Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

I remember it was hot season at that time.

Some farmers found something unknown while digging a well.

So they asked me to go to Xi'an to take a look.

How are things progressing? Don't miss anything.

When I first saw it, I felt so excited.

And it was just the tip of the iceberg.

They called it the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The emperor's mausoleum

was a replica of the Qin capital city...

with two huge walls around the mound

and buildings covering tens of millions of square meters.

There are so many things buried underground.

Everything we find is so brilliant,

and so vivid.

The hand's exposed.

The head should be here.

But be careful when you work on this part.

The surface has a lot of folds so we may be able to preserve some color.

This is good.

He's smiling.

Seven, eight, nine, ten, 11.

We have 36 big pieces.

And if we include bits of armor and the nails for it,

that's nearly 400 pieces for one warrior.

That's a lot of pieces.

I often think I'm a relic doctor,

accompanying them and treating them until they come back to life.

Generally speaking, this warrior is relatively complete.

Only his footboard is missing.

When it comes out, we can start to restore him.

The ultimate goal is to stand him up

and get him back to his army.

When you go deep into the work,

sometimes you forget everything.

Our eyes are searching,

trying to distinguish the differences with others we've seen before.

The soil looks wet. It's colored.

That's red fired earth.

Fired earth? Yes.

And wood charcoal.

It's been burnt.

Only when the fires were very strong and burned for a very long time

would the soil turn red.

The broken pieces were the result of a collapse.

But this was man-made destruction.

The terracotta warriors were burned in a fire.

Who set the fire?

That is the question.

Let's measure the length and the width.

Length? 100.

The width is 95.

Ninety-five? Yes.

And the hole?

10.6.

This is the widest gate ever found in China.

After he proclaimed himself emperor, the site was constantly extended.

It was a national project.

They were gathering the whole empire to focus on one thing.

Be careful.

Careful.

Lift it up.

Keep up. Keep up.

Move quickly! Keep up. Keep up.

What are you looking at? Move!

Have you tied it well?

The eyebrow can be slightly higher.

The eye is the key part.

Pay attention to the area above the mouth.

I've worked in restoration for 25 years.

And it's rare to see one warrior still completely colored.

This is the head of a warrior which we've recently excavated.

It belongs to a senior army officer.

When the warriors were first made, they were all colored.

But because they've been buried for over 2,000 years,

and because of the movement of the soil,

the colors on their surface usually fall off when they're excavated.

But this piece was buried in the very bottom,

so it was better preserved.

When I look into their eyes and their facial expressions,

it's like they're alive.

They're an incarnation of the Qin people, as well as an epitome of the Qin army.

Quick.

You!

Go find Si Li!

You!

Go find Hu Hai!

Teacher.

The emperor is dead.

All he has left is this letter for his eldest son,

designating him as heir.

If this letter is delivered,

he will be enthroned as emperor.

And you will be left with nothing.

So, what should be done with it?

That should be obvious!

If our father has left orders, then what can we, as loyal subjects, presume to do?

Bid the chief minister to destroy this letter

and support your own worthy claim.

I will not hear this.

At the moment, the decision of who shall take control of the empire

lies with you, me, and the chief minister alone.

How can I consult the chief minister on such a matter?

Let me consult with him on your behalf.

The deed is done.

We can only resign ourselves to fate.

Come now.

Stop.

Quick! Hurry up!

Go, go!

In the northeast corner of the inner city of the mausoleum,

there are around 100 small tombs.

We excavated ten of them.

One of the tombs was wrecked.

But in the other nine, we found human bones.

The bones were so mixed up

that we couldn't tell one body from another.

They seemed to have been dismembered.

We also found pearls in the soil.

It was a very unexpected find.

Some pearls had traces of being gilded.

It was a high-level luxury accessory, beyond the reach of common people.

Based on this discovery,

we think they may be the first emperor's concubines.

There are many limb bones here.

These women are generally slender.

Also, they were not very tall.

They selected women with heights between 150 cm and 160 cm.

Their weight was also controlled within a range.

The Shiji says these women were ordered to die.

But there is no mention of how they died.

Do you think this hole is from a chopping injury?

Or something else?

It doesn't look like that. It's not neat.

They may have been killed and then dismembered after.

Or they may actually have been hacked to death.

If they used weapons made of bronze or iron,

it would leave a clean cut.

This injury was definitely caused after death.

It had nothing to do with how she died.

If they were dismembered after death,

it would have been at the joints, where it's easier to cut through,

especially when someone does it for a living.

