On July 4, 1928, Sun Dianying, who had been coveting the Qing Dongling Tombs for a long time, finally did not resist the temptation, and with the Twelfth Army of the Sixth Army, rushed into the Qing Dongling Tombs in the name of bandits, and looted Cixi's Dingdongling Tombs and Qianlong's Yuling Tombs.
In fact, Sun Dianying robbed the tomb of this kind of thing, perhaps there have been some foreshadowing in the darkness, Cixi and Qianlong, the two lords, are the qing Dynasty period of the extreme luxury and well-known, the treasure in their mausoleum, everyone has long heard, even if Sun Dianying does not go to the tomb, there will be other people, then the question is, the night pearl that Cixi holds in her mouth, where did Sun Dianying go after stealing?
The origin of the Pearl of the Night of Cixi
Cixi's extravagant life, it is estimated that there is no need to pay attention to the funeral goods of Ding Dongling, we can also understand one or two, for example, Cixi in order to have a birthday, the beiyang marine division's military expenses were misappropriated, according to relevant data records, Cixi's most extravagant time, the average daily cost of forty thousand two silver, a year's living expenses is equivalent to the Qing Dynasty's six or seven years of treasury income, such a luxurious life, the demise of the Qing Dynasty can be imagined.
Cixi, who was already so extravagant before his death, naturally did not want to be left behind after his death, and his funeral items were jaw-dropping, for example, in Li Lianying's dictation, in the "Notes on Ai Yuexuan" narrated by his nephew Li Chengwu, Cixi's funeral items were recorded:
The tourmaline lotus weighs 3628 gold and is valued at 750,000 taels; the gold silk brocade is made for 84,000 taels, and the various beads embellished on it are worth 854,202, and the various gemstones are worth about 42,000 taels.
This is only a part, in addition to these, Cixi's mausoleum also has such things as jade watermelon, jade cabbage, jade lotus, Nine Linglong Pagoda and so on, of course, the most popular for posterity is actually a night pearl collected by Cixi, it is said that this night pearl can be divided into two halves, after separation will not shine, once together it is radiant, even people's hair can be seen clearly.
According to Jiang Buli's record in the "Theft of cixi mausoleum", "The Night Pearl No. 51 weighs four hundred and twenty dollars and seven cents (133.4375 grams today), worth 10.8 million taels", if equivalent to the current price of about 810 million yuan.
Where did such a precious pearl of the night come from? According to wang Chunyun's research inference, this night pearl should come from a 793.5-gram super diamond rough found in ancient India, as to why it ended up in the hands of Cixi? Experts also gave explanations.
Originally, this super diamond rough stone was in the hands of the ancient Indian royal family, and later fell into the hands of Shah Jahan of the Mughal Dynasty, with the decline of the Mughal Dynasty, this diamond disappeared, as for the later destination, Wang Chunyun gave relevant inferences.
There was a king in Afghanistan who had eight conquests against the Mughals, it is very likely that this super diamond was taken away when he was crusading against the Mughal Dynasty, and later in 1760 the Qing Dynasty carried out a conquest of Dzungar to pacify, so Afghanistan submitted to the Qing Dynasty, and in 1760 and 1762, it was twice to pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty, and it is very likely that this rough diamond was paid tribute to Qianlong at this time.
Qianlong is an emperor who likes to collect antiques, when he sees such a beautiful thing, he will naturally collect it, as for when he later processed it into a night pearl, it is unknown, but Qianlong's heritage, after being passed down from generation to generation, has become Cixi's funerary product, and it is really a creation.
Coincidentally, Before Qianlong was born, especially after his later years, he was also very extravagant, especially liked to study and collect some antique calligraphy and paintings and the like, among Qianlong's many antique calligraphy and paintings, there were two treasures that Qianlong loved, one was a large "necklace" of 108 imperial pearls, and the other was the legendary Nine Dragon Sword.
Both Qianlong and Cixi were so extravagant and well known to the world that after their deaths, the treasures in their tombs would naturally become the eyes of those who wanted to make a windfall, and as long as they had the opportunity, they would inevitably rob the tombs.
