On September 10, 2021, Xi'an Institute of Translation and Interpretation published a news on its official website that on the occasion of Teachers' Day, school leaders went to visit and comfort an elderly man, who was the honorary president of the school, Professor Sun Tianyi.
This brief campus news looks unremarkable, but it makes Professor Sun Tianyi, who is 90 years old, return to people's attention again.
Sun Tianyi, a native of Yongcheng, Henan, was born in Beijing in June 1931 and graduated from the Department of Western Languages and Literatures of Fu Jen University in Beijing in 1952.
After graduation, Sun Tianyi taught at Xi'an Foreign Chinese College for a long time, and from 1986 to 1998, he served as the dean of Xi'an Foreign Chinese College, and he translated and published many translations such as "The Biography of De Gaulle", "The Biography of Chamberlain", "The Biography of Roosevelt", etc.
In 1991, he was awarded the title of Expert with Outstanding Contribution and enjoyed special government allowances.
After retiring, Sun Tianyi served as the honorary dean of the Xi'an Institute of Translation and Interpretation, and continued to teach at this prestigious school known as the "Harvard of the East".
Sun Tianyi also has another identity, he is the son of Sun Dianying, the notorious "Tanglin thief" in history.
Sun Dianying, real name Sun Kuiyuan, trumpet Dianying, known as "Sun Laodian", is a famous bandit warlord in modern China. After being defeated in the Northern Expedition, the unit was reorganized into the Twelfth Army of the Nationalist Army, and he still served as the commander of the army.
In July 1928, Sun Dianying led an army to garrison Mashenqiao, Jixian County, which was only a mountain away from the Qing Tombs. Sun Dianying had long heard that the Qianlong Dynasty was the heyday of the Qing Dynasty, cixi was a luxurious empress, and there were many priceless treasures buried in these two mausoleums, so he had already coveted the treasures of the Qing Tombs.
In order to excavate Cixi's tomb, at dawn on July 2, Sun Dianying sent Tan Wenjiang, commander of the Eighth Division, with a brigade to enter the town of Malanyu next to the Qing Dynasty In the name of bandits, and drove away the bandits of Ma Futianbu who had entered the mausoleum area. Subsequently, Sun Dianying claimed that the troops would conduct military exercises, set up camps in the mausoleum area, and were surrounded by sentries, stipulating that the Eight Flags Mausoleum households were only allowed to move in the circled area, and that they were actually stealing treasures.
Tan Wenjiang, commander of Sun Dianying's division, then led two brigades to enter from the gate of the Tanglin Palace in Bodhisattva Yuding, and after some twists and turns, found the entrance to the underground palace. In order to prevent the tomb from theft, the Tomb of the Qing Emperor was exceptionally strong, and although the number of treasure robbers was large, there was no progress in wielding a pickaxe and a knife and axe. If he were an ordinary tomb robber, he might only be able to look at the underground palace and sigh, but Sun Dianying had already expected it, and he ordered Tan Wenjiang to bring engineers. Under modern military technology, even the strongest mausoleum will not help. The bandits used explosives to blast open the entrance to the underground palace and the wall of kong made of green bricks and iron reinforcements, and then opened two stone doors to enter the burial chamber.
What catches the eye is a white jade seat in the middle of the room, on which is parked the coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi, called the "treasure bed". This set of coffins is divided into two layers, inside and outside the coffin covered with a layer of gold rafters, made of precious gold silk nan wood, the rafters are coated with 49 lacquers, the outermost layer is gold paint, and the lama is also asked to write down the four heavenly king mantras, and this golden rafter alone is a priceless treasure.
But where the bandits recognized the goods, they split the outer coffin, opened the inner coffin filled with red paint, threw Cixi's body outside the coffin, and overturned the coffin, taking away the jewels around Cixi's body and the treasures at the bottom of the coffin.
Sun Dianying later recalled:
Lafayette was like sleeping, but only when he saw the wind did his face turn black.
He added:
Why did Cixi's body remain unchanged for 20 years after her death? Because she contains a large night pearl in her mouth, this night pearl is divided into two pieces, and when it is closed together, it reveals a green han light, and within a hundred steps at night, you can see your hair.
This jewel was also described in the book of the last emperor Puyi.