It appears they were dismembered. That's right.

But their bodies were in one piece when they died.

We still don't know how the concubines died,

but these women did not die of natural causes.

And however they were killed... it was very cruel.

During our exploration,

we've found a lot of burial pits.

The people in them seem to have been murdered

and mutilated

at young ages.

In Shangjiao village,

we found 17 small tombs

and excavated eight of them.

I think the youngest one was only 18 years old,

and the oldest one was 30.

As for who killed them?

We don't know.

We think they were the graves

of the sons and daughters of the first emperor.

Prince Jianglu,

I am placing you and your brothers under arrest.

On what charge?

Disloyalty to the throne?

This is an outrage!

I demand to see my brother.

His Majesty's orders to me were very clear.

"No loose ends."

I must see His Majesty.

Your Highness.

What news?

All your father's ministers have been purged.

They move fast.

The worst is to come.

Yesterday, at the market in Xianyang,

12 of your brothers were executed.

And your sisters...

they were torn to pieces.

You must flee, Your Highness. Take your family and leave.

Your Highness.

I have committed no crime.

I have committed no crime!

The opportunity to excavate this tomb

is completely unprecedented.

So it's the only opportunity.

Every time I go down, I still feel amazed.

The tomb was so precisely built.

So deep, so large in scale!

Most ancient tombs have been robbed,

so we didn't have much hope for the coffin chamber.

But it turned out it hadn't been robbed.

We were amazed!

The coffin is badly decayed, but the tomb owner is still in there.

And lots of weapons were unearthed, including armor, crossbows, and swords.

This is a jade disc. There is a circle outside, and a frame.

There is a thin pattern as well.

Its outer ring. Yes. In the middle part.

It's a geometric pattern as a whole.

The jade piece was an ornament on a scabbard.

From this, we can judge

that the tomb owner might have a royal status.

It is rather finely decorated.

Take it out and have a look.

This is from the late Warring States period.

Yes.

They couldn't be cast as late as the Han Dynasty.

It must have been cast earlier.

How many pieces have been unearthed?

It's about 5,000 to 6,000. Five thousand to 6,000 pieces?

Let's take a look at this crossbow.

It's smaller than the ones from the Terracotta Warriors Pit.

And it has a casing.

Crossbows with trigger casings were very rare at that time.

After the first emperor died,

his sons all came to a bad end.

So I'm still more inclined to believe that this tomb

belongs to a high-ranking nobleman or army chief.

Originally, we wanted to investigate the coffin in place.

Be careful of that wood.

But there's a big temperature difference between winter and summer.

If we clean it on site,

the drastic change in temperature and humidity

might have a big impact on the excavated relics and remains.

So we want to pack it first and take it indoors for the investigation.

Look at the objects on the pillar there.

We need something to protect them.

The steel plates can be put in one by one.

We can operate from here or from the other side.

Yes, both sides will work.

We need to lay tracks up the passage.

Then use a crane with a 50 to 100-ton capacity to pull it up.

The problem is it's uneven and bumpy here, so it'll be difficult to load.

This is a huge archaeological challenge.

I'm sure we will solve all these problems.

We think there was a tower. I want to know how it was destroyed.

That's what I care about most.

We just found some broken tiles.

One of them has characters on it.

That seems to be "Shui."

It's "Zuo Shui."

I think Zuo Shui was a manufacturer in the Qin dynasty.

It could be part of the tower.

In Pit One and Pit Two of the Warriors,

there is clear evidence of man-made damage.

But there is no direct evidence to prove it was all done at the same time.

Rise.

Then call up forces from the nearby districts and kill them.

Your Majesty, the bandits are already close by and great in number.

There is no time to call up forces from the nearby districts.

Are you saying we are powerless to stop them?

Have you lost your tongues?

Your Majesty, there are many convict laborers at Mount Li.

Might I humbly suggest that they be pressed into Your Majesty's service

and used for an attack.

Do so with all haste.

And do not disturb me in my pleasure until it's done.

By order of His Imperial Majesty,

all men over the age of 15 must take up arms and fight.

Why should we fight? What business is this war of ours?

Silence! Hold on!

Any convicted man that fights for His Majesty will be issued a pardon.

Let's check if there's an inscription.

You can see it right on this spot.

The inscription is clear.

Prepare the attack. Prepare the attack!

Put out the fires! Get in line! Put out the fires!

Move it!

Send the horses to scatter them.

We'll cut them down as they flee.

Attack!

Hold!

Hold your positions!

