, I don't know anything." ”

Zuo Qingming looked at the researchers brought by Li Mingwen, those people were of course even more afraid to speak in front of Professor Zuo sent from Kyoto, not to mention that they had not experienced such a scene.

"Tang Ding, how do you think this stone door should be opened?"

It was Tang Ding's idea to call an excavator before, but Tang Ding didn't expect to dig this stone door so quickly.

To be honest, Tang Ding is not surprised that this Shinto is dug up, because this Shinto is derived from Tang Ding's precise deduction, and it is natural to dig it out.

But the appearance of this stone gate was too early, to be honest, Tang Ding didn't expect it. Because Tang Ding's previous excavation was far away from the location of the excavated tomb, it was precisely because of the distance that Tang Ding dared to advocate using an excavator to excavate, to put it bluntly, he still wanted to prove the existence of this Shinto.

This is the case, and sure enough, Shinto was dug up.

But the appearance of this stone gate was an accident, Tang Ding thought that this stone gate would take at least ten days and half a month to dig out.

So when others lamented the digging of the stone door, Tang Ding was not overflowing with joy, on the contrary, he was full of doubts about this tomb.

For the form of pre-Qin tombs, Tang Ding has read a lot in history books, although he has no practical experience, but he has a lot of theoretical knowledge.

In Tang Ding's memory, the pre-Qin tombs do not seem to be in this form, and the most obvious feature of the pre-Qin tombs is that they are not sealed or tree-free. This tomb is in line with the principle of not sealing or trees, but this stone gate is not recorded in any historical books.

And the situation of this stone door is not normal, under normal circumstances, this stone door is impossible to open, because this is a tomb, not a home that is often visited, but a home after death, and this home usually needs to be opened again after it is closed.

But why does this stone gate still exist? Why don't you just seal it?

Under the technical level of the ancients, it is impossible to completely seal a door, like Wu Zetian's tomb with molten iron to fill the seams, so that the rock and molten iron are integrated, this technical level, the pre-Qin has not yet realized.

Then why does this stone gate exist? That's because the construction of the mausoleum began a long time ago, and the lord of a country often inspects his mausoleum, and in order to close the door smoothly, he will make the tomb door in advance, and when the time comes, set up a mechanism, when the door is closed, the mechanism opens, and seals the stone door from behind, so that the stone door can no longer be opened.

There are many examples of this method of sealing the stone gate from ancient times to the present. Tang Ding has also seen it in many books.

Therefore, when Professor Zuo asked Tang Ding how to open the stone door, the first method that came to Tang Ding's mind was to crutch the key.

The nail key is actually a curved iron hook that sticks through the gap in the stone door, just enough to bypass the sealing stone behind the stone door.

However, there is a restriction to this crutch key, that is, this crutch key can only be applied to the situation of the door seal.

However, Professor Zuo asked, of course Tang Ding couldn't say that he didn't know, Tang Ding tried to look in the gap of the stone door, and shone it in with a flashlight, and the door stone was indeed erected.

Some people say that just push the door sealing stone to the side. First, the sealing stone is inside the tomb, and the people outside can't borrow it at all. Second, this door stone usually cannot be pushed down, it can only move back and forth, but not left and right. The ancient craftsman was very skilled in making this door stone, he could ensure that the door stone could only be poured in one direction after the door was closed, and it would be accurately poured at the junction of the two doors to ensure that the stone could withstand the two doors at once.

Professor Zuo asked Tang Ding, Tang Ding didn't speak for a long time, he was thinking, and he was observing the stone gate, Qian Bin and the others were impatient, "Professor Zuo, don't we happen to have an excavator here? I have two methods, one is for us to use an excavator to bypass this stone gate, and dig again at a place three or five meters behind the stone gate, isn't this stone gate useless? In addition, if we have to open this stone gate, we can also use an excavator to dig violently." Personally, though, I prefer the first approach. ”

Hearing Qian Bin's words, Zhao Guanglei and Qin Tao both nodded and said that it was feasible.

They had seriously objected to Tang Ding's use of excavators to excavate the ancient tomb, but Professor Zuo actually agreed, and they couldn't say anything more.

Now a stone gate is blocking the way, opening the stone gate is indeed a way, but it is better to bypass the stone gate, isn't this way better?

Li Mingwen also nodded again and again when he listened to it, and he also felt that this method was good. Anyway, the excavator is used, and there is nothing wrong with using it again at the moment.

