Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1851 Qiong People

"Yes, I brought the archaeological team with me at that time," Lao Chi Ri nodded and said, "There are bones all over the ground under these Pu Su Wu Wu tombs. There are a lot of bones piled up under the tombs, including men, women, young and old, and there is no difference between rich and poor, noble and humble."

"Forty to fifty people were cleared out from under each small tomb, and there were more than a hundred people under this big one. All the bones were in a mess. Captain Jiang at the time said that these were the bones of the two buried people."

Zhou Zhi explained to everyone: "In ancient times, there was a burial method called bone burial, which means that after a person dies, the body is exposed in the wild. After it has completely decomposed, the bones are collected and buried in the tomb through a specially built entrance on the top of the tomb."

"This special burial style is also known as secondary mass burial in archaeology."

"Based on the fact that the bones in these tombs were mixed up and there was no distinction between the number and wealth of burial objects, people believed that the many people buried in the same room might be members of the same clan who were related by blood. And judging from the accumulation of so many bones, their burial customs should have allowed the tomb door to be opened multiple times, and the bones could be buried at different times."

"The archaeological team named this ancient tomb the Dashi Tomb at the time, and because of the discovery of the Dashi Tomb, they directly shifted the focus of their work from the excavation of Neolithic sites to the investigation and research of the Dashi Tomb."

"It is indeed worth studying. Did the Qiong people at that time engage in fishing and hunting or farming? To build such a large tomb, manual laborers had to leave production. Does this also indicate that the Qiong people had surplus living materials at that time?"

"Yes, this is also the idea that our country is preparing to propose a new definition of civilization recently. Through comprehensive consideration of relics, we can determine the degree of social development and then infer whether it belongs to the civilization stage." Zhou Zhi said, "rather than judging based on the presence or absence of certain rigid indicators alone."

"The investigation report states that the large stone tombs in the Anning River Valley should actually be divided into three phases. The early large stone tombs basically had no bronze artifacts. They were generally simple pottery such as deep-bellied bottles, large-mouthed vases, and flat-bottomed jars, as well as production tools such as pottery spinning wheels, stone arrowheads, and stone chisels. "

"Rice straw and rice husks were found in the tombs, which also shows that the owners of the large stone tombs had mastered the technology of growing rice."

"In the middle period, a large number of bronze and pottery artifacts began to appear, as well as copper knives, copper arrowheads, copper bracelets, copper hair ornaments, copper bells, iron rings, agate beads and other ornaments. During this period, most of the burial objects in the tombs still had the characteristics of the Qiong people themselves."

"The construction period of the late large stone tombs was from the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Many iron knives, ironware, iron scrapers, coins and some Han-style lacquerware were found in the tombs, indicating that commodity exchanges were very frequent at that time."

"How many years passed from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Eastern Han Dynasty?" Liu Hongtao asked.

"From 770 BC to 25 AD, there are about 800 years in between." Zhou Zhi said, "But the period of time that the Qiong people were active in the Anning River Valley must have been much longer than this."

"So are the ancient Qiong people the ancestors of the Yi people like Grandpa Chi Ri?" Li Lu asked.

"That's not the case." Zhou Zhi said, "The Records of the Grand Historian: Biographies of the Southwestern Barbarians records that 'from Dian to the north, there are dozens of chieftains, with Qiongdu being the largest. They all wear topknots, farm and have settlements.' The Records of the Huayang Kingdom: Records of Shu records that 'the Qiong people are good at bravery and are good at fighting.' The Book of Han and the Book of the Later Han call them Qiongdu barbarians, which means that they were the main ethnic group living in this area from the Warring States Period to the Eastern Han Dynasty, and they had their own political power and reached their peak strength. They, along with the Ba people, Dian people, and Yelang people, dominated the southwest region for a time, but later disappeared like the Ba people, Dian people, and Yelang people."

"As for the reason for its disappearance, the Book of the Later Han records: 'The Qiongdu Yi were opened up by Emperor Wu of Han and made into Qiongdu County'. In the sixth year of Yuanding, that is, 111 BC, 'Han soldiers conquered them from the Yuexi River and made them into Yuexi County'." "That is to say, the Qiong regime had been discovered by the central government during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, and there may have been a certain scale of exchanges in between. Emperor Wu of Han named it 'Qiongdu County', and in 111 BC, the first Qiong-Han war took place there, the Han army won and established Yuexi County."

"But it was always out of reach, and the administrative chiefs sent by the central government to the local areas still had to rely on the power of the local indigenous people. During the Wang Mang period, Mei Gen, the governor of Yuexi County, appointed Chang Gui, a Qiong people, as a military marquis. In the 24th year of the AD, Chang Gui attacked and killed Mei Gen and proclaimed himself the King of Qiong Valley."

"In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Guangwu of Han, Liu Xiu, saw that Changgui had actually controlled Yuexi, so he accepted this reality, issued a seal and appointed Changgui as the governor of Yuexi."

"The Qiong people, who were officially recognized by the central government and led by Changgui, should have had a great opportunity to live and work in peace and prosperity. If they had developed well, they might have become an independent kingdom like the later Dali Kingdom."

"However, a war that took place in the southwestern borderland, which had nothing to do with the Qiong people, brought about a sudden and catastrophic disaster for this ethnic group."

"In September of the 43rd year of the Chinese empire, the Dongcan tribe of the Southwestern Yi launched a rebellion and attacked and killed local officials of the Han Dynasty. Liu Xiu ordered General Wuwei Liu Shang to lead an army to suppress the rebellion. Liu Shang mobilized the troops of Guanghan, Qianwei, and Shu counties as well as the tribal troops of the Zhuti Yi, totaling 13,000 people, to attack the Dongcan tribe."

"Liu Shang led a large army to suppress the rebellion and needed to pass through Yuexi County. Chang Gui suspected that Shang would enforce his power and laws since he had already conquered the south. He was worried that after the Eastern Han army conquered the south, the Qiong people might also suffer. So he planned to harm Liu Shang and prepare to rebel."

"So he gathered his troops, built a camp, and brewed a large amount of poisoned wine, hoping to poison Liu Shang and his generals by rewarding the Eastern Han army for its southern expedition."

"Liu Shang was a famous general of the Eastern Han Dynasty, brave and good at fighting, but because of his bloodthirsty nature, he was severely reprimanded by Liu Xiu. He was not a good person in the first place."

"For an experienced veteran like Liu Shang, marching outside the territory was of course very cautious. After seeing through Chang Gui's plot, he immediately took the initiative and killed Chang Gui and his followers in anger, and moved all his family members to Chengdu. He also launched a bloodbath against the Qiong people."

"After suffering such a devastating blow, the Qiong people completely declined."

"The Han Dynasty was a time when China's territory expanded rapidly. Many ethnic minorities living in remote corners encountered similar situations to the Qiong people during that period, and then quickly joined the wave of ethnic integration. Therefore, I guess that some of them integrated into the Han nationality and became the indigenous people of Shuzhong, while the other part retained their traditional characteristics and migrated to more remote areas, perhaps evolving independently or integrating with other ethnic minorities to eventually form a new ethnic group."

"No matter what, after experiencing the turmoil in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the Qiong people no longer had the strength to build such a large stone tomb, and similar tombs have never appeared in southern China."

"Except for these relics, the Qiong people in the ethnological sense have disappeared in the long river of history."