Hold your positions!

Now! Attack!

This is very interesting.

It has marks showing it has been cut and smashed.

When we excavated this pit, the whole site was found to be severely damaged.

During our work, many pits were discovered

due to the important clue of red, burnt soil,

including the Pit of Bronze Birds

and the Acrobat Pit.

If we put these burnings together,

and consider it as a whole...

...it can't have been done by a few dozen people.

It would have taken hundreds, or even thousands of people, to do this damage.

But who did it?

Just over here.

It's not easy to walk in this suit.

Be careful.

It's right here, look. Let's take this as a sample.

It's part of the skull.

The skull was not complete.

Only a small part was preserved.

We also found limb bones in poor condition.

This is the top of the femur.

Here is the hip bone.

Over there is shin bone.

So the head is here. The body is this side.

The head is in the south. That's right.

And the feet are pointing north.

Look at the top of the femur.

The bone was quite thick.

So it's more likely to be a male.

Let's take a sample of this.

We took a section of the femur.

We want to find out if the tomb owner was a family member of the first emperor

or a high-ranking statesman who had no blood relationship.

Your Majesty, I'm here to inform you

that your time as emperor is at an end.

If I am no longer to be emperor,

tell Zhao Gao

all I ask is to be king of one county, and I won't stand in his way.

Zhao Gao will shortly install a new emperor.

We have no use for kings.

A marquis, then!

The hour for daydreams is long past.

I ask for nothing then, but to live quietly as a commoner.

I have my orders.

And Your Majesty knows very well there can be no loose ends.

I put you on the throne. How dare you keep me waiting?

Who are you to disobey my orders?

Who?

Zhao Gao!

Who are you?

Our preliminary evaluation

suggests that it should be a male.

But we would like to do a DNA test to find out more about him.

We have to take very small parts of the bones...

and send them away to be tested.

We also found a tooth.

It was the owner's premolar.

You can see the development of the tooth, and it has no enamel defects.

It indicates that, during their life, they had sufficient nutrition.

There is no dentin exposure,

so it should be a young person.

The age of this person must be between 18 and 22.

So he was a young man.

You must flee, Your Highness.

Take your family and leave.

I should have followed the former emperor in death.

But I failed to do so.

As a son, I have been disloyal.

As a subject, I have been disloyal.

And one who acts disloyally wins no fame in this world.

I ask leave to follow the former emperor in death.

My only request is to be buried in the mausoleum at the foot of Mount Li.

I can but hope that the emperor will take pity and grant my request.

I will pass on your request to the emperor

and bid him give this matter his full attention at his earliest convenience.

Given the tomb owner was young,

it's certainly possible that it might be Prince Gao.

But we can't say that for sure based on this.

So we need to get it safely to the lab to complete our work.

It's safe. Go. Go, it's safe. Go.

We must get it done within an hour.

Pull.

Stop pulling. Stop!

The wheels are stuck now.

The steel track is bent, but it's going to be okay.

Go on. Go on. Go on.

Is it raining outside? It's raining!

Get the plastic to cover it!

Stop pulling. Stop!

How do I feel? I feel very happy indeed.

We have completed such a big project.

We hope that we can find a seal or similar artifacts

that can prove the identity of the tomb owner conclusively.

We have a lot of faith in it.

It's done.

See the red soil?

I think this building was destroyed by a fire soon after it was built.

Across the whole Qin mausoleum, there are traces of burning.

We are not sure when the traces were left.

But what we can confirm is that the damage in the warrior pits happened early,

before the wood there had decayed.

That's wood charcoal.

When we excavated the east gate, the situation was the same.

It's been burned. Yes, exactly.

And on these buildings, we found the same traces of burning too.

So all this destruction seems to have happened

at around the same time in the late Qin dynasty.

In my opinion, the theft,

destruction, and burning down of the mausoleum

should be attributed to this rebel army.

They had the numbers and the power, and they had opportunity and time.

It's likely some of the soldiers

had been convicts forced to work on the construction.

So they would have remembered where things were buried.

Hey, they're down here!

It was revenge.

This is his footboard.

My whole life has been dedicated to archaeology.

It's been 48 or 49 years now.

Making the warriors known to the world

was a task that fell on our shoulders.

It was an honor for us.

The warriors are my dearest friends.

When they are loved by people all over the world,

it makes me very happy.

It was difficult at times,

but in the greatest hardship, we find the greatest joy.

Just as flowers watered by perspiration are the most beautiful...

the terracotta warriors

gave us the greatest happiness.