Henan and Shaanxi have the longest history and are the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Many dynasties have built their capitals here, and there are more tombs of emperors, princes, and generals, and tomb robbing in this area became a common practice before liberation, and once developed into an industry with a certain scale.

In the old days, tomb robbers can be divided into two kinds, one is the official thieves like Dong Zhuo and Cao Cao in the late Han Dynasty, Wen Tao of the Five Dynasties, Sun Dianying in the Republic of China, etc., are very famous, they often use a large number of soldiers, open fire and cane to do a lot of work, digging all the emperor's tombs with a large number of burial goods, the method is relatively simple, relying on more people and more explosives, the movement is big but no one dares to care, in order to raise the coffin to make a fortune that caused devastating damage to the mausoleum. There is also a kind of thieves, distributed all over the place, with a large number of people, all of whom are carried out secretly, digging up tombs and coffins, taking out the treasures and treasures of the burial, and making a fortune.

Before the liberation, the folk tomb robbers were generally two people in partnership, and many people formed gangs in a minority, and one person did even less alone, the reason is very simple, one person could not take care of it, and two people could divide labor and cooperate.

At the beginning, one person digs a hole, another clears the earth, and at the same time looks at the wind, one digs into the burial chamber, and the other person receives the pit soil and burial goods on it. Most of these two people are related by blood, but the strange thing is that there is less father-son relationship, this may be the business of robbing tombs after all, after all, it is unseemly, even if Lao Tzu does this disgraceful deed, he must maintain the image of being a father, and he is embarrassed to pull his son to do it, and he pretended not to know when he found out later.

As for why these two people are looking for blood relatives when they are partnering? This is to prevent those who take the work at the entrance of the cave from trying to kill themselves. That is to say, when the person under the cave has finished his work and passed all the belongings up, he will slap his face or pull the rope and signal the person at the entrance of the cave to pull him up. If the people at the entrance of the cave see the intention of wealth, when the people under the cave come up quickly, they suddenly loosen the rope, and the people under the cave fall from a distance of more than four or five meters, and they are broken and injured and cannot move, and the people at the entrance of the cave hurriedly pour the soil from the pit that they have brought up to the hole, and the people below will definitely die. Of course, these are amateur tomb robbers, and the vast majority of professional tomb robbers always act alone.

When Lao Wu was young, he followed his father to dig wells in other villages to earn some physical money, and at that time, the wells had to be dug by manpower, and the wellhead was small enough to accommodate one person to dig in it, and basically dug to a depth of three or four meters underground to see water.

Although it is not very deep, the workload is very large, and a person not only has to dig the soil, but also has to build the wall of the well with stones to reinforce it. Generally, before digging a well, you have to explore the location of the water vein, dig a well to explore the water vein and dig the soil, as short as four or five days, more than ten days and half a month, and you don't earn much by working for so long, just enough to support your family.

Lao Wu's father, can be regarded as a lifetime of wells, the work in hand is good, the speed of digging the well is fast, the stone of the well wall is also neat, whoever wants to dig a well is recommended to find him, when Lao Wu was still young, his father had a nickname called "shovel Wu".

Let's just say that when other people dig wells, they use a long-handled shovel, stick the shovel head into the soil, step on it with their feet, and then puff up the soil and drag it into the hanging frame. And this shovel Wu makes two short-handled shovels, the shovel surface is also much smaller than normal, both hands hold the shovel handle, like an animal that can make a hole as quickly plow the soil, that work to the soil and stone flying, only half a day to dig water, on the speed and the neatness of the well wall, no one in the local area.

Later, this shovel Wu digging a well can dig a famous, whenever he goes to someone's house to dig a well, there can be a circle around the neighborhood to see the lively idlers, watching the soil and stone fly out of the well is quite interesting, catch up with which time the earth and stone fly high and applaud, as if watching a play.

It wasn't until the shovel Wu was too old to do anything that Lao Wu took over his shift to dig wells for others for a living. If you want to say that this Lao Wu can be regarded as fighting for his father, the two shovels are in Lao Wu's hands, and they are better than his father, and the title of shovel Wu will fall on Lao Wu.