The strange light emitted from the coffin dimmed the light emitted by the flashlight. When Cixi was buried, a large number of treasures were buried in the coffin. According to the notes of Li Lianying, the most favored eunuch around her, in addition to the legendary night pearl, emerald watermelon, grasshopper cabbage and so on. The bottom of cixi's coffin is also covered with a brocade mattress set with gold wire jewelry, on which are set 12,604 large pearls, 85 pieces of red sapphire, 2 pieces of emerald, 203 pieces of tourmaline and white jade. The brocade mattress is covered with a silk mattress embroidered with lotus flowers, and it is covered with 2400 5-point round beads. In front of cixi's corpse, place an emerald lotus leaf weighing 22 taels and 5 cents and 4 cents; at the foot, place a large tourmaline lotus flower weighing 36 taels and 8 cents. It means that after Cixi entered the funeral, the lotus leaves on her head, the lotus flowers on her feet, and the lotus flowers in her steps.
In addition, the multi-layered shou robes worn by Cixi, the pilgrimage beads and various accessories worn on the chest, and the prayer quilts covered by the body are inlaid with countless large and small pearls. In addition, 108 gold, silver and precious Buddha statues were placed next to Cixi, as well as about 200 pieces of jadeite and gemstone carved fruits placed on the left and right of her feet, all of which were rare treasures, and the coffin was stuffed with fullness.
At that time, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty did not expect that just over 20 years later, the royal mausoleum would become a treasure trove of the warlord Sun Dianying.
Tan Wenjiang's troops were excavating the Cixi Mausoleum Underground Palace, and another brigade commander under Sun Dianying, Han Dabao, was not idle, and he also led his troops into the Qianlong Emperor's Yuling Tomb on July 6 under the guise of military exercises, broke into the underground palace, and even dug and blew open four stone doors. Inside the mausoleum, Qianlong and his two empresses and three imperial concubines were split open, and the bones were thrown out, snatching away all the jewels that could be snatched.
The amount obtained was so great that it could not be returned for a while. Sun Dianying ordered more than 20 large trucks to be transferred from the headquarters, and on July 11, the cars were full of treasures and drove back to Sun's headquarters.
There are no impermeable walls, and the excavation of tombs in any dynasty and generation is regarded as the most unbearable dirty business, let alone in modern times. The "Tanglin Treasure Theft Case" became a huge news for a while, shocking China and foreign countries. The treasures in the mausoleum are cultural relics belonging to the people of the whole country and carry historical significance, so how can Sun Dianying be allowed to fill his own pockets alone. For a time, the national newspaper was full of strong calls for recovering losses and severely punishing the first offender, Sun Dianying, who became a street rat shouted and beaten by everyone.
Sun Dianying's brain is also very flexible, and when he sees that the wind is not right, he immediately goes up and down to dot. He gave the two largest beads on Qianlong's neck to Dai Kasa as a greeting gift, and entrusted him to hand over the Nine Dragon Sword, jade watermelon, night pearl, and precious stones to Chiang Kai-shek, Song Meiling, Song Ziwen, He Yingqin, and other dignitaries respectively. In the old society, money could be used to understand the gods, and Sun Dianying honored the elite members of the Kuomintang with the fine works of the stolen treasures, and was able to get away with it.
As for the remaining treasures, most of them were used by Sun Dianying to purchase arms and recruit troops as an old foundation for settling down. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Sun Dianying's troops had a good performance, so when he was captured in the Liberation War in 1947, the people's government did not embarrass him, treated him very leniently in the prisoner of war shelter, and specially approved him to take care of his life with a guard. However, Sun Dianying had decades of opium smoking habits, and his body had collapsed, and although the state tried its best to save him, Sun Dianying, who suffered from various diseases, soon died of a terminal illness.
Three years after Sun Dianying stole the tomb, Sun Tianyi was born in Beijing. Sun Dianying was smart from an early age but did not follow the right path, Sun Tianyi inherited his father's clever and clever mind, but his personality was more like his mother Liu Qingzhen, he was diligent and studious, he was modest to others, and he was not at all like his father's stubborn nature.
Sun Dianying's disgraceful history of tomb robbery cannot be erased, Sun Tianyi gradually grew up, and many people will point at him and say that this is the son of Sun Dianying, the "Great Thief of Tanglin", which makes him very distressed. The mother always comforted him, the father did something wrong, not your fault, you are different from the father, you will do better than him.
