There is a clear written record in Historical Records: "Xiang Yu led troops to slaughter Xianyang in the west and killed Wang Ziying; Burning Qin Gong, the fire will not go out in March. " Du Mu's famous poem "Epang Palace Fu" in the Tang Dynasty also wrote: "The six kings are finished, and the four seas are one. Lushan is upright, Afang is out ... The Chu people are on fire, poor and burnt. " These undoubtedly confirmed that Xiang Yu burned Epang Palace.
Epang Palace was built in 2 12 BC, located in Shanglinyuan, south of Weihe River. Today, it is located in the west of Xi, Shaanxi13km, across the Weihe River from Xianyang, Qin Dou. The Epang Palace project is huge, and the capital invested by Qin Shihuang is immeasurable. Legend has it that when Qin Shihuang lived in Handan as a child, he fell in love with a Handan woman named "Afang". When Emperor Qin wanted to make Afang queen after unifying the world, many ministers opposed it. Fang, born as Zhao's daughter, hanged herself in order not to embarrass Ying Zheng. Afang's death dealt a great blow to the Qin Dynasty. As emperor, he executed those ministers who opposed Fang's establishment. In order to commemorate the woman he loved deeply, Qin Shihuang began to build Epang Palace at great expense.
In fact, when Qin Shihuang was in power, he just built an anteroom. Although it is only an anteroom, the project of this anteroom is amazing. The chronicle of Qin Shihuang records that "the front hall of Afang Temple is 500 steps from east to west, 50 feet from north to south, and 10,000 people can sit on the ground, and a flag of 50 feet can be built under it". After the death of Qin Shihuang, Qin Ershi continued to build Hu Hai. Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in "A Fang Gong Fu": "Shu, A Fang went through the customs and traveled for more than 300 miles, isolated from the sun." This shows that the scale of Epang Palace is very grand.
In 2002, archaeologists in China established the Epang Palace Archaeological Task Force. They found the palace destroyed by fire among the ruins that have been dusty by loess for more than two thousand years. But as a result of the excavation, Epang Palace was not burned at all.
Sun Fuxi, deputy director of the xi Cultural Relics and Gardens Bureau and deputy head of the Qin Epang Palace Archaeological Team, said: Over the past year, archaeologists have explored an area of more than 200,000 square meters and excavated an area of 1000 square meters, but only a few pieces of braised soil have been found at the archaeological site. If a large area of fire burned for three months, braised soil should be everywhere. Besides stewing soil, there should be many plant ash in the burned site.
This fact of archaeologists proves that Xiang Yu, the overlord of the western Chu Dynasty, did not set fire to Epang Palace. So what happened to Xiang Yu's burning Epang Palace recorded in Historical Records? Let's look back at the records in Historical Records. "Xiang Yu troops massacre in Xianyang, killed Wang Ziying and burned Qin Gong. The fire will not go out in March. " According to the original historical records, Xiang Yu burned Qin Gong, which was the Xianyang Palace in Qin Gong at that time, not the Epang Palace of Qin Shihuang. The reason why later generations mistakenly thought Xiang Yu was completely misled by Du Mu's famous poem "Epang Palace Fu" in the Tang Dynasty.