There is a temple outside the Xihua Gate in Beijing, called "Zhenwu Temple", the temple has a large vegetable urn, the caliber is more than one meter, the whole body is carved from jade, it is not a common thing at first glance. However, the strange thing is that for more than three hundred years, there have been millions of people coming and going here, but no one has realized its extraordinary, and even the Taoist priests of the True Martial Temple have only used it to pack pickles and know nothing about its origin.
In fact, this "big vegetable urn" is named Dushan Dayuhai, which is a jade artifact ordered by Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, and is rated as the first jade of Zhenguo by the "National Humanistic History".
In the 13th century, when the brave and warlike Mongols rose and Kublai Khan succeeded to the Khan's throne, Mongolia had already entered the Central Plains, which was the peak of national strength. One day, Kublai Khan rewarded his soldiers for a feast for the masses, and suddenly came up with an idea, he wanted to build a huge royal wine tank to show the prosperity of the country. Soon after, the jade craftsmen in the palace received this order, and they did not dare to be idle, so they carried out this work overnight, looking for rare jade all over the country.
Just as the so-called "Emperor Tiantian pays off", after some investigation, the jade craftsmen finally found a piece of Dushan jade weighing 7,000 kilograms on Dushan Mountain in Nanyang, Henan. Dushan jade is one of the four famous jades in China, known as "Nanyang jadeite", which is extremely precious. In order not to waste this large jade, hundreds of craftsmen meticulously carved it day and night, until 5 years later, that is, until the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (1265), the epoch-making "Dushan Great Jade Sea" was successfully launched.
The jade of The Great Jade Sea of Dushan Mountain is dark green, with only a few mixed with white, black, purple and other patterns, and the texture is soft and delicate, and the warmth is incomparable. There are more than a dozen animal motifs carved around the jade, including dragons, ants, carp, rhinoceros, etc., with exquisite and exquisite skills, both shapes and gods, and it is a landmark work in the history of Chinese jade. It is worth mentioning that the Great Jade Sea of Dushan Can store more than 30 stones of wine, that is, 3,000 liters, which is enough to be called a behemoth, and Kublai Khan can be said to be more than enough to feast on his courtiers.
Later, Kublai Khan built the center of the Yuan Capital, Wanshou Mountain, on the basis of Qionghua Island in the Jin Dynasty, and at the same time, he also built the "Guanghan Hall" at the highest point of the Wanshou Mountain, and the Great Jade Sea of Dushan Mountain was placed in the Guanghan Hall. (In December of the second year of the Yuan Dynasty, the Great Jade Haicheng of Dushan Mountain was established in the Guanghan Hall.) Unfortunately, however, there is no feast in the world, and although Kublai Khan once feasted on the masses, slaughtered cattle and sheep, and enjoyed himself, 100 years later, the Yuan Dynasty collapsed, and the Great Jade Sea of Dushan also ushered in its new owner.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, during the Ming Dynasty, the Guanghan Hall collapsed, the Great Jade Sea of Dushan was missing, and the first few emperors of the Qing Dynasty could not be found. In the fifty years of the Kangxi Dynasty (1711), the emperor ordered the reconstruction of the Zhenwu Temple, and when the person in charge was supervising the work on the spot, he accidentally found that the large vegetable urn of pickled pickles was made of jade, so he quickly took out the pickles, washed them, and put them into the mountain stones to show the meaning of Putuo in the South China Sea. However, at this time, no one still knew the true origin of the Great Jade Sea of The Great Jade Sea.
It was not until 1745, when Gao Shiqi entered the temple to play, that he discovered the extraordinary nature of the "big vat", so he quickly reported the matter to Qianlong. After Qianlong heard this, his heart was overjoyed, and he should order the Ministry of Internal Affairs to allocate 100,000 taels of silver to buy back the Great Jade Sea of Dushan Mountain. Nowadays, the Great Jade Sea of Dushan Mountain is placed in beihai park tuancheng, and countless tourists from home and abroad visit every year.