On March 12, 1925, Dr. Sun Yat-sen died of illness in Beiping at the age of 59, because Sun Yat-sen had instructed him to "bury the Purple Mountain" during his lifetime, so he temporarily left his body in the Biyun Temple in Beiping, when the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum had not yet been built.
After Sun Yat-sen's death, the Peking Union Hospital did embalming treatment of his body, and the Soviet Union also specially sent a crystal coffin, and the plan at that time was to put The body of Dr. Sun Yat-sen into a crystal coffin for posterity to see, like Lenin.
Unfortunately, because the arrival of the crystal coffin took time, the body of Dr. Sun Yat-sen was already buried when it arrived in Beiping, and the crystal coffin was not used, which is a pity, on the other hand, in Nanjing, the funeral preparatory committee openly solicited the design plan of the mausoleum.
The 31-year-old designer Lu Yanzhi's "Liberty Bell" design pattern was unanimously praised, and after the design plan was selected, the construction of the mausoleum was officially broken in 1926, when the construction period was planned to be 14 months, but for various reasons, the main project was not completed until March 1929.
During the construction of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, an incident occurred that almost killed the body of Sun Yat-sen, who was burned, and in 1926, when the revolutionary army defeated the Fengzhi warlord Zhang Zongchang, a famous "three unknown" general, I don't know how many guns I have, how many wives I have, and how many soldiers I have.
Zhang Zongchang was defeated and fled to Beiping, unable to defeat the living revolutionary army, in a fit of rage he wanted to find the dead to vent his anger, Zhang Zongchang ordered the burning of Sun Yat-sen's coffin, this kind of warlord once crazy, dare to do anything, will not be lip service.
At that time, there were only a small number of guardians in Biyun Temple, although the number was small, but they were all very loyal to Sun Yat-sen, and these guards transferred Sun Yat-sen's coffin to a cave near the temple, so as to escape the destruction of the warlords.
In 1929, the main project of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum was completed, on April 23, He Yingqin went to Beiping to meet Sun Yat-sen's coffin, on May 26, the coffin set off from Beiping to Nanjing, arrived in Nanjing on the 28th, and then stopped for 3 days.
On June 1, the Feng'an Ceremony was held in the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, attended by dignitaries from all walks of life, as well as envoys from various countries, and the funeral procession was 3 kilometers long, the scene was very spectacular, but unfortunately due to the damage to the remains, the crystal coffin did not come in handy.
After the burial, the burial chamber was sealed, and according to the guards who once guarded the cemetery, there were three layers of sealing, the first layer was the partition, the second layer was the stone wall, and the third was the outermost, with reinforced cement, and the seal was very strong.
When the Japanese army invaded China in an all-round way, Shanghai and Suzhou fell, and Chiang Kai-shek also had to retreat from Nanjing, and at that time he considered taking away the body of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, but because the burial chamber could not be opened, if the body could be damaged with explosives, Chiang Kai-shek had to give up.
The Japanese army occupied the city of Nanjing, killing people and setting fires in the city, but did not dare to attack the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, and was spared, and now the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum is well preserved.