Mountain collapse

  "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" begins by stating that the trend of the world is that unity must inevitably lead to division, and division must inevitably lead to unity.

  Lin Xiu, like many others at the time, was also probing into how much longer the shaky Qin Empire would last. While sending out a clone to inspect Hebei, another clone headed towards Guanzhong. The first stop on this trip was Lin Xiu's choice of the imperial capital, Xianyang. Disguised as a merchant selling silk from the east, he hired some assistants and horsemen in Luoyang, prepared several horse-drawn carriages, and headed west. Along the way, they joined other merchant groups, arriving at the Wuguan Pass outside the city. Lin Xiu did not want to reveal his extraordinary abilities, so he followed the crowd and handed over 200 wen of silver coins as the "official price" to a middleman, who gave it to the small head of the Qin army guarding the pass. This allowed him to avoid paying most of the taxes and smoothly enter Guanzhong.

  For thousands of years, the land of Guanzhong in the 800-mile Qin River basin has always been a prosperous place under the emperor's feet. Since the end of the Warring States period, this land has never been affected by war, and the days of the people of Guanzhong are still going well.

  Refugees and beggars can be seen everywhere in the provinces of Kanto and Hebei, but not a single one can be found in Guanzhong. The reason for this abnormal phenomenon is not that Guanzhong is so rich that there are no refugees or beggars, but rather that even if the local people live poorly, they can barely make ends meet. Those refugees from outside were blocked by the Qin army like wolves and tigers at Hangu Pass in the east, leaving them to fend for themselves.

  If it were someone who didn't know the inside story coming to observe, just looking at the situation in Guanzhong, he would definitely think that the Great Qin Empire was thriving day by day. However, this peaceful scene before his eyes seemed like a false illusion before the explosion of an arsenal to Lin Xu.

  Let's think about it, a country that loses face and is humiliated externally, and internally engages in extortionate exploitation. Clearly, the national policy has major problems, but instead of solving them, they just deceive themselves and others, playing the old bureaucratic tricks of corrupt officials from top to bottom, with all levels of officials determined to cover up and create a false impression of peace and prosperity.

  The law of cause and effect, the retribution is not pleasant. What you sow today, you will reap tomorrow. If things go on like this, it will only deepen social contradictions, and in the end, all contradictions will concentrate and explode, which is also inevitable.

  It's obvious that the accumulated grievances of the people will burst forth like a dam breaking. The seemingly peaceful and tranquil scenes before our eyes will inevitably be pierced like a steel needle popping a soap bubble, vanishing with a "pop".

  Xianyang was the capital of the Qin Empire for a thousand years, and had been painstakingly managed by dozens of emperors. The city did not experience any war damage during this period. Many buildings in Xianyang have a history dating back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, making it a huge treasure trove that gathered wealth from all over the world.

  The Xianyang city with a circumference of over 70 li, more than half of the area within the city was occupied by the imperial palace, and the remaining land was also taken up by quite a few nobles.

  The prosperous Chang'an city is like a brocade, and on the main street, if you casually throw down a brick, you're afraid that those who get hit are not ordinary people.

  In the past, when Emperor Shi Huangdi Zhao Zheng conquered the six nations of Guandong, he would rebuild a replica of each nation's palace in Xianyang to commemorate his victory.

  The emperors of the Great Qin dynasty followed their ancestors' hobbies, and after wiping out the Western Regions, they still drew pictures of those exotic palaces and rebuilt them in Xianyang. Therefore, Xianyang can be called a museum that combines the traditional wooden construction techniques of China. At this moment, Lin Xu walked slowly on the Zhuque Avenue, which could accommodate eight horse-drawn carriages side by side. He couldn't help but sigh deeply at these magnificent buildings. Soon, Lin Xu couldn't help but clench his fists and sigh, after the foreseeable disaster in the future, how many of these majestic, beautiful or exquisite buildings would be left?

  Apart from being a traveling merchant, Lin Xue walked around the imperial capital of Chang'an and arrived at the second stop in Guanzhong. He chose to visit the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang on Mount Li, which was an important place he had to see.

  A common saying goes: one's fate is determined by one's birth, two by one's luck, three by the Feng Shui of one's home, four by the accumulation of good deeds, and five by reading books.

  If you want to accurately judge how long the Qin Empire can last, the factor of ancestral tomb feng shui must be taken into account, so the burial of the First Emperor's Mausoleum on Mount Li is a place that needs to be studied seriously.

  In name, it was to visit the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, but ordinary people could not get close to the tomb. The area around Mount Li is heavily guarded by soldiers guarding the mausoleum of the First Emperor, and ordinary people are not allowed to approach the imperial tomb. It's not just ordinary commoners, even the royal family members of the current dynasty, the descendants of the Qin Empire, they can only get a little closer when following the emperor to offer sacrifices at the beginning of each season.

  Although Lin Xu had the ability to avoid those soldiers, he didn't want to stir up trouble at this moment, so he could only retreat and take a secondary approach, stopping his horse on a yellow earth mound ten miles away from Mount Li, gazing far into the distance at the magnificent and beautiful mausoleum complex that seemed like a mirage.

  "Good Nine Dragon Water Bureau."

  Lin Xu gazed at the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang for a long time and sincerely let out a sigh of admiration.

  The earth's energy is also known as dragon energy, this energy has a rather magical property, in simple terms, it disperses when encountering wind and stops when encountering water, this sentence is the theoretical foundation, so the Feng Shui practice of pointing at dragons is commonly called Feng Shui.

  The core idea of Feng Shui theory is indeed "mountains embracing water, hiding wind and gathering gas", but when it comes to specific cases, concrete analysis is still needed.

