Emperor, the title of supreme ruler of the ancient Chinese imperial period, was first created by Qin Shi Huang and was used by later emperors. Although China's feudal imperial system has long since perished, there are still many people who covet this "supreme" position, such as Yuan Shikai, who has been controversial, who claimed to be the emperor and ascended the throne.
On February 12, 1912, the "last emperor" Puyi announced his abdication, marking the end of China's more than 2,000 years of feudal imperialism; on December 12, 1915, Yuan Shikai restored the imperial system, ascended the throne himself as emperor, and changed the fifth year of the Republic of China (1916) to the first year of Hongxian, known in history as the Hongxian imperial system.
So what is essential when "ascending the throne"? Yuxi, dragon robe and dragon chair, Yuan Shikai spent 400,000 yuan to create his own "exclusive dragon chair", but decades later, experts saw the filling inside when repairing the cracked "dragon chair", very surprised, what was put inside?
The dragon chair refers to the chair with the dragon pattern engraved on the armrest where the emperor sat in ancient times, the meaning of the dragon chair is "the first chair", and "sitting on the dragon chair" refers to being the emperor. If others dare to sit on it without permission, it is a serious crime to kill their heads.
Take the "Golden Ruan Hall Dragon Chair" in the Forbidden City in Beijing as an example, it is placed in the middle of the Taihe Hall (commonly known as the Golden Ruan Hall), also called the "Golden Carved Dragon Wooden Chair", yes, the dragon chair is made of wood.
Friends who have watched the costume TV series must be many, the dragon chair inside is usually golden and brilliant, many people mistakenly think that it is made of real gold, in fact, it is not, the dragon chair usually uses gold silk Nan wood, it is a unique Chinese precious wood, with its own aroma, not easy to deform and crack, in the sun shining gold, gold wire emerges, is considered to be the most advanced, the most precious building materials.
In particular, large, complete gold silk nan wood, the value is far more than gold, and money may not be able to buy, so the ancient emperors especially loved gold silk nan wood. After finding the best gold silk nan wood, it is then cut, polished, and carved by skilled craftsmen, coated with special paint (such as gold paint), and then inlaid with valuable gems, and the dragon chair is completed.
So why didn't Yuan Shikai directly use such a valuable dragon chair from the previous dynasty to create his own "dragon chair"? And from the data picture, it can be seen that the "dragon chair" he spent a lot of money to build is very unusual, not in the West, because its back is extremely high, the chair surface is shorter, in fact, it is a Western-style chair, placed in the magnificent Taihe Hall, which is not out of place at all.
The reason given by Yuan Shikai himself is that the height is not suitable (Yuan Shikai is less than one meter six), and does not want to use other people's dragon chairs, but the fact is not so simple, when Yuan Shikai created the dragon chair, he also moved the position of the dragon chair backwards by 3 meters, so why is this?
Above the ancient emperor's dragon chair, there is a "Xuanyuan Mirror", such as the top of the Forbidden City Dragon Chair, there is a "Panlong Algae Well", the algae well is carved with a dragon, the dragon's mouth is holding a crystal ball, this thing is also known as the "Xuanyuan Mirror", the role is to "distinguish the true and false Heavenly Son", who is a false emperor, the ball will fall down and hit him.
"Drinking Liu Yuanfu's Family" writes: "There is no Xuanyuan mirror in the world, and a hundred monsters are competing for the first", and "Divine Slaves" writes: "The adult carries the ancient Xuanyuan mirror and examines my grievances and grievances." How Yuan Shikai got the throne is very clear to everyone, it is simply "unjustified in name", does he dare to sit under the "Xuanyuan Mirror" with openness and integrity?
So Yuan Shikai immediately asked someone to carry the original dragon chair away, replaced it with his own dragon chair, and moved back 3 meters to avoid the "Xuanyuan Mirror" overhead.
It is also strange to say that when foreign invaders stole many treasures from the Forbidden City, only Yuan Shikai's "Dragon Chair" was not robbed, because it was in disrepair, this "Dragon Chair" was already dilapidated, and when experts inspected it, they found that this "Dragon Chair" was stuffed with straw! That's right, it's a worthless straw.
According to expert speculation, the craftsmen responsible for making the dragon chair were not satisfied with Yuan Shikai at all, so they stuffed it with straw, suggesting that Yuan Shikai was a "straw bag" emperor, or that the craftsmen used straw instead of raw materials in order to cut corners and profit from it.
Of course, this inferior dragon chair has no value, so experts look around for the real dragon chair of the year, and finally found this Ming Dynasty dragon chair in a warehouse where old furniture was stored in the Forbidden City, which is what we see now as the "Dragon Chair of the Golden Ruan Hall". Although the dragon chair of the Golden Ruan Hall has been worn and damaged, the magnificence of the golden silk nan wood and the superb skills of ancient craftsmen are still impressive.
According to the records, the experts invited contemporary craftsmen to restore the dragon chair, which took 934 days to complete. You can imagine how long it took the ancient craftsmen to make this dragon chair.
It was easy to sit on the dragon chair, it was not easy to sit on the dragon chair, and after 83 days, Yuan Shikai, who sat on the "straw" dragon chair, was forced to abdicate and died of uremia shortly after.