Evening.

After a day of archaeological work, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the archaeologists of the Guangzhou Institute of Archaeology gathered at the night market food stalls in Guangzhou.

At the end of a hard day of archaeological clean-up, it would be very satisfying to have a few bottles of wheat juice.

"Ho... Ha. ”

Filled his mouth with a large glass of wine, Zhuang Yunpeng burped comfortably.

"It has to be wheat juice."

Chen Han, who was sitting next to him, picked up a shrimp and put it in his mouth, smiled and shook his head.

"Senior Brother Zhuang, you have to keep it, don't drink too much and won't be able to get up tomorrow."

"It's a mistake to drink."

"No, I'm not drunk with a thousand cups, comparable to the ancient Li Bai!" Zhuang Yunpeng raised his eyebrows proudly, filled another cup for himself, and poured it into his mouth with a gurgling mouth.

"Rebirth: The Great Age of Waves"

Although he drank beer, he was forced to drink the momentum of liquor.

Director Fu, who was taking a sip of wine, said with a smile: "Xiaozhuang has a good amount of wine, it should be a northerner, right?" ”

"Yes, I'm from the Northeast!"

"No wonder you drink beer as water." Director Fu smiled.

Seeing that Zhuang Yunpeng had just eaten a cup and filled it with another cup, Kong Jianwen frowned: "Xiaozhuang, what your junior brother said is right, drink less." ”

"Don't forget, Dayi merchants died of wine!"

If you do archaeology, you can't do without history when you open your mouth and close your mouth.

Hearing the teacher's words, Zhuang Yunpeng didn't dare to drink so hard anymore, so he smiled and drank slowly instead.

Shang died in wine, but it is not a joke.

The people of the Shang Dynasty liked to drink, and from the Shang kings to the ordinary people, the whole society was permeated with alcoholism.

As evidenced by archaeology.

Among the Neolithic pottery products excavated in modern times, there are already exclusive sake vessels.

It shows that in the primitive society, Chinese winemaking has been very popular.

And the businessman has pushed the winemaking to the peak.

Among all the excavated Shang Dynasty ruins, bronze wine vessels account for a considerable proportion of bronze vessels.

Moreover, the merchant's bronze wine vessels are very rich in styles and varied.

Six of the ten bronzes were used for drinking.

Of the remaining four, there are also two that can be used to assist in drinking.

And the merchant is very good at making wine.

At that time, there were not only rice wine made from grain, but also medicinal wine, fruit wine, and even sake made from wheat that resembled modern beer.

In 1980, a sealed jar was found in an ancient tomb unearthed in the late Shang Dynasty in Henan.

Analysis showed that the liquid remaining in the jar was wine.

The history of wine making by the Chinese people is even earlier than that of the Europeans.

In addition, in the ruins of a winemaking workshop in the middle of the Shang Dynasty, fruits such as dates, plums, and peaches were found.

This also shows that in the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, merchants were already proficient in using various fruits to make fruit wine.

Since the early Shang dynasty, the merchants' ritual utensils have been heavy wine vessels and light cooking utensils.

The combination of wine vessels with Hu and Jue as the core almost ran through the entire Shang Dynasty.

This ritual system of heavy wine vessels continued until the Late Shang period.

In the tomb of the Yinxu woman, a total of 210 bronze vessels were unearthed, of which the number of wine vessels accounted for about 74%.

In fact, the merchant's addiction to alcohol was a common phenomenon in the society at that time, and it was a social ethos.

Not only the aristocracy loved to drink, but also the commoners.

In "Shangshu Wine Message", it is described like this: "But I am shy about wine, and the group is drunk, and the smell is on the top, so the sky is lost." ”

It can be seen that in the eyes of the Zhou people, the reason why Shang will perish is because of wine.

Because of the addiction to alcohol from top to bottom, it will naturally lead to chaos in the country and society, and government affairs cannot be handled normally, which eventually leads to the disaster of the country.

