Since ancient times, the most reviled is none other than traitors. Whether it is the secret passage of Qin Juniper of the Jin Kingdom, or Wu Sangui, who led the Qing soldiers into the customs, or Yang Kang, who recognized the thief as a father in Jin Yong's pen, the world gritted its teeth with hatred. But there is a traitor, people rarely mention, do not know whether to define him as a traitor, that is, Zu Dashou.
As the first fierce general under Yuan Chonghuan and the last straw of the Ming Dynasty, in the Battle of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, he not only shelled Nurhaci and repelled the Emperor Taiji, but also surrendered to the enemy twice; the first time was to bomb and surrender, which was a temporary measure after the defeat of the army. The second time was a real shot, but it was also a helpless move. Although after surrendering to Shun, Emperor Taiji made him the commander-in-chief of the Yellow Banner of the Han Army regardless of previous suspicions, he was unwilling to serve the Manchu Qing, so until his death in the thirteenth year of Shunzhi (1656), he basically did nothing except write a letter of persuasion to his nephew Wu Sangui. In this regard, the people of the world jointly said that "a generation of famous generals, according to the outside of the Guan, closed the Guannei, can be called the reciprocal and loyal; the two dynasties are subordinates, rebelling against the former lord, negative the latter lord, and really not being a person inside and outside."
After his death, Zu Da was said to be buried in Yongtai Village, near the Qinghe River in Beijing. For this Ming Dynasty general who shot nurhaci, surrendered for the second time, and his hands were stained with the blood of the Eight Banners, the Shunzhi Emperor still gave high praise such as "holding the body and respecting caution" and "being old in nature". Although his soul has returned to heaven, his legend does not end there. He was "immigrated" to Canada more than two hundred and sixty years later.
After the Xinhai Revolution, although feudalism was overthrown, imperialism was still rampant. Coupled with Yuan Shikai's theft of the fruits of the revolution, the warlords soon became chaotic, and the whole of China was in chaos. Many foreign missionaries, capitalists and speculators have set their sights on our precious historical relics with the intention of buying them at low prices. At that time, the people of our country were in the depths of the water, and there was no time to take care of cultural relics, and even a group of tomb robbers and cultural relics dealers appeared. Around 1919, the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada commissioned crofts, a British businessman in China, to purchase a complete set of tombs of high-ranking Ming and Qing dynasty officials. So Crofts first began to select from Beijing, when he saw Zu Dashou's mausoleum (think so for the time being), he did not hesitate to buy it from the cultural relics dealer, and loaded zu Dashou's tomb with the stone sculptures in front of the tomb, stone tables, Wenwu Wengzhong, stone camels, etc., and sold them to the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada.
The mausoleum can still be seen at the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada and is well preserved. However, only the tomb door of the tomb is engraved with the line "Emperor Qing Feng Guanglu Doctor", so it is actually impossible to confirm that the owner of the tomb is Zu Dashou.
However, it is certain that this tomb must be from Qinghe Yongtaizhuang in Beijing, but the chance of Zu Dashou is small. First of all, from the historical data that can be referred to in China at present, there is no record of Zu Dashou's burial in Beijing, on the contrary, the historical materials have repeatedly mentioned that Zu Dashou's tomb was in Xingcheng, Liaoning. The Qing Kangxi engraving "Zu Family Genealogy" records that Zu Dashou died on April 15, 1656, the thirteenth year of Qing Shunzhi (1656), and was buried in Xinmu on the right bank of the Ningyuan West River, that is, "Zhenguo General Zu Gongzhi". In the thirty-seventh year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1698), Zhang Yushu, the head of the Hubu Shangshu and president of the National History Museum, wrote in the preface to the Zu Family Genealogy: "And the Ningyuan Ancestral Clan is especially the crown of the Zhuwang clan. Yu Yu went from the road to accompany the capital to the Ming Eastern Association Deputy General Rongzu Cemetery Road, stationed in ma su into, and touched the monument to the moss, then the name of his son the great general brother was in Yan. The meaning of this sentence is probably that Zhang Yushu once went to the cemetery of the "Zhenguo General Zu Gongmu" in Ningyuan to worship Zu Dashou.
In addition, in 2013, local villagers in Xingcheng, Liaoning Province, found the Zu Dashou Sacrifice Monument, the smallest fragments are also more than 100 kilograms, and the three words "Zu Dashou" on one of the fragments are particularly eye-catching. This piece of altar stele restoration, at least 3 meters high, its weight is also more than 2 tons, the Qing Dynasty carved such a huge altar stele specifications are quite high, which shows the importance of Zu Dashou. Although the current inscription is still missing, the excavation of most of the stele also provides a valuable archaeological object for cracking the mystery of Zu Dashou's tomb, and also provides the most powerful evidence for confirming that the "Zu Dashou Tomb" abroad is misinformed.
Chinese scholars unanimously believe that the tomb of Zu Dashou, a legendary figure of a generation, is located in xingcheng, liaoning province, and the burial chamber that moved to Canada was his son and nephew. Although the uncles and nephews of the Zu family have only been across the sea for hundreds of years, no matter how far apart they are, the clan and bloodline are inseparable; no matter where they are located, they all highlight the glorious history of China.