As we all know, since the Opium War, our country has been bullied by foreign imperialist forces, and various unequal treaties have made our country a "cake" divided up by the great powers, and countless reparations and territories have been sold to other countries by the Qing government in the form of treaties, which can be said to be the shame of every Chinese.
The culprit that led to the late Qing government being so decayed and even reduced to an imperialist lackey can be said to be the corrupt and incompetent rulers of the Qing government. Among these rulers, the most notorious was Empress Dowager Cixi.
But today, we will talk about a ridiculous thing about Empress Dowager Cixi, a "small matter" related to our national treasure.
Speaking of which, this matter is also related to the national treasure of our country, Our country is an ancient civilization with a long history, all kinds of cultural relics treasures can be said to be innumerable, but also the treasures left by our ancestors, and when the great powers invaded China, the most important things, including these precious cultural relics.
This cultural relic of Empress Dowager Cixi is related to the national treasure, and the relationship between Empress Dowager Cixi and the national treasure should start from her sixtieth birthday. At that time, Cixi was very obsessed with it because she liked to listen to the stories of Liaozhai and also liked to watch "ghost paintings" while listening.
At that time, Cixi was still the most powerful person in the imperial court, just about to celebrate her sixtieth birthday, so many powerful people wanted to seduce her, including Xu Run.
Speaking of Xu Run, the head is not small, he is a tea merchant, but it is not an ordinary tea merchant, he was one of the famous "four major compradors" in China at that time, the first machine printing factory in modern China was opened by him, including the first insurance company he founded, it can be said that it is not small. If such a figure wants to seduce Cixi, the gifts they give will certainly not be too ordinary.
After Xu Run learned that Cixi was about to hold the sixtieth birthday, he began to prepare gifts, and he also understood that in the name of Empress Dowager Cixi, ordinary gifts were not eye-catching, so he thought of throwing in his favor and giving her something that Cixi would be interested in.
After some inquiry, he learned that Empress Dowager Cixi liked to talk about the story of Zhai, and was also very obsessed with "ghost paintings", so Xu Run had the direction of gift-giving.
In the end, Xu Run spared no expense and asked someone to create a special album collection, which contained 725 pictures, all of which were created about the stories in "Liaozhai Zhiyi", and 48 of them were also printed in another volume of pictures, which can be said to be very complete.
I have to say that this gift is not to say that it is given to Cixi, even if it is given to a person who does not like to talk about fasting, the other party will be quite interested, Xu Run's gift is indeed very careful.
And Empress Dowager Cixi was indeed very happy after receiving this gift, and she loved it all day and treated it like a baby.
In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, from Tianjin to Beijing, Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor and others have been fleeing west, and the Eight-Nation Alliance army has wantonly robbed our country's national treasures in beijing, and Cixi's beloved "Liaozhai Tushu" is naturally no exception.
But later, the Eight-Power Coalition returned the atlas because their conscience found it? Of course not, but there is something in it that they are afraid of.
What are they afraid of? It is a "ghost painting" in this atlas, what is on it?
It turned out to be the "painting skin" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi", and the plot depicted on the picture was a "ghost", that is, the monster with a vicious face, holding a paintbrush to depict a human skin, and this human skin he depicted was the image of a big beautiful woman.
Readers familiar with this chat will know that this is a scholar who saved a beautiful woman in the wild, and only to take her home to find that she was actually a ghost in disguise.
Seeing this painting, we will not only be amazed by the evil ghost image in it, but also be touched by the strange feeling in it, because the details of this painting are too rich, and the spirit of Liaozhai is vividly embodied.
For the Chinese we grew up reading Liaozhai, this may not be a horror, but for those foreign powers, this is the existence of terror, so the painting will eventually be returned.
But the returned atlas is no longer complete, perhaps because the robbery was scattered, and many pictures were lost to the people. And after 57 years, the scattered pictures appeared in Soviet Russia, and finally they returned to us free of charge. As for the few remaining pictures, they also occasionally appear on the auction floor and auction off a sky-high price of 65 million.
Seeing this, I have to sigh that the cultural charm left by the ancestors is really impressive.