For a long time after the birth of the Luoyang shovel, it was used for tomb robbing.

Henan Luoyang mountain on the mound is saga, there is almost no place for lying cattle, the underground burial goods are extremely rich, before the liberation, almost every corner of the mountain, have been explored by Luoyang shovel, a large number of unearthed cultural relics have been lost to foreign countries.

In 1928, the famous archaeologist Wei Juxian, after witnessing the scene of tomb robbers using the Luoyang shovel, applied it to archaeological drilling, and played an extremely important role in the excavation of ancient city sites such as Yinxu and Yanshi Mall in China.

In the 50s of the last century, Luoyang became a key construction city, the factory site often encountered ancient tombs, with machine drilling and sampling, time-consuming and labor-intensive, so the engineering construction personnel used this concave probe shovel to accurately detect more than 1,000 ancient tombs.

Today, the Luoyang shovel is a symbol of China's archaeological drilling tools and, of course, an indispensable piece of equipment for tomb robbers.

Learning to use the Luoyang shovel to identify the soil quality is the basic skill of every archaeologist, Professor Meng did not stop Zhuang Rui and the two disciples from exploring the soil together, that is, he wanted him to get in touch with it first and familiarize himself with the use of the Luoyang shovel.

"Xiao Fan, why are these Luoyang shovels still different?"

Zhuang Rui followed behind the two and walked to the place where the Luoyang shovel was placed, and at a glance, he found that there were more than ten small shovels on the ground, about 20 to 40 cm long and about 5 to 20 cm in diameter, but some of them were blunt at the bottom, and some were like crescent shovels, which were a little different from what they had heard.

"Brother Zhuang, this is used to detect different tombs, like this is called a heavy shovel, which is specially used to detect Han tombs, because Ma Ta Feiyan was unearthed here, the teacher suspected the existence of Han tombs, so he brought it over. ”

Fan Cuo then pointed to the shovel that was a bit like the shape of a crescent shovel used by Lu Zhishen in the Water Margin and said: "This is called a flat shovel, which is what we often call the Luoyang shovel, and the Tang Tomb has to use this." ”

Fan Cuo explained, while picking out two Luoyang shovels with Yingning, and then handed them to Zhuang Rui.

Seeing Zhuang Rui looking at the Luoyang shovel in his hand over and over again, Ying Ning explained: "Brother Zhuang, don't look at this thing as a shovel, it looks very simple, in fact, it is very troublesome to make, and it needs to go through nearly 20 processes such as billet making, calcination, heat treatment, molding, and sharpening.

The most important thing is to create an arc when forming, you need to beat carefully, a little careless, the shovel will not be able to bring the soil, then it is wasted, can only be made by hand, the one in your hand, but the teacher treasures, the rest are provided by the cultural relics department here......"

After Zhuang Rui took it, he found that it was just a shovel head, and at the head of the shovel, there was a hollow thread with internal rotation, which must have been used to connect the wooden rod.

In order to be easy to carry, these Luoyang shovels are detachable, even the wooden poles, you can also choose according to your height, these wooden poles are special, generally good ash rods, extremely tough, can be easily bent without breaking.

"Brother Zhuang, you use this, this is specially made by the teacher, specially used for his Luoyang shovel. ”

When Zhuang Rui was about to bend down to choose a wooden pole, Fan Cuo handed over a holster about sixty or seventy centimeters long, Zhuang Rui reached out and took it, feeling a little precipitated, and opened it to see, it turned out to be a hollow rebar pipe about half a meter long.

Taking out the steel pipe, Zhuang Rui found that there is more than one steel pipe in it, but layers of each other, a bit like a fishing rod, which can be extended at will, and at the head of the steel pipe, there is a buckle, on which a rope the thickness of a thumb is tied, which is neatly coiled on it.

How to use, this is not enough to be taught by others, Zhuang Rui pulled out three sections of steel pipe, aimed at the thread mouth and chose to tighten, compared it, there are about two meters of factory, weighing the weight, it is not very heavy, there should be no problem to use, Zhuang Rui put the remaining steel pipe back into the holster, and put the holster diagonally on the shoulder.

Zhuang Rui took an ash rod Luoyang shovel that Yingning had connected, and compared with one in his hand, it was about twice as light, but this ash rod was more than two meters long, and it was far less convenient to carry than the tools in his hand.

"Brother Zhuang, let's go farther, the two or three hundred meters around here have been explored. ”

Fan Cuo and Yingning, each holding a Luoyang shovel and wearing a straw hat on their heads, if they don't look at the clothes, they are no different from the farmers who work all year round.

"Within a few hundred meters around, only here is the cooked soil?" Zhuang Rui was a little puzzled, it was possible to build a mausoleum under the sealed soil.

