In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established by Hong Xiuquan, the armed forces successively developed into Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shanxi, Zhili, Shandong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces, and captured more than 600 cities. In March 1853, he conquered Jiangning (Nanjing) and set the capital here.
In August 1864, Tianjing (Nanjing), the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was captured by the Xiang Army. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been painstakingly operating in Nanjing for more than ten years, "both Chinese and foreign countries have spread the wealth of floods, gold and silver are like the sea, and department stores are full", there has always been a legend in the world that Hong Xiuquan was hiding gold and silver treasures, so on the day of the destruction of the city, the Xiang army dug cellars everywhere, and Zeng Guofan even issued an order to "those who excavate the gold in the cellars of thieves, report to the officials and confiscate them, and punish those who violate the law". The frenzied Xiang army demolished houses, dug holes, and dug ponds everywhere in the city, searching the whole city for three days and three nights, not hesitating to dig three feet into the ground and search for the "vault" cellar of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. When Zeng Guoquan and Viceroy Xiao Fusi raided the Heavenly King's Mansion, they searched more carefully, but they never found the so-called "Holy Treasury" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the legendary treasure of the Heavenly King's Mansion.
In the end, the Xiang army plundered all the belongings of the official and the people's house, along with tens of thousands of female prisoners, and brought them back as booty. Zeng Guofan reported that Emperor Tongzhi had searched for "thieves and stolen goods," saying that nothing had been found except the "false jade seal" of the two sides and the "golden seal" of the other. If the cellar gold was really buried in the Heavenly King's Mansion, and the amount was so huge, how could it not be discovered? Therefore, Zeng Guofan Zeng Guoquan did not get Hong Xiuquan's statement that not many people were willing to believe it.
According to the property management system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, all public and private property must be uniformly concentrated in the "Holy Treasury", and the necessities of people's lives are uniformly rationed by the Holy Treasury, and if the people have gold or two or silver or more, they must be beheaded. This system made the wealth of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom highly concentrated, providing the possibility of cellaring. When Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King, built the Heavenly Dynasty Palace in Nanjing, he naturally poured out "the whole country" and plundered rare treasures from all over the country and placed them in the palace, which was extremely luxurious. At the same time, other royal palaces also have a large number of gold and silver jewelry. According to the Songhu Essay, "The four pseudo-royal palaces and cellars in the city have all been searched and cleaned. "Since other palaces still have cellar gold, the amount of cellar gold in the Heavenly King's Palace can be imagined."
At that time, Zhang Jigeng, a spy sent by the Qing army, sent back to the Jiangnan camp, said that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom General Sacred Treasury still had at least 18 million taels of silver, and other sub-sacred treasuries also had countless gold and silver treasures. And Hong Xiuquan himself has a special hobby for gold and silver treasures, his hats are made of pure gold, weighing eight pounds, the dragon robe is woven of gold wire, the buttons are gold knots with gems, the so-called "full of gold armor". All his living utensils were also made of gold. In a normal meal, Hong Xiuquan has sixty-four large golden bowls to fill the dishes, the golden chopsticks used are more than a foot long, and the bathtub, toilet and night pot for bathing are also pure gold.
In his confession before his execution, Li Xiucheng said: "Although there was the name of the Holy Treasury in the past years, it was actually The private collection of Hong Xiuquan, not the public currency of the pseudo-capital. The eldest brother of Wang (referring to Hong Xiuquan) and the second brother (referring to Yang Xiuqing) also used the method of poor punishment to search for silver rice in each museum. This shows that after the "Tianjing Incident", the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime was controlled by the Hong clan, and the wealth of the "Holy Treasury" had become Hong Xiuquan's personal "private possession". After Hong Xiuquan entered Tianjing, he broke away from the masses and avoided living in the deep palace, and did not take a step in the palace for ten years. Without his permission, no one could enter the Heavenly King's Mansion. At this time, he was even more jealous of other kings with different surnames. The Heavenly King's Mansion became the only place he trusted and felt safe, and if he wanted to store it, it was most likely to be under the Heavenly Dynasty Palace, or it could fall into the bottom of the Nanjing Royal Garden Lake.
Regarding the whereabouts of Hong Xiuquan's treasure, there are several folk sayings:
One theory is that Hong Xiuquan's cellar gold fell into the hands of Zeng Guoquan. After the Xiang army entered the city, Zeng Guoquan's troops were the first to enter the Heavenly King's Palace, and according to legend, Zeng Guoquan dug up Hong Xiuquan's hidden gold and put it into his pocket, and in order to destroy the evidence, a fire burned the Heavenly Dynasty Palace. In the notes of the Qing people, it is recorded that in Hong Xiuquan's cellar gold, there is an emerald watermelon that came out of the Royal Yuanmingyuan, there is a crack on it, the black spots are like a child, the red quality is like a gourd, the langrun is distinct, and what is rare and valuable is that it is natural and magical, and this treasure was actually in the hands of Zeng Guoquan later. When the Xiang army plundered the Heavenly King's Mansion, it searched very carefully, and even the body of Hong Xiuquan, who was secretly buried in the Heavenly King's Mansion, was exhumed and burned to ashes. How can a huge amount of cellar gold not be found? At that time, Zuo Zongtang, a student of Zeng Guofan, also wrote a letter to impeach the Zeng brothers for embezzling treasures. Therefore, Zeng Guoquan did not get the gold of the cellar, I believe more people will shake their heads when they hear it.