  Many of the wealthy and powerful figures before their death were not satisfied with this kind of "borrowed momentum" feng shui layout in normal circumstances, because not only was the speed of their descendants' success too slow, but also the blessings were not long enough. What they wanted was to "accumulate momentum", even to "seize momentum".

  "Accumulating momentum" refers to the use of human effort to cut off the normal flow of a location's energy, causing a specific location to receive more energy. "Plundering momentum", on the other hand, is doubly tyrannical and poisonous, with tags that harm others for personal gain stuck all over it from head to toe. In terms of implementation methods, it relies solely on devouring the surrounding energies, making one's own energy stand out and gain extraordinary benefits.

  The Feng Shui layout of the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was achieved at the cost of countless manpower, forcibly twisting the main vein of the Qinling Mountains to create an artificially manufactured grand Feng Shui pattern that would last for eternity. Unfortunately, human calculations are no match for heavenly ones, and as the centuries passed, the passage of time wore away and eroded the earth's veins, which naturally underwent changes.

  In the end, the natural law of the changing landscape is not something that can be controlled by human power. If an earthquake or landslide were to occur, this change would come even more quickly and violently, and such a drastic transformation as continental collision and fusion would have an earth-shaking impact on the ley lines. This is why no matter how ingenious and meticulous the original designer's plan was, it cannot withstand the overwhelming force of heaven and earth's drastic changes, which is the limit that human power cannot surpass.

  When Lin Xuhua transformed into a businessman and visited the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, this unprecedented "Nine Dragons Sucking Water Array" had long since quietly disappeared.

  Nowadays, what remains in the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is only a useless and grand temple building. The core part inside the mausoleum has been damaged and no longer serves any purpose. Perhaps to some extent, this superficial and hollow Feng Shui layout also reveals the ultimate fate of this ancient empire.

  The ancients once said: The benevolence of a gentleman can last for five generations. If we count from the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang's sixth generation descendant, Zhao Bing, who rose up in arms and swallowed up the six states of the Eastern Pass, the grand vision of the Great Qin Empire's dominance over the world has been passed down to this day, but it is almost at the edge of collapse.

  The majestic Xishan Mausoleum had become a symbol of external prosperity and internal decay, Lin Xu felt a mix of emotions as he shook his head and prepared to leave.

  In Lin Xu's view, since the Feng Shui of the Great Qin Empire had been thoroughly defeated, there was no need to continue watching. However, just as he thought so, the yellow earth beneath his feet suddenly shook violently. Lin Xu instinctively stretched out his hand and grabbed a nearby elm tree with a trunk as thick as a bowl, using it to steady himself. Before he could realize what had happened, the earthquake intensified rapidly, giving him a strong sense of vertigo, like being on a ship in the middle of the ocean, tossed high into the air by towering waves, only to free-fall back down, making his head spin and his brain feel dizzy.

  "Is it an earthquake?"

  After a while, Lin Xu couldn't help but start guessing the cause of the earthquake, but disasters don't wait for people, and this disaster was still unfolding.

  Rumble...

  At this moment, the magnificent hall that stood on top of the mausoleum, showcasing the great achievements of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, collapsed in an instant under the violent shaking and trembling of the earth, turning into a pile of rubble and broken walls.

  As the earth's tremors gradually subsided, Lin Xu stood up with a loud gasp, staring at the tomb covered with rubble, standing still as if in thought.

  In the detached palace in the north of Xianyang City, everything was as solemn and dignified as usual, but a sudden rapid footsteps broke the quiet atmosphere of the palace.

  An eunuch hastily ran to the gate of the palace where Emperor Qin Shi Huang was meditating, and with a "thud" he knelt down on the ground. He didn't even dare to lift his head as he said:

  "I report to Your Majesty, it's all over. The earth dragon has turned over. Both the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor and the White Deer Plain Mausoleum... have collapsed."

  The traditional Chinese culture emphasizes the importance of respecting heaven and following ancestors, where the so-called "worst evil" is lust and the "first virtue" is filial piety, which is not only advocated by Confucianism.

  For future generations, the ancestral tomb of one's own family is in trouble, which is a disaster that is more terrifying than burning down the house. Even if it is as dull as Qin eighty-fourth generation, he also knows that this matter is important. After listening to the eunuch's words, Emperor Qin eighty-fourth generation, who had just changed into a red-bottomed golden silk cassock, could no longer sit still.

  The emperor, almost frenzied, scrambled to his feet and glared at the eunuch who had brought the news, grabbing him by the front of his robe and demanding in a furious tone:

  "What did you say? My ancestral mausoleum has collapsed, hurry up and dispatch someone to inspect it immediately."

  At the first moment, the emperor sent an envoy to rush to the scene for investigation. Next, after calming down a bit, this mediocre and usually indifferent emperor couldn't help but lament that this year was a year of multiple disasters, while also secretly harboring a sense of unease that made his heart skip a beat.

  The Huns invaded the south, and righteous armies emerged everywhere. The north was withered, and floods, droughts, and locust plagues occurred continuously in various places, which can be said to be both natural disasters and man-made calamities all at once. To tell the truth, from Qin Shiba's point of view, these things were quite troublesome, but he didn't take them too seriously. The previous emperors were also mediocre and muddled, yet they still managed to live out their lives in peace. However, when Qin Shiba heard that the mausoleums of his ancestors, Emperor Zhao Zheng and Emperor Fu Su, had both encountered problems, he couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine, as if a cold wind was blowing from behind his neck, and his back broke out in goosebumps.