Although Lao Wu made the double shovel digging well, he always felt that there was no profit in doing this business, and he was tired and tired all year round, and it was better to make more money by selling vegetables on the street, and there was nothing to do.

Although he was unwilling, he couldn't do anything else, so he could only honestly dig wells to save money, and strive to marry a rice fat aunt in the future, which would be content.

He said that on that day, he was digging a well in the courtyard of a man surnamed Niu in the village, and the Niu family lived on higher ground, and it was enough to dig eight or nine meters deep to dig out the water. Lao Wu was tired enough, so he dragged the rope and wanted to climb out of the well he had just dug and smoke a cigarette to rest his breath, but as soon as he climbed to the edge of the well, he saw an old man squatting above, looking down at himself.

The old man squatting by the well was thin and thin, wearing a six-in-one hat from the Qing Dynasty, with a handful of white goatees.

Lao Wu didn't know what this old man was doing, so he climbed out of the well and patted the dust in his hand, threw the double shovel full of dirt on the ground, and asked: "The old man looked at Miansheng, are you a relative of this old cow's family?" ”

The old man first stretched out his hand and touched the wall of the well that had just been dug shortly, and his originally serious expression suddenly slowed down and he was a little happy, and then he replied to Lao Wu's words: "No, I'm just a passer-by skin, and I have nothing to do with the old cow you said." ”

After the old man finished speaking, he bent down and picked up the shovel that Lao Wu threw on the ground, picked it up and looked at it carefully, and then said with a smile: "Oh, it's not easy, it's really terrifying, you see the shovel prints on the side of the well one after another, the distance is exactly the same, and it looks like fish scales at a glance. ”

Lao Wu heard others praise his good craftsmanship, and he was not embarrassed to say: "What is endless, that is, the people in the village take care of the mixed food, and I still expect to save some money to do some business in the future, and become a businessman like you or something." ”

The old man smiled and said, "I don't think you have to do business at all, you can make a lot of money with your craft, so why bother to be a businessman." ”

The two stood by the well and talked for a while, and the old man did not leave his craft for three sentences, which made Lao Wu very strange, how can a pit digging craft make a lot of money? But looking at the old man's dress and talking, it didn't look like the people he usually saw, and it was a little strange to describe it, although the old man looked not young, but he was very energetic, and his eyes were particularly clear.

Later, the old man directly said that he would ask him to dig a well, but he was not in a hurry to eat, so he first invited him to the county restaurant to drink mutton soup.

Then the two went to a mutton restaurant in the county town and asked for three bowls of mutton soup and ten buns, all of which were placed in front of Lao Wu, and the old man just asked for some tea, but did not eat. Lao Wu is really hungry, and you are not welcome, the mutton soup bowl after bowl on the stomach, and finally wait for him to eat almost, the old man introduced himself, saying that his surname is Hu Wan, a businessman who came from other places to sell skins, and came to help an old friend to dig a feng shui level well, the well has to be dug very deep, ordinary people can't do it, I heard that there is a shovel Wu near here, digging the well is good, so I found Lao Wu.

How can Lao Wu understand feng shui or something, but digging a well is not a difficult thing for him, this is what he does, no matter how deep the well can be, can it still be dug and leaked? Hu Wan invited himself to dinner, and promised to give more money after digging the well, and agreed to come down without ambiguity.

The next day, Hu Wan took Lao Wu to the wasteland behind Lao Song Mountain, this place is very desolate and rarely people usually come, and there are three young people with him, who are almost less than thirty years old and Lao Wu, but they don't look like good people. Hu Wan introduced that these three people were his apprentices, and he came with him this time to familiarize himself with the route, so that they could take over his class in the future. Yesterday, let Hu Wan invite Lao Wu to drink a meal of mutton soup, as the saying goes, take people with short hands and eat people with short mouths, Hu Wan said that Lao Wu will not ask much about it, although I don't know what feng shui level is dug in this wilderness, but when I think of having money to take, Lao Wu does not have many worries, and plans to start working.

"Master Hu, where do you say to dig, I'll do it now, and I can dig a well without noon." Lao Wu asked Hu Wanbian and took out two short shovels from his waist, rolled up his sleeves and was about to dig.