At that time, the "Shanghai New News" reported that when Zeng Guofan's wife returned to her hometown in Hunan from Nanjing, she used more than 200 ships to transport luggage. With so many ships transporting, one cannot but suspect that Brother Zeng is transporting the looted cellar gold to his hometown. The Qing Dynasty scholar Li Boyuan's "Notes on the Southern Pavilion" records: "Wen Zhongxiang received tens of millions of dollars in this. Except for a few retribution, the rest are at home." Zhongxiang, zeng Guoquan, said that he had tens of millions of dollars in income from the capture of Nanjing. However, after the investigation team, including Zeng Guofan's political enemies, it was proved that Zeng Guoquan was wronged, what watermelon and silver were illusory, and the Zeng family did not become richer after the capture of Nanjing. In the spring of the eleventh year of Tongzhi (1872), after Zeng Guofan died of illness, Zeng Guoquan edited the "Family Book of Zeng Guofan", but had no money to print it, so he had to set aside. After Zeng Guoquan's death, his children planned to edit the "Zeng Zhongxiang Official Collection" and also could not come up with money, which shows the poverty of the Zeng brothers. Until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the Zeng family's house with property was counted, which was worth more than one million taels of silver, which was still shabby compared to other families of the same level.
There is also a folk saying that these treasures fell into the hands of a small person named "Jiang Shoushan" nicknamed "Jiang Donkey". It is said that Jiang Donkey was originally just a merchant who relied on donkeys to traffic goods, and because he once delivered military food in time, he was appreciated by Li Xiucheng, the loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and was appointed as the "chief of the three lines of donkey carriages". In the capital of Tianjing, the concubines and magnates of the Inner Palace entrusted him with gold and silver jewelry, "there was an urgent letter in the palace, and the princesses and other princesses also gathered thousands of boxes of gold and silver to bury their belongings", that is, it was rumored that "there were thousands of boxes of gold and silver, ordered donkeys to go, buried in a certain place on stone mountain" ("Red Sheep Anecdotes of Jiang Donkey"). Jiang later made a fortune from this and became the richest man in modern Jinling.
This anecdote sounds painful, but it clearly bears traces of attachment. Imagine that Hong Xiuquan has thousands of tons of cellar gold, transported outward, I am afraid that there will be thousands of donkeys, that is, to gather all the donkeys in Nanjing City, I am afraid that there are not so many. If it is transported outward, can it be hidden from the eyes of the spies? The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom finally had no food to eat, and all began to eat people, so many donkeys, will not kill and eat? In the early years of the Republic of China, someone in Nanjing told the governor of the revolutionary army: "The Hong clan has hidden treasures somewhere, and his relatives and burials are buried.", this Xinhai founder was also moved by it, "all can make a fortune for a period of time", but a lot of manpower was dispatched, excavated everywhere, and finally found nothing.
The third theory is that there was a tofu smith surnamed Wang who made tofu for Hong Xiuquan for many years and became a good brother with the housekeeper of the Heavenly King's Mansion. Before the Qing soldiers entered the city, this butler sent dozens of large boxes in the Heavenly King's Mansion to his home for deep burial and preservation. Later, all the people in the Heavenly King's Mansion were killed, and those treasures naturally belonged to Wang Tofu. This statement is even more unreliable, because the spies of the Qing Army even found out how much gold and silver were in the treasure house, and dozens of large boxes were transported to the tofu factory. The red-eyed Zeng family brothers will not track down? Later, someone investigated, Nanjing city is indeed Jiang Mao donkey and Wang Tofu these two people, but people are by speculating in real estate to make a fortune, when the war was chaotic, the house is not valuable, the two people bought real estate, after the order is stable, the house price soared, these two people are so rich.
Some people also believe that the Heavenly King's Mansion was not completely destroyed by the Xiang Army at that time, and the core building "Golden Dragon Hall" of that year still exists, and for more than a hundred years, it has never been truly surveyed underground. What is underneath the Golden Dragon Hall? Is there any gold hidden under the Heavenly Dynasty Palace? Is it possible to bury cellar gold under the Lake in the Royal Garden? These have left many unsolved mysteries to future generations.
Dear officials, where do you think Hong Xiuquan's treasure is going? Welcome to leave a message to discuss. (Text/God is speechless, this self-media welcomes historical articles)