The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

Looking at the hand that stretched down from the ground, Xing hesitated. It was clearly not one of their group, but the attackers.

The voice was a little impatient: "If you don't come up, I will seal the tomb and let you accompany the dead in it forever..."

As he said that, the hand was about to be pulled back.

"I'll go, I'll go!"

Xing took a look at the dead man's hand bones that he had crushed on the ground and made a decision. He didn't want to continue to accompany the corpse in the gloomy tomb. After all, the person above was still a human being.

He jumped up quickly, grabbed the man's hand, and then felt that he was pulled up by a huge force...

After Xing was pulled out of the coffin room, before he could take a breath and feel lucky to have come out alive, he was shocked by the scene in front of him.

Under the moonlight, the ground was a mess.

The man who pulled him up was a black man wearing leather armor, a red cap, holding a bloody sword, and looking him up and down.

In addition, there were two others, a young man looking for scattered arrows on the ground; a thin guard wearing armor and holding a spear, looking at several tomb robbers, with a stern face, as if someone owed him money.

Xing's accomplices totaled five people. Except for one lying on the ground with blood on his chest and motionless, the other four, including their leader Chang, were tied up. And everyone was injured, either with an arrow in the leg or a sword in the back...

Before Xing could figure out what was going on, he was immediately twisted by someone!

"It turned out to be a little thief. Hey, you scared Nai Gong just now."

The one who pressed him down was the "ghost" with flying hair on his face just now. He was not wearing armor, and had two hand halberds on his waist. He found a rope to tie Xing up.

The black man on the side said, "It's just a little boy, Leopard, don't hurt him."

"I know, I know."

It turned out that the four people who suddenly attacked the tomb robbers were Heifu and others from Huyang Pavilion!

An hour ago, after they left the pavilion, they walked southwest according to the location described by Gongshi Quji.

Before arriving at Chaoyangli, they carefully extinguished the torches and then quietly moved towards the wilderness. Fortunately, the weather was good. The moon in the middle of the twelfth lunar month was about to be full, shining in all directions, enough for them to distinguish the direction and identify the way forward.

When they came to this vicinity, it was even easier, because the torches lit by the tomb robbers exposed their position from a distance.

After Heifu gave an order, everyone slowed down and moved quietly. It happened that the tomb robbers were busy moving the objects in the tomb and were on guard, so Heifu signaled Xiao Tao to draw his bow and shoot an arrow, and one arrow hit the sentry thief! The other three also rushed forward!

The thieves reacted quickly, picking up weapons on the ground to resist, especially the red-faced thief wearing a dead man's robe, who immediately picked up the crossbow in his hand and aimed at Heifu!

After the hanging knife sounded, the crossbow arrow broke through the air. Heifu only felt that the wooden shield he was holding was hit by a huge force and almost broke...

"Fortunately, I brought my armor and shield."

After seeing the power of the crossbow machine, Heifu was very lucky. His arm was numb, so he simply abandoned the shield, stepped forward with his left hand raised, and stabbed at Chang with a sword, making him unable to fire the crossbow again.

When Chang retreated and wanted to change weapons, Heifu kicked him to the ground with a flying kick and pressed his sword against his throat.

The others saw the leader fall down, and after a little resistance, they chose to escape.

But the fastest runner was hit in the back by Dongmen Bao's halberd, and fell to the ground and died...

The other three thieves were so scared that they could only kneel down and beg for mercy after being stopped by Xiao Tao's bow and arrow and Li Xian's spear.

In this way, in less than half a minute, Hei Fu and his men captured all the tomb robbers, with only Dongmen Bao slightly injured.

"Among these people, except for the red-faced thief who led the group, none of them had any training, otherwise it would not be so easy."

Hei Fu breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the blood off the sword, and put it back into the sheath. In the final analysis, tomb robbers are tomb robbers, with different specialties, and they are far less fierce than bandits who kill and rob.

In this way, they have caught the thieves with evidence and harvested a lot. Hei Fu has already started counting the number of thieves and looking forward to the reward he can get...

"It was Hei Fu's command that made us attack by surprise, so it was so easy to succeed."