Ying Ning heard Zhuang Rui's question, turned his head and replied: "That's the case, when you hit more than ten meters in other places, a rock layer will appear, and there will be a layer of rock under the sealed soil layer, we will detect it very finely, except for the cooked soil, there is nothing else." ”

"Maybe the mausoleum is not so deep, I heard that in ancient times, it was rare to see a mausoleum seven or eight meters deep. ”

As soon as Zhuang Rui said this, he also felt that something was wrong, the tomb seven or eight meters deep was definitely not suitable for the royal tombs, and he didn't know anything else, the underground palace of the Ming Tombs was dozens of meters deep.

"We basically dig a hole every three or five meters, if there is something underneath, we will definitely bring it up......" Yingning knew that Zhuang Rui didn't know anything about archaeological excavations, so he explained to him.

After hearing Yingning's words, Zhuang Rui knew that the Luoyang shovel could not only distinguish the soil underground, but also bring the objects in the tomb.

If you come across those cups, bowls, plates, pots and other ceramic burial objects, or iron, gold, wood and other things when digging a hole, you can bring them up, from which you can determine whether there are tombs below, and archaeological excavators can infer the nature and layout of underground collections from these items.

What's more, like those experienced tomb robbers, with the different sounds made by the Luoyang shovel hitting the ground and the feeling in their hands, they can judge the situation underground, such as the rammed walls and the hollow tomb and tomb passage are naturally very different.

Some tomb robbers, with a Luoyang shovel, can accurately hit the robbery hole into the main burial chamber where the coffin is placed, to talk about the use of the Luoyang shovel, I am afraid that most archaeologists are far inferior to those family heirlooms tomb robbers.

"Which direction are we going?"

Zhuang Rui asked the two, he stood on the soil layer and looked around, it seemed that only the place where he was digging now was a feng shui treasure land, and then he went in the direction of the mountain range, which was where the tail of the dragon vein was, upturned up, there was a small mountain bag, it stands to reason that it should not be there, because the tomb with the dragon vein is generally chosen in the head and tail of the tomb to choose a thick feng shui treasure land that can gather qi at the head and tail, and will not break the dragon vein, which is a feng shui taboo.

"Let's go to that hill, it's the only one around here that hasn't been explored......"

"Wait, wait for me, I'm going too!"

A voice came from behind the three of them, but it was Meng Qiuqian's little girl who followed, and she seemed to have a Luoyang shovel in her hand.

"Aren't you afraid of tanning, like an African?" Fan Cuo and the little girl were used to arguing, and couldn't help but tease her.

"Don't be afraid, I have sunscreen ......"

Meng Qiuqian proudly waved his small fist at Fan Cuo, and the few people who watched it were relatively speechless, this dare is here for a vacation, and even brought sunscreen.

Meng Qiuqian didn't bother with Fan Mistake anymore, but came to Zhuang Rui's side and said, "Brother Zhuang Rui, you are about to take the entrance examination for my grandfather's graduate school, and I will be your senior sister by then, do you see if you can let your Tibetan mastiff be more affectionate to me?"

Zhuang Rui's head suddenly grew when he heard this, this girl actually started the idea of a white lion, let alone her, it was Liu Chuan, who grew up watching the white lion, never got the good face of the white lion, let alone this girl.

"What, swing, it's not that Brother Zhuang Rui doesn't help you, you also know, the Tibetan mastiff is short-tempered, and no one buys it except me, I think you better stay away from it, otherwise you, with thin arms and thin legs, will be in trouble if you are bitten off." ”

Zhuang Rui was afraid that this girl would tease the white lion, so he deliberately exaggerated a little, wanting to scare her.

"Hey, no, girl, you're not a student of Professor Meng, you're just playing with you, then again, we're still twice as bad, you should call me uncle, why should I call you sister?"

Zhuang Rui suddenly thought of this question, and opened his mouth to say it.

"If you don't help, you won't help, and you still want me to call my uncle, but the door is not ......"

The little girl pursed her lips, glared at Zhuang Rui fiercely, and then took out a bag of beef jerky in the bag behind her, and wanted to feed the white lion, but looking at the white lion's size, she didn't dare to approach, and when she was still three or four meters away from the white lion, she threw the beef over.

Who knew that the white lion didn't even look at it, and ran to the front after Zhuang Rui, and the angry little girl stomped her feet in the back.

This hill is not far from the excavation site, only four or five hundred meters away, the mountain is full of kiwi trees, it is in the flowering season, the whole hill is full of small yellow flowers, it is very beautiful from a distance.

A few people walked in and found that someone had actually made a circle of railings around this small hill, and there were wires tied to it, which should prevent the wild beasts in the mountains from harming the fruit trees.

"Wang ...... Woo ......"

Before they could get close to the railing, there was a fierce barking of dogs, and then two muscular wolfdogs pounced out of the woods.

"Roaring ......"

The white lion, who was originally following Zhuang Rui, let out a low roar, and the two wolf dogs immediately clamped their tails and drilled into the fruit forest.

"What's it called, damn stupid dog, won't go up and bite!"

A man's voice came from inside the orchard......