Contrasting huge ancient tombs
In 1957, an old farmer who lived near You'anmen in Beijing was digging in his vegetable garden when he suddenly shoveled out a pile of white ash, followed by an old bluestone brick.
The old farmer was startled, realized that he might have dug up the ancient tomb, and rushed to report it to the cultural relics department in Beijing.
Archaeologists rushed to take a look, momentarily disappointed, because this ancient tomb is a Ming Dynasty tomb, the scale is very small, ordinary to some simple, at most it is the husband and wife burial tomb of ordinary people's families, and there will be no high-value cultural relics in it.
But when the experts opened the cemetery, they were surprised that in this small and simple tomb, there were 18 pieces of gold from the imperial palace, and there was also a beautifully shaped Hotan white jade cup with a carved tiger!
Pictured: Embedded peach-shaped cup
Who is the owner of this humble tomb?
Why was he able to hold these funerary items from the palace?
Ancient tombs in a vegetable garden
At present, the vicinity of Beijing's You'anmen is already bustling, but in the first few years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was still a sparsely populated village near Beijing's You'anmen.
In 1957, an old farmer living in the nearby countryside, after busy with the work of the agricultural cooperative during the day, thought that winter was coming soon, so he prepared to dig a cellar in his vegetable garden to store the cabbage for the winter.
The old farmer wielded a shovel and dug for a long time, and just when he thought that it was late and put it aside for the time being tonight, he suddenly noticed that there was something gray in the shovel soil he had just dug out, a bit like lime, but the specific thing was not clear.
With doubt and curiosity, the old farmer dug around here for a while, and after digging out more and more white ash, his shovel suddenly touched something hard, and across the layer of soil, the old farmer heard a crisp crashing sound, which seemed to be a big stone.
He carefully dug up the soil around the thing, and finally found that it was not a big stone, but a bluestone brick, which looked very old, and should have been buried in the soil for many, many years. And there is more than one such brick, they are neatly laid out and arranged together, and there seems to be something hidden underneath.
Although the old farmer did not know much, after all, he was a person who grew up in Beijing, and suddenly realized that he might have dug an ancient tomb, so he was so frightened that he buried the dirt back with a shovel, covered the bluestone slab, and then returned home trembling.
The people of this era have a strong sense of collective honor, and the old farmer is afraid that because of his indiscretion, things belonging to the country will be stolen or destroyed, and when he returns home, he has not slept well for the night, and almost opened his eyes until dawn the next day.
The old farmer did not dare to delay, hurriedly ran out to find the people in the village, and informed the cultural relics department in Beijing of the news of the excavation of the ancient tomb in the courtyard.
After receiving the news, an archaeological team quickly rushed to the old farmer's vegetable garden, and under the guidance of the old farmer, found the place where he was going to use the vegetable cellar. Archaeologists looked at the neatly arranged bluestone bricks and preliminarily judged that this was a husband and wife burial tomb from the Ming Dynasty, and the overall appearance should not have been stolen and excavated.
When the old farmer heard the archaeologists say that this was a Ming Dynasty tomb, he couldn't help but be amazed. He thought this was a good thing, but what made the old farmer a little strange was that when he first arrived, the experts showed excitement and expectation, and after discovering that this was a husband and wife burial tomb in the Ming Dynasty, they were not so excited as before.
Archaeologists explained that although this is an ancient tomb in the Ming Dynasty, the burial chamber looks very small and very simple, and its tomb owner should be an ordinary citizen of the Ming Dynasty, generally speaking, there are not many funerary items with research value in such tombs.
But when they removed the bluestone bricks and entered the tomb, everyone at the scene was shocked - in this small and simple looking tomb, there were more than a dozen gold objects from the palace!
Palace treasures
The appearance of these gold objects greatly surprised archaeologists.
After all, the entire burial chamber is only 2.8 meters long, 1.7 meters wide, and the depth is only 2.5 meters, which is very small and inconspicuous.
After entering the burial chamber with a sense of surprise, archaeologists cleared out gold, silver, jade, copper, porcelain and other funerary objects, a large number, and most of them were very exquisite, which was rare in the country at that time.
Among these funerary items, the experts cleaned out 18 pieces of gold artifacts alone. Regardless of the craftsmanship of these gold objects themselves, as well as the historical value and significance of the body, just simply putting them together and weighing them is enough to reach more than 20 pounds.
Among these gold objects are gold pots inlaid with precious stones and painted with dragon patterns, peach-shaped marigolds with rubies, and octagonal gold wine glasses with a drunken statue of Li Bai lying horizontally at the bottom of the cup.
In addition to these, there is also a sunflower golden hairpin studded with red sapphire.
It is large in the shape of a sunflower, made of three layers of ornamentation, inlaid with a fine yellow tourmaline in the middle, made of gold wire to make a flower bud, wrap it up, and each petal around the outside is inlaid with red sapphire.
The whole golden hairpin is soft in color, unique in shape, vivid and three-dimensional, and looks extremely luxurious. Even if the Ming Dynasty was the heyday of China's gold manufacturing history, the goldsmiths were all masters of craftsmanship, and such hairpins were not ordinary people could use.
At this time, the archaeologists who found these treasures were already shocked, and they did not expect that this surprised them even more to find that they were still behind.
When they opened the tomb owner's coffin, they saw a jade cup on the chest of the tomb owner's body.
