Fifteen years ago, following the start of 1972, China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage made the decision to excavate the tombs of the Tangut kings, the person in charge of the excavation was surnamed Wang, who was also the deputy director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Exhibition Center undertook the main excavation work of the tombs.

When the archaeological work was carried out until the summer of 1973, during the excavation of Tomb No. 6, the project suddenly stopped for a short time, because in addition to the great difficulty of development, there are often some strange things, there is a young man in the cleaning of the mausoleum, quietly fell straight from the top, the person died on the spot, the strange thing is that there is no cry for help and no screams in the whole process.

Since the start of construction, strange things have happened frequently, especially when it is close to dark, the whole mausoleum will be accompanied by a faint cry of slight vibration, which makes the entire archaeological team panic, hundreds of kilometers around the mausoleum almost no vegetation, but beyond this range of vegetation is extremely luxuriant. It is amazing that many birds fly over the mausoleum and never stop on the tomb. However, in order to further understand the situation of the tombs of the Western Xia kings, excavations had to be continued.

"Professor Wang, long time no see." It was a middle-aged man in his early thirties who spoke, and the middle-aged man held Professor Wang's right hand with both hands and said, "My wife Wang Jie and I came here this time to fully cooperate with Professor Wang's archaeological work. ”

Behind the middle-aged man was a woman of nearly thirty or so, dressed in rigid and dull work clothes, which did not hide the temperament and youthfulness she exuded, "Hello, Professor Wang, I will trouble you to lead the team this time." Wang Jie stepped forward and grabbed the middle-aged man's hand and said.

The professor looked at Cao Zheng and Wang Jie, and said with a peaceful face: "Come, let me introduce you to you." Professor Wang then walked up to the two old men and continued: "This one is Shi Anguo, an expert in archaeology, and this one is Zhang Tianzhi, an expert in murals. ”

Cao Zheng and Wang Jie stretched out their hands to hold the hands of the two old experts almost at the same time, and Cao Zheng said very respectfully: "Hello, I am very honored to meet the two experts, and please give me a lot of advice in the next work." Seeing that the two middle-aged people were so enthusiastic, one of them, Shi Anguo, said modestly: "It's all for the progress of the country, and it's really a young man since ancient times." Another laughed and said, "Yes, it's really a young man since ancient times." After speaking, everyone walked to the mausoleum area with laughter. On the way to the mausoleum, I learned that among the two young men and one woman, two men were students of Professor Wang, and the other woman was the daughter of Professor Wang's old friend.

After entering the mausoleum area, Professor Wang looked nervously at a large earth pit not far away, and said thoughtfully: "The superiors have sent Cao Zheng, your kid, it seems that this archaeological excavation work will be twice the result with half the effort." After speaking, he laughed at the two of them, and the people standing next to him also nodded and smiled along with Professor Wang.

Located at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, 30 kilometers west of Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, there are large and small soil pits, and there are also mausoleums swaying in the wind. On the right side of the crowd, judging from the extent of the current excavation, it is a large-scale mausoleum building, which is quite intact, and even the remains of the square, road, courtyard, well and house in the building are clearly visible, the layout is very standardized and neat, and there are rammed earth built around it.

"This is the site of the mausoleum that we have discovered so far, and there are many large and small burial tombs around, which were dug up and plundered by the Mongol army in 1227 in retaliation for the serious wounding of Genghis Khan by the Western Xia army." Professor Wang pointed to the earthen pit and the mausoleum in the distance and said regretfully, and then said with a relieved face: "Fortunately, the pit on the ground of Mausoleum No. 6 is small, which means that the degree of damage inside is relatively small." ”

Everyone walked to the location of Mausoleum No. 6 after a while, Cao Zheng looked left and right, and found that Mausoleum No. 6 is located on the south side of a garrison old family home, and it is more convenient to receive water and electricity. Cao Zheng squatted on the ground and compared it left and right a few times.

Professor Wang nodded and said, "That's the case for now, but tomorrow at the latest." After speaking, Professor Wang walked up to a few people who were cleaning the tomb door and sealed the soil, and said earnestly: "Be careful, you can't destroy the integrity of the mausoleum just for efficiency, even the slightest." ”

Wang Jie walked up to Cao Zheng, squatted down and asked, "What's wrong?" Did you find anything? ”

"Judging from the current progress and the sealed soil outside the door of this tomb, I speculate that the shape of this tomb should be a slope and a cave tomb." Cao Zheng nodded, then walked to Professor Wang's side and said, "I'll come down and take a hand too." As he spoke, he took out the tools on his body and followed the original few people to clean up.

Just when everyone thought they would have to clean up for a long time, a young man on the side shouted, "Professor, the tomb door seems to have been completely cleared." The entire outline of the tomb gate gradually appeared in front of everyone's eyes, and Professor Wang thought to himself, "The tomb gate of Tomb No. 6, which is the emperor's tomb, will be larger, but now it seems that the previous estimate is wrong." ”

Everyone retreated, looked carefully at the tomb door in front of them, and found that the tomb door was not completely cleaned out, but only a small part of the tomb door remained, the original size of the tomb door should be about six feet high and five feet wide, the surface of the tomb door was painted with white ash, and the white ash was painted with colorful murals of samurai statues. The samurai is dressed in a battle robe, with his hands crossed at his waist, his arms on armor, a sword at his waist, a streamer flying on his back, and a flame pattern painted on his head, but the lower part of the samurai statue is already blurred.

Cao Zheng glanced at Professor Wang, wanting to hear what he meant, Professor Wang nodded, and said happily: "It seems that it is better to come early than to come by coincidence, let's go in and have a look now, but unfortunately this tomb door is incomplete." After speaking, Professor Wang sighed again.

Professor Wang greeted the people behind him, instructed them to be meticulous, and called some people to bring all the tools for going to the tomb, what gas masks, sealed bags, searchlights, etc., the things prepared are relatively complete, after opening the tomb door, Professor Wang and a young man took the lead in holding a searchlight, Cao Zheng and Wang Jie followed at the end, a total of seven people before and after.

After everyone entered the corridor through the tomb gate, Professor Wang walked in the front, sighed and said, "Although the pit on the ground is small, I didn't expect that this place would still suffer such serious damage. "Most of the walls have been destroyed by tomb robbers or the Mongol army, and Professor Wang, as a protector of history, is inevitably distressed.

Everyone slowly moved their feet and looked around carefully, and the floor of the tomb was paved with plain bricks. There are remnants such as door bubbles, nail pieces, iron nails, copper bubble ornaments, silver nail discs, and copper auxiliary elbow plates unearthed in the corridor of the tomb door.