Read Online The Emperor's Tomb by Steve Berry - Free Book Online
Authors: Steve Berry
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense fiction, Antiquarian booksellers, china, Kidnapping, Pakistan, Denmark, ransom, Malone; Cotton (Fictitious character), Booksellers and bookselling
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politics for nearly 3,000 years. Every emperor had been labeled one or the other. Mao had claimed to eliminate the dichotomy, insisting that the People's Revolution was not about labels, yet nothing really changed. The Party, like emperors before it, preached Confucian humanity while wielding the unrelenting power of a Legalist.
Labels.
They were problematic.
But they could also prove useful.
He hoped the next few minutes might help decide which end of that spectrum would factor into his coming battle with Ni Yong.
He stepped through the makeshift portal.
The dank room beyond had been dug from the earth and sealed centuries ago with clay and stone. Artificial lights had been brought in to illuminate the roughly five-meter-square chamber. The silence, decrepitude, and layers of soot made him feel like an interloper trespassing in a grave of things long dead.
"It is remarkable," the man inside said to him.
Tang required a proper assessment and this wiry and short-jawed academician could be trusted to provide just that.
Three stone tables dusted with thick layers of dirt supported what looked like brittle, brown leaves stacked on top of one another.
He knew what they were.
A treasure trove of silk sheets, each bearing barely discernible characters and drawings.
In other piles lay strips of bamboo, bound together, columns of letters lining each one. Paper had not existed when these thoughts had been memorialized--and China never used papyrus, only silk and wood, which proved fortuitous since both lasted for centuries.
"Is it Qin Shi's lost library?" Tang asked.
The other man nodded. "I would say so. There are hundreds of manuscripts. They deal with everything. Philosophy, politics, medicine, astronomy, engineering, military strategy, mathematics, cartography, music, even archery and horsemanship. This could well be the greatest concentration of firsthand knowledge ever found on the First Emperor's time."
He knew what that claim meant. In 1975 more than a thousand Qin dynasty bamboo strips had been discovered. Historians had proclaimed those the greatest find, but later examinations had cast doubt on their authenticity. Eventually, it was determined that most of them came from a time after Qin Shi, when later dynasties refashioned reality. This cache, though, had lain for centuries within a kilometer of the First Emperor's tomb, part of his grand mausoleum, guarded by his eternal army.
"The amazing thing is I can read them," his expert said.
Tang knew the importance of that ability. The fall of a ruling dynasty was always regarded as a withdrawal of Heaven's mandate. To avoid any curse, each new dynasty became critical of the one before. So complete was the subsequent purge that the system of writing would even be altered, making any later deciphering of what came before that much more difficult. Only in the past few decades had scholars, like the expert with him tonight, learned to read those lost scripts.
"Are they here?" Tang asked.
"Let me show you what I found."
The expert lifted one of the fragile silks.
Wisps of dust swirled in the air like angry ghosts.
Qin Shi himself had assured that none of the writings from his time would survive his reign when he ordered all manuscripts, except those dealing with medicine, agriculture, or divination be burned. The idea was to "make the people ignorant," and prevent the "use of the past to discredit the present." Only the emperor would be trusted to have a library, and knowledge would be an imperial monopoly. Scholars who challenged that decree were executed. Particularly, any- and everything written by Confucius was subject to immediate destruction, since those teachings directly contradicted the First Emperor's philosophy.
"Listen to this," his expert said. "Long ago Confucius died and the subtle words were lost. His seventy disciples perished and the great truth was perverted. Therefore the Annals split into five versions, the Odes into four, and the Changes
Labels.
They were problematic.
But they could also prove useful.
He hoped the next few minutes might help decide which end of that spectrum would factor into his coming battle with Ni Yong.
He stepped through the makeshift portal.
The dank room beyond had been dug from the earth and sealed centuries ago with clay and stone. Artificial lights had been brought in to illuminate the roughly five-meter-square chamber. The silence, decrepitude, and layers of soot made him feel like an interloper trespassing in a grave of things long dead.
"It is remarkable," the man inside said to him.
Tang required a proper assessment and this wiry and short-jawed academician could be trusted to provide just that.
Three stone tables dusted with thick layers of dirt supported what looked like brittle, brown leaves stacked on top of one another.
He knew what they were.
A treasure trove of silk sheets, each bearing barely discernible characters and drawings.
In other piles lay strips of bamboo, bound together, columns of letters lining each one. Paper had not existed when these thoughts had been memorialized--and China never used papyrus, only silk and wood, which proved fortuitous since both lasted for centuries.
"Is it Qin Shi's lost library?" Tang asked.
The other man nodded. "I would say so. There are hundreds of manuscripts. They deal with everything. Philosophy, politics, medicine, astronomy, engineering, military strategy, mathematics, cartography, music, even archery and horsemanship. This could well be the greatest concentration of firsthand knowledge ever found on the First Emperor's time."
He knew what that claim meant. In 1975 more than a thousand Qin dynasty bamboo strips had been discovered. Historians had proclaimed those the greatest find, but later examinations had cast doubt on their authenticity. Eventually, it was determined that most of them came from a time after Qin Shi, when later dynasties refashioned reality. This cache, though, had lain for centuries within a kilometer of the First Emperor's tomb, part of his grand mausoleum, guarded by his eternal army.
"The amazing thing is I can read them," his expert said.
Tang knew the importance of that ability. The fall of a ruling dynasty was always regarded as a withdrawal of Heaven's mandate. To avoid any curse, each new dynasty became critical of the one before. So complete was the subsequent purge that the system of writing would even be altered, making any later deciphering of what came before that much more difficult. Only in the past few decades had scholars, like the expert with him tonight, learned to read those lost scripts.
"Are they here?" Tang asked.
"Let me show you what I found."
The expert lifted one of the fragile silks.
Wisps of dust swirled in the air like angry ghosts.
Qin Shi himself had assured that none of the writings from his time would survive his reign when he ordered all manuscripts, except those dealing with medicine, agriculture, or divination be burned. The idea was to "make the people ignorant," and prevent the "use of the past to discredit the present." Only the emperor would be trusted to have a library, and knowledge would be an imperial monopoly. Scholars who challenged that decree were executed. Particularly, any- and everything written by Confucius was subject to immediate destruction, since those teachings directly contradicted the First Emperor's philosophy.
"Listen to this," his expert said. "Long ago Confucius died and the subtle words were lost. His seventy disciples perished and the great truth was perverted. Therefore the Annals split into five versions, the Odes into four, and the Changes
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