The Qing Dynasty was the peak of the development of China's feudal system, and during this period, the emperor had supreme power and, of course, inexhaustible wealth. After the vigorous efforts of the Ming Emperor of the Three Dynasties of Kang Yongqian, the national strength of the Qing Dynasty reached its peak, and the royal family also accumulated a large amount of wealth, among which in addition to gold and silver with actual circulation value, there were countless rare treasures.
Yuanmingyuan Haiyan hall fountain part
The Yuanmingyuan, as a famous imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty, also treasures a large number of treasures. Among these many treasures, the most well-known is the zodiac beast head. The zodiac beast is a component of the fountain in the Haiyan Hall of the Yuanmingyuan. Haiyan Hall comes from this name. "Wenyuan Yinghua" Tang Zhengxi's "Day in the King's Character Endowment": "Heqing Haiyan, Shihe Nianfeng", has the meaning of looking forward to the rise of the four seas. Designed and built for The Italian Ranskin.
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However, such good wishes did not really bless the Qing Dynasty forever, and at the end of the Qianlong Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty began to go downhill. Until 1840 AD, the Opium War broke out, and the closed door of the Qing Dynasty was opened by the British ship cannon, which allowed the world powers to see the real strength of the seemingly powerful Qing Dynasty. Since then, the frequency of great powers invading the Qing Dynasty has been accelerating and deepening.
Anglo-French forces in the Main Hall of the Forbidden City
In 1860, the British and French forces invaded Beijing and fled the Rehe River in the name of hunting. Then the British and French troops entered the Yuanmingyuan and took away all the exquisite cultural relics that could be taken away, and the animal heads were exiled overseas in the process, while those that could not be taken away were burned together, and the fire burned for three days and three nights, and a large number of exquisite cultural relics were turned into ashes.
Although after a long period of negotiations and donations from caring people, China has recovered seven animal heads in the Yuanmingyuan, including cow heads, monkey heads, tiger heads, pig heads, rat heads, rabbit heads, and horse heads, there are still a large number of cultural relics that have been lost overseas.
Ruins of Haiyan Hall in the Yuanmingyuan
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So, how many cultural relics did the Anglo-French coalition forces snatch from the Yuanmingyuan?
According to the Philippine "Overseas Chinese Business Daily" report, according to incomplete statistics, there are currently cultural relics from China in museums in 47 countries around the world, with a total of millions of pieces. Most of these cultural relics were looted from China during the war. In addition, according to some Chinese collectors, when they visit foreign museums, they often see cultural relics from China, most of which are from the Yuanmingyuan.
Yuan Dynasty porcelain pillows in British museums
If you want to say that the country with the largest collection of Chinese cultural relics is Britain and France. In the Fontainebleau Palace in France, a "Chinese Palace" was specially set up for Chinese cultural relics, in which all the cultural relics displayed were from the Yuanmingyuan, and in the exhibition hall, there is a statue of the Buddha with the imperial seal of Qianlong's appreciation, and a wooden jasper interstitial screen inscribed with the scene of the Qianlong Emperor's 66-year-old banquet.
Artifacts awaiting auction
In the British Imperial Library, there are many porcelain and gold, silver and jade from China, including some of the albums of the Four Libraries originally stored in the Wenyuan Pavilion of the Yuanmingyuan. These cultural relics are well-deserved and priceless treasures, but now they are quietly lying in the exhibition halls abroad, and it is difficult to recover the country.
Porcelain in a British museum
At that time, in order to transport these valuable cultural relics, the British and French coalition forces could be said to have tried their best, and finally they decided to take the safest waterway back to Europe. However, although Britain and France were already world-class powers at the time, it was still dangerous to cross the ocean to Europe, with many ships laden with cargo capsized on the sea. In order to cover up his robbery crimes, the secrets of these shipwrecks were not made public to the world.
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In modern times, some Chinese fishermen who fish often salvage some cultural relics on the seabed, and one day, some Chinese fishermen in the South China Sea accidentally found an ancient shipwreck while fishing, because they often salvaged cultural relics before, so they realized that this was likely to be an ancient shipwreck, so they reported the news to the national cultural relics department in time.
British shipwreck
This news attracted the attention of the national cultural relics department, after some exploration, archaeologists concluded that it was a British shipwreck, and then, the cultural relics department organized some tentative salvage work, did not expect to salvage a large number of cultural relics from the wreck, it turned out to be a British cargo ship at that time, full of cultural relics from the Yuanmingyuan.
epilogue
Just as our country was preparing for the next salvage operation, the British, who had learned the news, stepped forward, declared that it was their country's shipwreck, and that they should be responsible for salvage, and demanded that we return the shipwreck to them. Naturally, our country will not agree to such a rude request.
There are a large number of artifacts in the shipwreck
Think of the British and French coalition forces at the end of the Qing Dynasty to take advantage of the country's weakness to invade our country, snatched a large number of cultural relics, so far Our country is difficult to recover, and the cultural relics on the sunken ship are originally Chinese, there is no such thing as "return to Britain", or they will return the cultural relics in the museum to us. What do you think about that?