#497 - Chapter 497 Contradiction
"All of this is made up by later generations. The hundreds of thousands of prisoners who were responsible for building the underground palace at the time were all sealed inside. Who really knows what the situation was like inside?" Old Qin shook his head.
"What exactly is it like inside?" Dongfang Chen didn't give up, wanting to find loopholes in his words.
"The underground palace collapsed a long time ago due to its age. After 5 years of secret hard work, the older generation of archaeologists finally restored its original appearance. In reality, there's nothing mysterious about it. The entire underground tomb is a conical structure, narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. The Emperor's coffin is at the very bottom, with a tunnel leading to the outside. Above that are multiple burial chambers connected by spiraling tunnels, which probably had different functions. Unfortunately, because all the burial goods were stolen, it's impossible to know what those burial chambers were specifically used for." Old Qin gave a simple introduction.
"Old Qin, don't try to fool me. Seventy thousand people sealed in a tunnel, how wide would that tunnel have to be?" Dongfang Chen retorted.
The number seventy thousand comes from the records in 'Historical Records'.
"Why would I lie to you? A huge number of skeletal remains and a large number of arrows were indeed found at the tunnel exit," Old Qin added.
"Old Qin, then tell me, what exactly were those terracotta warriors used for? And, are there any similar terracotta warriors in the Emperor Qin's mausoleum?" Dongfang Chen asked.
"What? Didn't you learn about this when you were in school? Aren't those terracotta warriors Emperor Qin's burial objects? Everyone in Hua Nation knows that! I also said just now that there are indeed some broken terracotta figures in the imperial mausoleum, but not many. Judging from their shapes, they are all inner court officials and maids," Old Qin explained.
It sounded like there were no problems.
"Old Qin, it's not that I don't believe you, it's just that there are too many loopholes in your words."
"Let's start with these terracotta figures. Are they burial objects? I don't think so, right? The Records of the Grand Historian recorded the process of Emperor Qin's burial, and there was no mention of these terracotta figures at all. If Emperor Qin used terracotta figures instead of human sacrifices, it would be a ground-breaking move, wouldn't it deserve a significant mention in the Records of the Grand Historian?"
"Furthermore, you just admitted that hundreds of thousands of people were buried in the imperial mausoleum. That's hundreds of thousands of people! You say this is terracotta figure burial instead of human sacrifice? Isn't that a contradiction?"
"We all know that Sima Qian would rather suffer castration than complete this epoch-making work, which shows his firm will and rigorous writing. First, Emperor Qin was buried, and then Xiang Yu excavated the tomb. For him, these were only events that happened decades ago. Wouldn't he know anything about it?"
"Moreover, these people are not his relatives, and there is no need for him to cover up for them! So what does this mean?" Dongfang Chen said what he thought.
"What does it mean?" Old Qin glared at him.
"It means that these terracotta figures are not burial objects at all, and it's even very possible that they were not buried at the same time," Dongfang Chen said his deduction.
"Why are you so sure?" Old Qin retorted.
"Because these terracotta figures are not in the tomb at all," Dongfang Chen said.
"Nonsense! Alright, I've said what I needed to say, you can leave now!" Old Qin didn't want to continue talking.
This is also because Dongfang Chen is now independent in form. If it were someone else, Old Qin probably wouldn't waste so much saliva.
"The burial has been completed. Some say that the craftsmen knew the mechanisms, and if they knew too much, they would leak the secrets. After the major event was completed, the burial was done, the middle gate was closed, the outer gate was lowered, and all the craftsmen who knew the secrets were sealed inside, never to come out again. Trees and plants were planted to resemble mountains," Dongfang Chen recited a passage from the Biography of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.
"What are you talking about?" Old Qin stared at him.
"Old Qin, these seven hundred thousand craftsmen were locked outside the underground palace, am I right in understanding it this way?" Dongfang Chen asked inexplicably.
"That's right," Old Qin nodded.
"Do you know how much space it would take for more than 700,000 people to stand together? Let me calculate it for you."
"According to the situation where one person standing occupies an area of 0.25 square meters, 700,000 people can fill 175,000 square meters of land. What kind of concept is this?" Dongfang Chen looked at him.
"What kind of concept?" Old Qin still didn't understand what he meant.
"This is equivalent to a square with a side length of 420 meters, while the main part of the imperial mausoleum in front of us is only a square with a side length of 370 meters," Dongfang Chen explained.
"And then?" Old Qin asked.
"May I ask Old Qin, how much area did the skeletal remains at the tunnel exit that you mentioned occupy?" Dongfang Chen stared at him and asked.
"This... You must be calculating it wrong. People can overlap, how could they occupy so much area?" Old Qin retorted.
"I said just now that these people were locked inside, not killed and then put in, so naturally they couldn't overlap," Dongfang Chen shook his head, disagreeing with his point of view.