Dongmen Bao laughed and picked up the young man Xing like a chicken and threw him to his accomplice. Then he walked excitedly to the pile of lacquerware and bronzeware and looked at it with a torch.

"This is the first time I have seen so many good things." He couldn't help but touch the exquisite lacquerware.

"Bao, let me say it first, the stolen goods must be handed over to the government, don't have any crooked thoughts."

Hei Fu warned Dongmen Bao seriously and glanced at Li Xian at the same time.

Qin had strict requirements for officials. Not only was it a serious crime to take a penny, but it was also an unforgivable crime to keep the stolen goods.

If anyone here was greedy and stole the stolen goods, others would also be punished if they did not report it.

In fact, if Li Xian was not there, it would be fine for the three of them to hide some secretly, but now Li Xian was watching from the side. After the anonymous letter incident, although this person had been convinced by Hei Fu, Hei Fu did not completely trust him.

Li Xian did not know Hei Fu's dark thoughts. He asked Xiao Tao to watch the tomb robbers, and he walked over, picked up the three-legged tripod with a round mouth, two ears, and a surface covered with Kui patterns, and frowned to look at it.

The so-called tripod is a vessel used to cook large pieces of cold pork during the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn Period. By the Warring States Period, it had gradually become a ritual vessel, and civilians rarely used it. Only the nobles would put it out with the gui filled with rice during feasts and sacrifices to show their ancient lineage and noble status...

Generally speaking, according to the regulations in "Zhou Li", the emperor had nine tripods and eight gui, the princes had seven tripods and six gui, the officials had five tripods and four gui, and the scholars had three tripods and two gui.

However, in the Warring States Period, rituals and music were in decline, and even the Zhou Dynasty was wiped out by Qin. No one followed the old Zhou rituals. The kings of the Seven Kingdoms had already begun to use the emperor's chariot etiquette, and the feudal lords of various countries also regarded themselves as princes...

The tripod in front of him was a symbol of the noble status of the tomb owner.

In fact, in the eyes of Heifu, who was a commoner in his past and present lives, the so-called ritual vessels are just pots and pans, aren't they? The tripod for cooking white meat and the gui for millet rice. In the homes of ordinary people, they are just ordinary kitchen items, but in the homes of kings and nobles, they become high-end things?

Is the difference between the two determined by bloodline?

Heifu disagrees. As a modern person, he sneers at the theory of bloodline.

However, although people of this era had experienced the baptism of "prime ministers must rise from the state and the brave generals must rise from the ranks" in the Warring States Period, they still believed in the theory of bloodline. The descendants of the declining nobles held their heads high and looked down on anyone of low birth.

Even those civilian heroes, after they achieved success and fame, would rush to find an ancestor of noble bloodline for themselves. They might be the princes and sons of various places, or the nobles and officials of the declining families, as if they would not be able to prove the legitimacy of their success without doing so.

But in fact, this was an era where ability was more important than bloodline, especially in the Qin State, where princes and grandsons could not be granted fiefs and official titles without merit.

"Please, bring the torch closer..."

On the other side, Li Xian felt that he couldn't see the words clearly, so Dongmen Bao reluctantly walked over to help him light up. He also took a peek and saw that the back of the tripod was densely engraved with bronze characters, but it was very different from the Qin Dynasty's small seal characters...

"Can you recognize these weird characters?" Dongmen Bao was overwhelmed.

"I don't recognize all of them, but I know a few. My family was a doctor of Chu a few decades ago, so when we worshipped our ancestors, these Chu characters were also on the ancestral tablets..."

There was a hint of pride in Li Xian's words. He spit and wiped the dirt off the bronze tripod with his sleeves. After a closer look, his face changed drastically and he exclaimed!

"Oh!"

"What's wrong?" Hei Fu couldn't help but walk over and asked.

"This tripod is a ritual vessel used by the tomb owner during his lifetime. It is engraved with the reason for casting, his clan and official position."

Li Xian pointed at the bronze tripod with some excitement and said, "Captain, if I am not mistaken, this is the tomb of Ruo Ao! I never thought that the legend is true!"

Li Xian sighed while holding the bronze tripod, but Hei Fu looked confused when he heard it.

"Ruo Ao, what is that?"

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