This is not a crime imposed by the Zhou people in order to discredit the businessman.

Because after the Zhou people changed the Ding, they used the "Zhou Li" to strictly restrict the right of the nobles and the common people to drink.

The Duke of Zhou believed that alcoholism and tyranny were the main reasons for the fall of the Shang Dynasty, so the Western Zhou Dynasty began to restrict the drinking of nobles.

And the people were not allowed to drink alcohol, and it was not allowed to use grain to make wine.

For two weeks and eight hundred years, the Zhou nobles strictly controlled drinking, especially crowd drinking.

It is to prevent the Zhou people from repeating the mistakes of businessmen, and the whole society is addicted to alcohol.

Until the Qin and Han dynasties, restrictions on drinking alcohol were still very strict.

The Han law stipulates that if there are more than three people, they will be fined four taels if they drink in groups without reason.

And this Han law is actually a copy of the Qin law.

In the Western Han Dynasty, ordinary people could only secretly drink by themselves, and they were never allowed to gather to drink.

Like in the TV series, several people find a restaurant and let Xiao Er drink two or two, and if they are caught in the Western Han Dynasty, they will be severely punished!

Only when the Son of Heaven succeeded to the throne, the crown prince was canonized, the queen was canonized, and other national celebrations, the people were allowed to gather and drink.

This is also the so-called "world drunk", the meaning of the people of the world are happy and drinking.

In the records of the Zhou people, it is very serious that the Shang Dynasty died of alcoholism.

Modern archaeological excavations have also proved that the wine-making culture of the Shang Dynasty was indeed very superb, with a variety of grain wines and fruit wines.

And up to the aristocracy, down to the common people all take pleasure in drinking, and attach great importance to wine vessels.

This also shows that the records of the Zhou people are indeed correct, and the destruction of the merchants is absolutely inseparable from wine.

However, the progress of modern science has also revealed the cause of the demise of merchants for modern people, and has another angle of exploration.

Through modern scientific means, researchers in scientific and technological archaeology have detected serious excessive lead levels in the bones of merchants in a large number of Shang Dynasty ruins.

That is, lead poisoning.

As we all know, the main casting components of bronze are made of copper, tin, lead, zinc and other alloys.

Moreover, because the productivity of the Shang Dynasty was still relatively primitive, tin ore resources were relatively scarce, and a large amount of lead and copper were sometimes used to cast bronzes.

Merchants are good at making wine and drinking.

Alcohol is more likely to lead than other foods.

In particular, when the ancients drank wine, they often had to heat the wine before drinking, which was called "warm wine".

When the bronze is heated, the precipitation of lead in the wine is even more serious.

Merchants who love to drink wine will take bronze wine vessels to cook and drink wine every day, and in this way, lead will enter the human body in large quantities through the wine.

Over time, the merchant aristocracy and freemen naturally fell into the quagmire of lead poisoning.

Moreover, lead poisoning is still a chronic poisoning, and the onset is slow, and it will not make the merchant suspect the wine.

What is certain is that the merchant did die from wine.

And "lead poisoning" also plays an important role.

Because the merchant nobles liked to cook wine with bronze vessels, the average age of the merchant nobles should not be high, and they may die of lead poisoning in their thirties and forties.

In this way, the ruling class was too young, which hastened the demise of the merchants.

And the Zhou people who destroyed the merchants, because they saw the horror of the merchants' addiction to alcohol, strictly controlled the drinking culture of the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty.

This also made the nobles of the Zhou Dynasty avoid serious lead poisoning.

At least it didn't let the Chinese, like the ancient Romans, perish because of lead poisoning.

This is also a blessing in disguise.

I think of a businessman who eventually died because of alcoholism.

Zhuang Yunpeng is no longer good at drinking beer as water.

I had to smile and change the topic and said: "How is it, how is the excavation of the outer coffin room today, and have you found any big treasures?" ”