Rumors of China's Three Great Zombies

Today, let's talk about those zombie rumors that are engraved in folk memory and are becoming increasingly evil as they spread. This is not a scene that can be solved just by jumping around and sticking a yellow talisman in movies. Each scene carries a real era, location, and scalp tingling details, especially the 1872 incident in Pingxiang, Guangxi, where the government sealed off mountains and burned forests, resulting in heavy casualties. More than a hundred years later, when it comes to it again, it can still make people's necks feel cold. Today, I will slowly tell you about these three zombie rumors from beginning to end.

Let's start with the most reliable one - in July of the eleventh year of the Tongzhi reign in 1872, in Pingxiang Tuzhou, Taiping Prefecture, Guangxi, a village hidden in the deep mountains that was originally peaceful was completely shattered by a sudden death. The Yi tribe was the first to encounter the incident, and overnight, three lives were lost. No one saw the murderer, only deep lacerations on the neck of the deceased, blood all over as if it had been drained, the body as hard as a wooden board, with a pale face and wide open eyes. Its appearance was not something that could be cut by a knife or axe, nor could it be bitten by wild beasts in the mountains.

The people in the tribe blushed and insisted that it was the neighboring Zhuang tribe who did it. After all, the two tribes have always had festivals, so they rushed over with knives and sticks, fighting on both sides and injuring dozens of people. The government sent a constable to investigate the case, and after examining the body, he squatted on the ground for a long time without saying a word. In the end, he could only hold back one sentence: "This wound was not caused by humans." The case was stuck like this, but fear had just begun to spread. A few days later, the Zhuang tribe was also dead, the same as the Yi tribe. The neck was torn, the blood was dried and the body was stiff. The two ethnic groups were scared, and they did not dare to fight with weapons any more. Every night, every family beat the gong to keep watch, and the doors and windows were nailed to death. But what should have come could not be avoided.

On the 15th day of July that year, Zhongyuan Festival Festival, people said that the gate of ghosts was open and ghosts wandered around. No one expected that this day would become a catastrophic disaster for the village. That night, the moon was gray and even the stars were nowhere to be seen. The constable was patrolling the village with wizards and village elders. As soon as they arrived at the village entrance, they heard a low growl coming from the mountains and forests. The sound was not like a wolf howl or a human scream, but rather an indescribable coldness. Immediately afterwards, a group of stiff and pale faced things stumbled out of the mountains, broke open fences, kicked door panels, and rushed into the village like crazy.

They don't grab things, don't speak, and have only one goal in their eyes - to pounce and bite. Whether it's the elderly or children, whether it's chickens, ducks, pigs, or sheep, as soon as they touch them, they will take a bite, and the screams and cries will resound throughout the entire village, never stopping throughout the night. At dawn, those things slowly returned to the mountain forest. The brave villagers came back to the village together. The scene in front of them could frighten people: the houses collapsed in half, the tables and chairs were all over the ground, the ground was full of dark red blood stains and messy footprints, and the old and weak women and children who had no time to escape, a total of 18 people, lying on the ground in disorder, dead as the victims before.

What's even more sinister is that a villager was hiding in the firewood shed, and it was clear that one of the attackers was the Han Chinese farmer who was bitten to death a few days ago - he had already been buried, how could he crawl out of the grave? He bravely fired a shot, and the cannon bullet hit the thing, just like hitting a stone, splashing only a little spark. The thing turned its head and glared at him, with no expression on its green gray face. It then turned around and ran into the deep mountains, disappearing without a trace.

This tragedy quickly alarmed the Guangxi inspector Yan Shusen. He personally led people to Pingxiang and, upon seeing the gruesome scene, reviewed the autopsy records and issued three death orders on the spot: evacuate all villagers within a radius of thirty miles, leaving no one behind; Officers and soldiers sealed off all entrances to the mountains, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving; Set fire to the mountain, burning from the foot of the mountain to the ridge, burning it clean. The big fire lasted for seven days and nights, with thick smoke billowing and even the sky turning gray black. After the fire was extinguished, there were no more strange attackers in the mountains and forests, and the village slowly regained peace. The government was only vague to the outside world, saying that it was "caused by mountain demons and controlled by fire". Most of the autopsy reports and investigation files were sealed, leaving only scattered records in the notes of local unofficial historians and old constables, becoming an inexplicable mystery.

