For fear that his body would be exhumed, his followers built nine tombs at the same time and placed the body in one of them.

The legend of the general has been handed downed for thousands of years along the Gunhe River in Central China's Hubei Province.

And before the construction of the Xiaogan-Xiangfan Expressway last year, archaeologists made a survey along the planned route and noticed a ridge beside the river. It is called Jiuliandun (Ridge of the Nine in Succession).

On the 3-kilometre-long ridge in Dongzhaohu Village in the city of Zaoyang, they found nine tombs aligned from the south to north.

"The tombs were well preserved and of the largest among the 2,000-year-old tombs in Hubei," said Yin Weizhang, a member of the archaeological research institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Leading Chinese archaeologists gathered in September and started the excavation of the No 1 tomb at the southern end of the ridge in the heat wave.

The excavation, which ended on the eve of this year and led to the allegedly greatest archaeological find of 2002 in China, has been so dramatic that archaeologists were surfing on a wave of ecstasy and disappointment.

Initial harvest

Soon after the excavation kicked off, hopes began to surge as the ninth tomb was found 18 metres north of the No 1 tomb. The newest tomb, which was actually referred to as the No 2 tomb, was neglected in previous surveys as it did not have a tomb mound.

"The legend may be true," Yin said. "We were so lucky to find the No 2 tomb. The expressway under construction was to cut exactly across it."

A few days later, a 52-metre-long, 12-metre-wide cart pit was found to the west of tomb No 1. Unearthed were 33 bronze battle carts and bones of 72 horses.

"The cart pit has been the largest and best preserved one ever excavated in China," said Wang Hongxing, leader of the excavation team and director of the Hubei Provincial Archaeological Research Institute.

"In the pit was a battle chariot pulled by six horses. Only the emperor of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC) could use the kind of cart."

In another pit to the west of the No 2 tomb archaeologists found seven chariots.

With the largest cart pit and the emperor's cart, archaeologists and the public began to expect more dramatic findings.

"Archaeological findings made here may shock the world," said more than one member of the excavation team at the time, including Wang.

Archaeologists and historians, who swarmed to the small city of Zaoyang, agreed the tomb was built during the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), in which China was divided into seven major states - Qin, Yan, Zhao, Qi, Chu, Wei and Han.

Zaoyang then belonged to the Chu State. The state, with its capital in Jiangling, Hubei, was one of the strongest among the seven and covered almost the whole of southern China in its prime.

"The excavation of the Jiuliandun tombs is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for an archaeologist," Yin said.

"Nine out of 10 Chu tombs have been found empty so far, but the nine tombs here showed no sign of being broken in."

In early December, public enthusiasm for the Jiuliandun tombs was bubbling over as more than 80 musical instruments had been unearthed from the No 1 and No 2 tombs.

The instruments, including a set of bianzhong (bronze chimes), were of such a variety and so well preserved that they could still be used to give a concert, said Li Youping, a professor at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music in Hubei.

Li said the findings promoted research on ancient Chinese music, as an unearthed se, a 25-string plucked instrument similar to the zither, was the first complete one to ever be found.

Something missing

Despite the ecstasy of musicians, archaeologists and historians kept silent.

"There were no inscriptions on the bianzhong or any other bronze artifacts," Wang said.

"Bronze artifacts are valuable mostly because of the inscriptions on them which documented the history," Wang added, citing the example of the set of bronze chimes unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of the Marquis Zeng in Hubei's Suizhou.

The discovery of the chimes from the Zeng tomb - its burial year set at 433 BC - made headlines in major newspapers throughout the world not only because it was the most complete set, but because the 4,463 characters inscribed on the ancient bronzeware have helped to "rewrite the history of Chinese music," Wang said.

The judgment made by Guo Dewei, a researcher at the Wuhan Academy of Social Sciences, who led the excavation of the Zeng tomb, somewhat deflated the Jiuliandun find.

"It can't be the king," Guo said.

"The Zeng tomb had three sets of bianzhong and a set of bianqing (chime stones). They were the symbolic items for the status of a king then."

But hopes for Jiuliandun still lingered on since the coffin was untouched.

On December 23, when archaeologists finally opened the coffin in the 38-metre-long, 35-metre-wide No 1 tomb, television stations around the country broadcast the process live. People almost stopped breathing, waiting to see the priceless treasures covering the body.

But the event was a flop as the covers of the coffin were removed at 3:10 pm and the tomb owner, who had slept for 2,300 years, appeared.

He was about 1.75 metres tall. His scull and some carbonized bones were left.

Beside him was a sword in its sheath and archaeologists could not move it.

When the coffin was removed from the tomb, several bronze ding (ancient cooking vessels with two loop handles and three or four legs) and gui (round-mouthed food vessels with two or four loop handles) were seen.

No inscriptions were found on them.

"From the moment I started receiving calls from colleague archaeologists around the country they were asking, 'Why aren't there bamboo slips? There must be bamboo slips somewhere' and advised me to search the tomb again," Wang said. "But we did not find the slips anywhere in the No 1 tomb."

Bamboo slips were always considered the most important findings in Chu tombs, Wang explained. The slips in tombs and inscriptions on bronze artifacts are the only documents of Chinese history before the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC).

After reuniting the country, Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of the Qin, had all historical documents in the other states destroyed, except the works of ancient philosophers.

Despite uncovering 696 bronze and jade artifacts, archaeologists were greatly frustrated.

"The tomb is shabby if compared with the Zeng tomb," said Guo.

"The patterns on the bronze artifacts were crude. The tomb should have been built at the fall of the Chu State."

Guo supposed the tomb owner to be the general commander of the Chu army at around 300 BC and also a colleague of Qu Yuan (339-278 BC), the great poet and Chu statesman.

New ray of hope

Disappointed, the public paid little attention when archaeologists excavated the smaller No 2 tomb, where the general's wife was supposedly buried, the following day.

Unearthed was a set of wooden ritual items instead of the usually seen bronze ritual ware, which showed the shift in burial customs and also the financial difficulty at the fall of the state.

Then, just after noon on December 25, something appeared at the northwest corner of the No 2 tomb.

"The year's greatest archaeological finding has been made," claimed Wang, who could not control his emotions.

They were bamboo slips, more than 1,000 of them. About 30 centimetres long and half a centimetre wide, they were waterlogged.

The archaeologists put them into plastic bags upon excavation to prevent them from being dried out in the air.

Beside the slips was a 20-centimetre-long embroidered shoe with a shoe-pad.

Exhilarated historians and reporters flew from around the country to the site.

Some said the coffin of the No 2 tomb should be transported to the Hubei Provincial Museum in the provincial capital and opened there, but others objected for fear of possible damage in the transportation process.

After heated debate, on December 27 at 13:30 pm, archaeologists jumped into the tomb and pried open the coffin with a crowbar.

After an anxious wait of two hours, it was completely opened.

The red lacquer painted inside the coffin was shining and a carbonized skeleton appeared.

Although hopes were again high, no more valuable relics were found.

"Archaeology is a science that demands boring research. It's not an Aladdin story of treasure-seeking," Wang remarked at the time.

The answers to who were the tomb owners, what took place when the owners were buried and many other questions may be answered by the bamboo slips.

But it will take months before researchers are able to treat the water-logged bamboo slips and enable historians to read the writings.

For now, the secrets still belong to the tomb.

(China Daily January 10, 2003)