In 1908, the Guangxu Emperor died, and Puyi, who was only three years old, was put on the throne and became a puppet of Cixi's ruling power. When the Xinhai Revolution broke out in 1912 and the feudal absolutism that lasted for more than two thousand years ended, Puyi was forced to abdicate in February 1912, and he became the last emperor of China, when he was only seven years old. A child who grew up with a golden spoon lost his identity and status overnight, although he still lived in the Forbidden City as usual, but this Beijing City, and even the whole country, knew that he was no longer the emperor, and there was no gap in his psychology, which was impossible.
In 1917, with the support of the royalists, The restoration of reunification was proclaimed, and Puyi once again ascended to the throne, which was his second time as emperor, and this twelve-year-old teenager seemed to have an emperor's addiction. Forced to abdicate a few years ago, but the royal family reached an agreement with the Republic of China government and obtained preferential conditions, the Forbidden City was like a small imperial court, no matter how vigorous the revolution outside the city, the city still went to the court every day, maintaining the original feudal life. Puyi did not think about restoration, but also thought about this matter more than once, with the support of a large number of royalists, coupled with the lobbying of his cousin Prince Gong Puwei, he really went to the road of historical regression.
Perhaps Puyi did not expect that he spent a huge amount of manpower and material resources, and did not hesitate to steal the cultural relics in the Forbidden City in exchange for funds, and finally ascended the throne again, but this time he also became the emperor for twelve days. From July 1 to 12, just twelve days later, he was ousted again, but this time he took the throne with great effort. Because there was not enough money, he took away the cultural relics in the palace, plus the imperial gifts that Pu Wei took out from Prince Gong's palace, a total of 6 volumes of ancient paintings, all of which were "sold cheaply" to the Japanese. However, he only exchanged it for twelve days of the emperor, and I don't know if he felt regret for a moment later, but posterity spurned this act of stealing paintings.
On March 15, 2017, these six ancient paintings stolen by Puyi from the Forbidden City finally appeared at christie's auction in New York, and the fujita Art Museum in Japan was auctioned. In the special session of "Important Chinese Art in the Collection of Fujita Museum", a total of 30 ancient Chinese artworks appeared, and the Fujita Museum of Art auctioned these works of art due to poor capital turnover. These 6 volumes of ancient paintings are all treasured by the Qianlong Emperor, namely Chen Rong's "Six Dragon Diagrams", Zhao Lingyong's "Goose Group Diagram", Li Gonglin's "Benqiao Huimeng Map", Han Gan's "Horse Nature Diagram", Wang Mian's "Xuemei Diagram" and Zhao Meng's "Washing Horse Diagram".
The six volumes of ancient paintings sold for a total of US$140 million, equivalent to RMB869 million. The price of these ancient paintings that were sold at that time is unknown, but compared with the current Chinese people who spent 869 million yuan to buy back, it should be called a bargain. Relative to the value of these works of art, especially some of the paintings, whether they are skilled or rare, they can be said to be rare in the world. For example, Chen Rong's "Six Dragon Diagrams" is not only the favorite painting of the Qianlong Emperor, but also the reference painting method of the Chinese people to paint dragons for hundreds of years, and Chen Rong's only remaining paintings are also very few, which shows its preciousness.
According to the records of the first sequel to the imperial bibliographic document "Shiqu Baodi", these 6 volumes of ancient paintings were originally owned by the Qianlong Emperor, and on February 22, 1915, Zhang Binfang, an official of the Alcohol King's Palace, personally sold them to the Yamanaka Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Puyi is the grandson of Prince Gongxian, it is conceivable that this official family honored the orders of whom, and these 6 volumes of ancient paintings are not all from prince gong's palace, 4 of which have the seal of prince Gong's palace. But in any case, this was probably done under Puyi's orders. It is well known that the Japanese like to collect cultural relics from our country, but puyi's behavior of selling Chinese cultural relics to the Japanese in order to maintain his life and status is not resentful.