Professor Zuo shook his head, "The appearance of the stone gate means that we are about to face the critical stage of opening the tomb, and it is very likely that the tomb door will be opened, which is the tomb." The excavator must never be used again. ”

"However, this is still far from the place where we sealed the mound for measurement, so this should not be the location of the tomb, right?" Li Mingwen doubted.

"Yes, teacher, this is obviously not where the tomb is, we can use the excavator to get twice the result with half the effort. Qian Bin and others insisted on their opinions.

Zuo Qingming looked at Tang Ding who came over, "You must not use an excavator." ”

Everyone was amused by Tang Ding's words: you were the one who said that you used the excavator, and now you are the one who said that you don't use the excavator.

"Tang Ding, why can't you bypass the stone gate?" The one who spoke was the only female graduate student among the students led by Professor Zuo, Qin Yujie.

Qin Yujie is very beautiful when she hears the name, but in fact, she is wearing black-framed glasses and looks like a female scholar.

Tang Ding held a piece of soil with plants in his hand and handed it to everyone, "This plant is called Artemisia sand Artemisia, and its favorite growth environment is sandy land, and the most lush land on it is this Artemisia sand Artemisia." ”

When Tang Ding introduced this Artemisia annua, everyone was still unimpressed at first, and they didn't understand what Tang Ding was going to say, "But, does this have anything to do with whether we dig or not?"

"Of course it has a relationship, based on the plants that grow on it, I deduce that this land of Artemisia annua, the top is soil, and the bottom is sand. Combined with the information we have obtained before, there is a layer of quicksand under the five-colored rammed earth of this tomb, so I deduce that the piece behind this stone door is very likely to be quicksand. Tang Ding pointed to the back of the stone gate and said.

Tang Ding's inference made everyone nod, but Qian Binwu was not convinced, "This place is ten meters from the ground, and the quicksand only appeared thirty meters below the tomb before, and all the tops are five-colored rammed earth, here you say that ten meters is quicksand, I think this is unreasonable." ”

"I didn't say that there is quicksand at 10 meters here, if you want to throw away the height of this stone gate, and you have to ensure that the quicksand has a certain flow of power, I think if you can dig up sand at most one or two meters above it. We can find a fellow to ask about the situation here. ”

For the sake of prudence, Li Mingwen really asked people to ask his fellow villagers to see if what Tang Ding said made sense.

However, Qian Bin was still not convinced, "Even if there is really quicksand here, we can dig down from the top, and dig out the quicksand from above, isn't it safer for us to visit the tomb?"

"It was safe to visit the tomb, but the tomb was destroyed. The function of quicksand is to protect the tomb, and if necessary, to close the tomb, once we dig from here, because we do not know the flow and quantity of the quicksand, it is very likely that the tomb will be permanently closed, and we may no longer find the entrance to the tomb. ”

"Cut, alarmist, the quicksand has been cleared, how can we still not find the entrance to the tomb? Moreover, the quicksand layer here is high, and the quicksand layer of the tomb that was previously delineated is low, which shows that the quicksand is flowing from here to us, so we are standing upstream of the quicksand, and there will be no danger at all. ”

"Yes, according to the exploration results, the quicksand is indeed high here, low there, according to common sense, it should indeed flow down from here, a drop of more than 20 meters, can make the quicksand exert great power, but you ignore one point, if the quicksand is so flowing, then this is not too far from the location of the originally surveyed tomb? This distance of more than 200 meters, to let the quicksand flow, it seems that the distance is too far, according to this I can boldly speculate that we have a passage to the rammed earth mound leading to the tomb here, and this passage is more than 200 meters long, I have reason to suspect that this passage may not be particularly spacious, so it is very likely that the quicksand is in the process of our excavation, because of the change of the environment, the gravity of the quicksand, leaked from somewhere, blocking the passage of the tomb. ”

"Having said that, this is not good, that is not good, so how do you say that you can open this stone door?" Qian Bin was a little annoyed.

"Maybe you can open it with a crutch key!"

Although Qian Bin didn't know the key to the crutch, he was smart enough not to ask because it seemed that he was ignorant.

"Where can I find the key to the crutches?" asked Li Mingwen.

"I can try to do it myself. ”

"How long does it take to make this crutch key?"

"There are materials that can be done very quickly. ”

"Okay, what is needed, I'll prepare. Li Mingwen regarded the excavation of this tomb as his political achievement, of course, he was also responsible for it.

"That's okay, rest first today, wait for Tang Ding to make the key to the crutches, and then try to open the stone door. ”

Although some people don't think Tang Ding's inference, it doesn't take too much trouble to make this crutch key, and everyone still hopes that Tang Ding can do a good job of crutch key, and enter the tomb through the stone gate without destroying the stone gate.