Hu Wan stopped him with a smile and said: "Don't worry, don't worry, this is not bad at this time, let my apprentice find the feng shui level first, and when I find it, Brother Wu, you can make a move." ”

At this time, Hu Wan waved his hand to signal everyone to be quiet, squinted his eyes to look at the surrounding mountains, and after a while, he pointed to a small mountain bag in the distance, and the three apprentices would also understand, each took out a semi-cylindrical shovel at one end, and went inside when he went to the mountain bag.

After a while, the apprentices took back some soil brought out of the ground to show Hu Wan, Hu Wan reached out and took it and crushed it in his hand, then looked carefully at it and sniffed it on his nose, the corners of his mouth unconsciously turned up, reached out and stroked the little goatee and said, "This is it!" ”

Hu Wan motioned to Lao Wu to take this small hole that poked down to extract soil as the center and began to dig down. When Lao Wu heard this, he picked up the double shovel and began to move, the posture of digging the soil was extremely strange, but suddenly the excavated soil and stones flew sideways, and after a while, the well was hit down, and people could not see it, but only saw the soil that was blown out by the shovel. The soil in the ground here is very delicate, there are not too many stones, but it is very hard, every shovel is very laborious, so Lao Wu is also stunned to dig down four or five meters deep, and then use the bamboo basket to hang up the soil, and accumulate several mounds of soil around.

Until it was almost dark, Lao Wu had dug to a depth of about ten meters, he felt that it was almost enough, since it was a feng shui level well, it was estimated that it was also a symbolic thing, and he planned to dig a few more times, so he pulled the rope and let people drag him up.

The subsequent shovel made a crisp sound, as if it had dug up stones, but when he touched the ground paved with bricks and stones, he could find out the size of the single stone brick along the gap, and Lao Wu wondered: "Why are you still digging the brick floor?" But it can't be the ground before, it's too deep. ”

Suddenly, Lao Wu remembered that he had heard people say that there was a dome-topped masonry tomb of the Yuan Dynasty near Lao Songshan, and the entire tomb was built of large blue bricks, and a curved dome was erected to deconstruct the tomb top, so it was called a dome-topped masonry tomb.

For a long time, there have been folk tomb robbers who came here to excavate, but they have never been found, all said that it is because the ancient tomb of the Yuan Dynasty is buried very deeply, but at this moment, Lao Wu dug up a piece of brick and stone built of things, he secretly screamed in his heart, damn it, it is difficult to dig to the top of the ancient tomb of the Yuan Dynasty.

Just when Lao Wu was stunned because he was digging a brick and stone building, the rope tied to his waist was shaking all the way, and when he looked up, he saw a person coming down the rope with a horse lantern tied to his waist. When the man went down the rope to the bottom of the well and stood beside Lao Wu, he saw that it was Hu Wan's old man, Lao Wu really didn't expect that although the old man was old, he was so dexterous, and he went down to his side like a monkey along the rope.

Lao Wu saw Hu Wan coming down and hurriedly said: "Hu Ye is broken, we may have dug up the ancient tomb!" What can I do? ”

Hu Wan first squatted down and touched the stone bricks he dug up, then he laughed weirdly, stood up and held the horse lantern between the two, and each other could see their expressions, Lao Wu was a little surprised, this Hu Wan had a happy expression on his face, as if he had obtained some treasure.

Hu Wan stretched out his hand and patted Lao Wu's shoulder and said, "How could it be broken?" That's a great thing! The ancient tomb of the Yuan Dynasty that so many people have not found has been dug up by you, this is your blessing, and we can make a fortune after a while! ”

Lao Wu was frightened when he heard this, and hurriedly said, "Isn't this a tomb robber?" If you want to be caught, you'll have to lose your head! Don't dare, don't dare As soon as he finished speaking, looking at Hu Wan's face illuminated by the horse lantern, he suddenly understood and asked, "Are you a tomb robber?" ”

Hu Wan suddenly laughed, shook his head and said to Lao Wu: "Wrong, wrong!" I shouldn't say I'm a grave robber, we should say we're grave robbers. ”