And this Pingxiang zombie attack incident, along with two other rumors, is also known as one of the three scariest zombie rumors in Chinese folklore. Each paragraph is filled with bone chilling strangeness. Let's talk about the zombie village in southern Hunan during the early Qing Dynasty. There are scattered records of this in the "Shuyi Ji". It tells of a village in southern Hunan where most villagers made a living by robbing tombs. Once, a group of villagers dug up an ancient tomb from the Qing Dynasty, and the bodies in the tomb were well preserved. However, no one expected that the few villagers who had come into contact with the bodies would change after returning home.

They began to feel feverish, stiff all over, and their eyes became dull. Finally, they crazily bit the people around them. Those who had been bitten did not long become like this. In just a few days, the entire village was in chaos, with roars and screams everywhere, people biting and getting hit, corpses scattered everywhere, and few survivors. In the end, the entire village became an empty corpse village. Later, passersby could smell a stench of decay from afar, and no one dared to approach. This is also the most classic template for the spread of corpse poison in folk culture. Even now, some elderly people in southern Hunan still warn younger generations not to dig ancient tombs indiscriminately, fearing that they will be infected with corpse poison and become walking corpses.

Compared to the previous two incidents, the closest one to us was the Chengdu zombie incident in 1995. This matter was widely known in the southwest region back then. It is rumored that during construction at a construction site in Chengdu, a Qing Dynasty ancient tomb was excavated, containing several well preserved ancient corpses. However, before the archaeological team could study them properly, one of the ancient corpses mysteriously disappeared. Then, strange biting incidents began to appear in Chengdu. The symptoms of the victims were exactly the same as those of the legendary zombie attacks. The neck was cut and the body was stiff. Some even said that they saw something stiff and wandering in the streets at night.

As soon as the news spread, the whole Chengdu panicked, and every household dared not go out at night, with doors and windows nailed tightly. Later rumors spread that the military had intervened, blockaded the entire city area, and searched everywhere for the missing ancient corpse. In the end, no one knew whether they had found it or not. The official has repeatedly debunked the rumors, claiming that they were just rumors. However, the more they debunked the rumors, the more severe they became. Even now, when it comes to the 1995 Chengdu zombies, many people can still provide a bunch of "firsthand experience" details, which has become one of the most well-known urban legends in modern times.

These three rumors about zombies have been circulating for hundreds or decades, and some say they are all false. It is because ancient people did not understand medicine, had limited information, and mistook some bizarre illnesses for zombies. Just like the case in Pingxiang, Guangxi, some people say that people in the deep mountains may have contracted rabies, which broke out in groups, crazily bitten people, and after death, the body became stiff and was mistakenly reported by villagers as a dismemberment; Some people also say that there is an unknown infectious disease in the mountains and forests along the border, which can cause high fever, stiffness, and strong aggression when contracted, leading to being mistaken for zombies. There are also zombie villages in southern Hunan and zombie incidents in Chengdu. Some people say it is rumors about tomb raiders, speculation on construction sites, or panic caused by some rare disease.

But these explanations never match the most bizarre details - how did the deceased crawl out of the grave in the Pingxiang incident? How could a fire gun be useless when hit on the body? How could the entire village be infected in the zombie village of Xiangnan? How could ancient corpses in Chengdu mysteriously disappear? Perhaps it was because the medical system was too outdated back then, unable to explain those bizarre phenomena; Perhaps due to information blockage, small things are passed down orally, and the more they are spread, the more evil they become; Or perhaps it is people's fear of the unknown that magnifies some ordinary events into terrifying zombie legends.

At this point, did you instinctively shrink your neck? Do you feel like there's some movement behind you? Did you quietly glance at the door, afraid of some stiff figure standing there? Back then, the people in those villages thought before going to bed that zombies were just legends that old people used to scare children. It wasn't until the door was knocked open and the roar echoed in their ears that they realized that fear is never imagined out of thin air.