Under the influence of his mother, Sun Tianyi studied hard and achieved excellent results from childhood to adulthood, graduating from the Department of Western Language and Literature of Fu Jen University in Beijing in 1952, and was subsequently assigned to work at the Xi'an Foreign Chinese College, translating and publishing a number of classic translations, which were very popular and reprinted many times.
Sun Tianyi studied hard in the foreign language major, his achievements were extremely high, and when he lectured, he relied on his profound theoretical knowledge, always able to quote the scriptures and explain advanced academic problems in a simple and simple way, and his courses had distinct characteristics and were deeply loved by students. Teaching and educating people on the three-foot pulpit for decades, Sun Tianyi has cultivated a large number of outstanding foreign language talents for the country, and when Professor Sun Tianyi is mentioned, everyone sincerely admires it. In 1991, Sun Tianyi was awarded the Expert with Outstanding Contribution and enjoyed special government allowances.
Sun Tianyi's contribution does not stop there, perhaps because of the influence of his father's actions, sun Tianyi is more aware of the importance of cultural relics protection. When he first came to the Tomb of the Yellow Emperor on the Loess Plateau in 1959, he was shocked and said afterwards:
"Here is the root of our Chinese nation. However, when I looked closer, I felt that the place was too small and simple, and it was too incompatible with the status and arrogance of our great country. ”
Sun Tianyi made up his mind to show his strength in order to protect the Yellow Emperor's mausoleum. In the following decades, he often traveled for this purpose, and in 1992, the renovation of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum was put on the agenda, and Shaanxi Province decided to establish the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum Foundation. At this time, Sun Tianyi was already a highly respected academic predecessor, and served as the vice chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and had more opportunities to come to the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum. Sun Tianyi took over as the leader of the foundation, which was already expected by everyone, first as the vice president, and then took over the position of president two years later.
As president of the Yellow Emperor Mausoleum Foundation, Sun Tianyi presided over the formulation of strict fund management measures:
The funds raised can only be used for the renovation and construction of protection facilities for the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum and for commending and rewarding those who have made outstanding contributions to this end. Foundations regularly announce the collection and use of funds to the public, and consciously accept audits by auditing departments.
Sun Tianyi himself, on the other hand, never received a penny of salary from the foundation, and he also took advantage of the opportunity of foreign institutions inviting him to lecture abroad to publicize the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum and raise donations.
Under his presidency, the renovation project of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum was completed in August 2001, and seeing that his long-cherished wish had been fulfilled, Sun Tianyi said with satisfaction:
"Every time I see Chinese sons and daughters from home and abroad burning incense and adding a bunch of soil in front of the Yellow Emperor's mausoleum, and everyone is in the same spirit and branches, the same roots and the same family, I feel very pleased, and I feel that I am engaged in a cause of immeasurable merit."
Professor Sun Tianyi's life is full of peach and plum, his reputation is full of Chinese and foreign, and he has become a figure that everyone admires. After his retirement, he was hired as the honorary dean of Xi'an Translation Institute and continued to play his remaining enthusiasm. In 2021, Professor Sun Tianyi was 90 years old, and when the college visited him on this day, he had just stood for 45 minutes with a waist board tied to finish the lecture for the students. The old professor was in good spirits and quick in action, and he could not see the appearance of the old dragon clock at all.
From the stories of Sun Dianying and Sun Tianyi's father and son, we can see the difference between the old and new societies.
Sun Dianying is a warlord, but this does not mean that he is a pure bad person, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he also led his troops to fight fiercely with the Japanese army, which shows that there is still a trace of national righteousness in his heart. Sun Dianying was also clever and clever when he was a child, but the chaotic old society made him unable to use his mind on the right path, embarked on a crooked road, and finally expanded his strength for his own selfishness, and did the robbery and treasure theft that people and gods were indignant about, which was left in history for thousands of years.
Sun Tianyi was born in the old society and grew up in New China, and after graduating from university, it coincided with the subsidence of the war, and his wisdom came into play. The education he received allowed Sun Tianyi to choose a frank and righteous path that could give full play to his talents and talents, and finally made a career, becoming a Confucian scholar with a master's style, and a respected mentor and friend.
Looking at Sun Dianying and Sun Tianyi's father and son, one robbing the tomb and the other guarding the tomb, some people may think that this is "the father's debt is repaid by the son". However, the reason for this completely different path of life, in addition to the spiritual realm of people themselves, is also because of the different times to create different life opportunities.