There are three ancient mysteries in western Hunan, the most famous of which is the art of sending corpses, also called corpse driving.
There are three conditions for a corpse exorcist to accept an apprentice: first, he must be bold; second, he must be ugly; and third, he must not marry for the rest of his life.
According to the local natives, the "corpse sending technique" is now called "driving away corpses", but in ancient times it was called "water driving technique".
The code word in the industry is "a bowl of water", because in the actual process of sending corpses, other The alchemy all depends on a bowl of water, and only two people must go together to be effective.
The two walked in tandem, with one corpse carrier holding a cloth banner in front and guiding the procession with alchemy; the other carried a bowl of water and walked at the end.
No matter how many corpses were sent on this trip, those corpses would always walk in the middle of the procession.
The corpse-carrying craftsman holds it from front to back.
The two corpse-carrying craftsmen are called "the one holding the flag" and the other "the one holding the water".
In this line, the person holding the water plays the most important role.
When walking for a certain distance, a spell must be added to the water bowl: "Open the heaven, make people live forever, three souls and seven souls, return to the spirit and return to the infant, three souls are on the left, seven souls are on the left On the right, listen quietly to God's orders, and detect ominous things.
No one sees you when walking, no one knows when you sit, and the urgency is like a law."
This talisman must be the "Chenzhou Talisman" from Xiangxi.
If it is replaced by another Taoist talisman, it will be completely different. doesn't work.
As long as the water bowl in the hand holding the water is not spilled and broken, the body will not fall over.
During the process of delivering the body, the dead body is no different from the living person, but it cannot be spoken, and its walking posture is only slightly different from that of the living person.
It completely follows the person holding the flag.
The person holding the flag will follow the dead person, and the person holding the flag will stop the dead person.
Also stop.
This kind of corpse-delivery team was so common in the Xiangxi area in the late Ming Dynasty.
There is a Hunan proverb: "Three people stay in the hotel, and two people eat."
This refers to the corpse carriers.
The day before the corpse team is about to arrive at the deceased's hometown, the deceased will entrust a dream to his family, and the family will immediately pack up the coffin and prepare it.
As soon as the corpse arrives home, it will stand in front of the coffin.
The water bearer will pour the water on it, and the corpse will be immediately poured into the coffin.
At this time, it is necessary to bury the deceased quickly, otherwise the corpse will immediately change and show a state of decay. , if it has been dead for a month, the degree of decomposition of a normal person after one month of death will immediately appear.
However, this "bowl of water" was an activity in the early years.
By the time of Qianlong, it had gradually been lost.
Therefore, most people who knew about it knew about it but didn't know why.
The reason for the loss is probably that it is too secretive.
There are fewer and fewer people who know this secret technique, and the most knowledgeable people only know this roughly.
Later, during the troubled times of the late Qing Dynasty, many people, in order to seek huge profits, trafficked opium produced in Guizhou to Hunan, and then came up with the idea of walking corpses to deliver water.
They took advantage of the people's fear of sending corpses and used them as a cover to spread smoke, soil and arms.
Although sending corpses was used as a cover, they still tried their best to send the deceased back to their hometown, but they only made it more mysterious in order to deceive others
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