In the pile of brilliant gold objects that had been cleared out, this pure white and flawless jade cup naturally showed a soft and rounded brilliance in the light, which looked very unusual, and it must have been the tomb owner's favorite object before he died, otherwise it would not have been placed on his chest after his death and buried with him.
This jade cup is 7.7 cm high and 8 cm in diameter, and it is actually carved from a whole piece of fine Hetian jade, without a trace of splicing, and there is no flaw on the cup, and the craftsmanship is exquisite.
On both sides of the jade cup is carved a vivid mantis (chī), the so-called "mantis" is one of the "nine sons of the dragon", is a kind of dragon without horns, often decorated on ancient Buildings or utensils in China, playing a role in warding off evil spirits.
However, archaeologists took the jade cup and carefully observed it in the light, and found that there was something wrong with the mantis on the jade cup, because they also had a "king" engraved on their foreheads, which showed that this was not a mantis, but a tiger.
The tiger is also a legendary animal belonging to the dragon class, and it is said that the tiger represents power and kingly style. According to the history books, when Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, entered the customs, he once received a Qin Shi Huang Lantian jade seal, which was the Dragon Tiger Button, and later the jade seal was called the "Chuanguo Seal".
During the Ming Dynasty, not everyone could use this tiger pattern. Combined with the palace artifacts that had already been discovered, archaeologists began to suspect that the owner of the burial chamber might be a member of the royal family.
But if it is really a member of the royal family, why is this person's tomb so small and simple?
The emperor's father-in-law
The most convenient and feasible way to uncover the identity of the owner of the tomb is to find the tomb owner's epitaph.
Generally speaking, ancient tombs will be placed in the epitaph, recording the life of the owner of the tomb. Archaeologists turned over the tiny burial chamber and finally found an epitaph carved into the stone tablet under the coffin of the tomb owner. According to the above records, the owner of the tomb was named Wangui, a native of Zhucheng, Shandong.
Based on this, archaeologists found relevant records of this person from the history books, and could not help but feel a little emotional, and the owner of this tomb was somewhat disdainful.
In the first half of his life, this noble man was just a nobody, who participated in scientific examinations many times, but he was never admitted, not even Xiucai. However, The Wangui family was a family with a head and a face in Zhucheng, Shandong at that time, and seeing that Wangui was really incompetent, his family tried to help him unblock the relationship and bought an official position in the local county.
Only later, in time for the famine, the Wan family quickly declined, and the family members died one after another, and finally Wangui was left with a daughter by his side. At this time, Wan Gui was investigated and punished for bending the law for personal gain and corruption, and was about to be exiled to the frontier areas, so he tried his best to send his daughter to the palace.
This daughter is much more successful than her father. Her name was Wan Zhen'er, and after she was sent to the palace to become a palace maid, because the family was defeated, she had no power and no power, and she could only do the dirtiest and most tiring work in the empress palace, and she was often bullied by other palace women, and her life was very hard.
She was a patient person, swallowing all this hard into her stomach, carrying it down, and slowly mixing into some looks.
Later, Emperor Ming's son Zhu Jianshen was made crown prince, when he was still very young and surrounded by a lack of care. Wan Zhen'er, who was 19 years old, was intelligent and sensible, and was favored by the empress dowager, and came to the prince's side to take care of his diet and living.
Zhu Jianshen's mother had a very low status, did not have a concubine position, and could not be taken care of by the side of her own son. Zhu Jianshen almost regarded Wan Zhen'er as his mother and was very dependent on her.
Later, Zhu Jianshen was deposed by emperor Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Jianshen's situation became very embarrassing, but during the most embarrassing period of his life, Wan Zhen'er always did not abandon him, and accompanied him, which could be described as a stormy boat.
After that, after Zhu Jianshen became emperor, he immediately made Wan Zhen'er, who was 17 years older than himself, a concubine, and because she gave birth to a prince, she was also given the title of a noble concubine. Although this prince died early, Zhu Jianshen always had the grace of Wan Zhen'er.
Because of his daughter, Wan Gui, who was exiled, became the emperor's father-in-law, and was not only pardoned for his crimes, but after returning from the frontier, he regained new glory and wealth, married his wife and had children again, and became a prominent relative of the emperor and the state.
Pictured: Hammer flower kimshi piece
This son of Wangui, Wantong, was spoiled lawlessly, and his sister was a constantly favored imperial concubine, often causing trouble.
However, after Wan Zhen'er's death, the grief-stricken Zhu Jianshen quickly followed her away, and the umbrella of the Wan family was gone, and the successor emperor took the lawless Wantong to kill chickens and monkeys.
Wan Gui was also implicated in this, lost his official position again, became a commoner with a flat head, and when he died, he could not build a tomb of super-specifications, and could only be buried with his wife in a simple burial chamber.
Pictured: A golden shovel unearthed from the tomb of Wangui
However, those things that were once rewarded by Wan Guifei were hidden a lot of privately, and when he died, he would naturally be able to use the treasures from these palaces as funerary goods and let them sleep peacefully with him.
The jade cup, which was regarded as a treasure by Wan Gui, was precious and unusual, and later after many different expert appraisals, everyone believed that this object had extremely high historical and artistic value, and in 1993, it was also rated as a national first-class cultural relic, and was collected in the Capital Museum.