How did Zhao Gao deceive the world and send the dead Qin Shihuang back to Xianyang?

For this, "Three Historical Records of Jia Zhu" has recorded it for a long time, and the method is simple: cover up the bad smell with 60 Jin of abalone.

The Death of the First Emperor and Abalone and Salted Fish

In July of 2 10 BC, Qin Shihuang died in a sand dune (now Guangzong Dapingtai Village, Xingtai City, Hebei Province) and was not buried in Lishan until September. For two months, Zhao Gao, Prime Minister Reese, and Hu Hai II used a stone of abalone to cover up the stench of the corpse. July is August and September in the solar calendar, and the weather is still hot.

In this way, the body is really easy to collapse. In ancient times, a stone was about 158 kg in the Sui Dynasty, and it was about 6 1 kg before the Sui Dynasty (some people mentioned that the annotation was 120 kg, which was also the kg at that time, and the 6 1 kg mentioned in this article refers to today's kg).

There are two questions to explain:

First, there are two versions of abalone, one is the abalone we eat now, and the other is a kind of salted fish.

I prefer salted fish. I agree with the second statement, mainly because it was not easy to salvage abalone at that time. If you can enter the restaurant, its output seems to be too high. In the spring and autumn period, there was a saying that "I haven't heard about it for a long time", which shows that the Abalone Pavilion is not a special place. So, when are abalone all over the street now?

"Interpretation of Names and Diet" says: "Abalone, abalone, rot, and burial makes rot." That is, it is Bao who is greedy.

Second: 60 Jin of abalone is put on the car of the first emperor or the cars of ministers.

The original text of "Historical Records" is "It will be summer, and the car stinks. It is an official order to carry a stone abalone into the car and make it stink. " There are two views to interpret this sentence. One is 60 Jin of salted fish on Qin Shihuang's car; Both of them are equipped with 60 Jin of salted fish per car.

I agree with the second case. Putting a lot of salted fish in the emperor's car belongs to shattered glass's method. Zhao Gao and Hu Hai came up with such a low-level idea. Will Reese come up with such a low-level means? So it makes sense to put it on the bus, because it is related to people's thoughts at that time.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, martial arts prevailed, and letting go of death was "passing on disaster"

Many people, including the accompanying officials, knew that Qin Shihuang was ill. Putting salted fish is a way of "spreading disease", that is, the emperor hates "death" and hopes to pass "disaster" on to his ministers. In feudal society, officials didn't feel angry even if they knew, and some people felt honored.

As a result, people will not doubt that ministers should report their work to stinking corpses every day.

The method of "spreading disease" is called "secret wish", which was abolished during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty. Even so, it still exists in the royal family of the Western Han Dynasty. During the Warring States and the Qin Dynasty, this became a means for the king to save his life.

Zuo Zhuan recorded such a case:

In 5 16 BC, King Zhao of Chu began to succeed to the throne. In 489 BC 10, Zhao Haoqi fell ill in the army, and the red clouds in the sky flew around the sun like birds for three days. Zhao Haoqi prayed for good luck or bad luck. Grandmaster said: This harm to the monarch can be reported to the generals (Ling Yin and Sima). King Zhao of Chu thought: Your sons Yin and Sima are my brothers, and I don't want to cut off my brothers from getting sick. Finally, King Zhao of Chu died of illness.

In addition, "fish" also has a color of "witchcraft" from primitive society. Specifically, fish have the idea of exorcising evil spirits and scaring ghosts. But please note that this is the only effect of jade carving.

Then, live fish will bring diseases and disasters, and dead fish will have the idea of ward off evil spirits compared with live fish. Of course, this is within the "martial arts" system, and this method is also called "winning the war."

Finally, why did Zhao Gao, Hu Hai and Li Si cover up the news of Qin Shihuang's death?

Mainly to prevent the vassals from competing for the world, and to kill Fu Su and remove the influence of Meng Tian. There are both considerations for the country and ideas for self-strengthening.

At that time, Fu Su did not establish a prince, and Qin was denounced as a "land of barbarians" by the Central Plains countries, also because Qin had the tradition of "not standing for a long time". Therefore, the death of the first emperor will inevitably lead to chaos.

Who is most likely to succeed if an accident happens? Meng Tianjun and Fu Su's eldest son pose the greatest threat to Hu Hai. In this way, it will only be sent out in Xianyang, so that ministers have no time to consider who to follow, and set a world birthright, so that Hu Hai can use the power of the court to lay hands on his brothers, which is relatively easy.

It can be seen that the third son of Dujun was forced to commit suicide and the sixth son was killed. Another way of saying it is that twelve sons were killed in Xianyang, one was buried by Qin Shihuang, and ten princesses were killed in Duxian.

In a word, when Hu Hai succeeded to the throne and Wu Wen had no time to consider who to follow and mobilize the army, these sons and princesses were suddenly and quickly beheaded.