The reason why no one attacked the Qing Dongling before Sun Dianying was because after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the Beiyang government still promised to continue to send troops to guard and protect the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, until Feng Yuxiang drove Puyi out of the Forbidden City, the qing imperial tombs were gradually relaxed, so that eventually no one guarded, Sun Dianying and some tomb robbers began to take advantage of the void.
Why did Sun Dianying rob the tomb?
Sun Dianying, this person, was originally a small when he was young, and there was no less to do in the matter of robbing the house, it can be said that in this regard, he was still very experienced, and later by relying on his own courage, Sun Dianying joined the army and became Xu Yuanquan's subordinate, and Xu Yuanquan was the commander-in-chief of the Sixth Army.
Because Sun Dianying performed well, he was later promoted to the commander of the Twelfth Army of the Sixth Army, that is, after becoming a military commander, the pressure on Sun Dianying's shoulders was much heavier, especially at that time, Chiang Kai-shek treated these miscellaneous troops very generally, and often defaulted on military salaries, resulting in Sun Dianying being stretched thin, and if he did not pay any more, I am afraid that no one would be willing to follow him.
Sun Dianying thought left and right, and also went to Xu Yuanquan to seek a solution, but Xu Yuanquan did not have a problem, and finally Sun Dianying began to play the idea of Qing Dongling, and told Xu Yuanquan about his thoughts, Xu Yuanquan did not stop Sun Dianying, in other words, he acquiesced to Sun Dianying's doing so.
Then Sun Dianying gathered his army, prepared his guys, and first entered the vicinity of the Qing Dongling Tombs in the name of suppressing bandits, drove away Ma Futian and other bandits who also had illusions about the Qing Dongling Tombs at that time, and posted a notice saying that they would blockade Ma Lanyu for military exercises. When everything was ready, Sun Dianying and his gang used cannons as a pretext to blow open the gate of the Dingdongling Underground Palace, and a group of people entered Cixi's mausoleum in a mighty way to frantically carry treasures.
According to some records, after Sun Dianying and others took away the treasures in Dingdongling, they also took Cixi out of the coffin, and after removing the treasures on their bodies, they threw them on the ground, and when the relevant personnel carried out protective excavations of Dingdongling, they found that Cixi's mouth was crooked, so it can be seen that cixi's mouth contained the night pearl, which should be true.
After Sun Dianying and his gang stole Cixi's Dingdong tomb, they were not satisfied, and they also looted Qianlong's Yuling Tomb, and the chaozhu and the Nine Dragon Sword inside were stolen by Sun Dianying, in order to pull these treasures away, Sun Dianying used 30 trucks to transport them back smoothly, which shows that Sun Dianying gained a lot this time.
After the incident was reported in the "Central Daily" published by the Nanjing government, it aroused strong dissatisfaction from people from all walks of life, and everyone accused Sun Dianying one after another, and Puyi was even more excited, putting pressure on Chiang Kai-shek and hoping that Chiang Kai-shek would seriously deal with Sun Dianying.
The whereabouts of the Night Pearl
Sun Dianying saw that the situation was not good, so he took some treasures to find Xu Yuanquan, the commander-in-chief of the Sixth Army, hoping that Xu Yuanquan would think of a way for himself, Xu Yuanquan accepted money from people, eliminated disasters for people, and soon gave Sun Dianying an idea, to connect Sun Dianying, and let Sun Dianying take the treasure to break the wealth and eliminate the disaster.
Sun Dianying quickly took the treasure to the top level of the Kuomintang and the magnates in society at that time, and after Sun Dianying's some reckoning, the tomb robbery case in the Qing Dynasty was not resolved, and as for how Sun Dianying was dotted at that time, there are also records.
Sun Dianying gave the Nine Dragon Sword to Chiang Kai-shek, the largest two on the beads to Dai Kasa, the emerald watermelon to Song Ziwen, Yan Xishan to a large amount of gold, He Yingqin to a sword, and the Night Pearl to Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Song Meiling.
As for the whereabouts of the night pearl, it also stopped here in Song Meiling, since the night pearl was given to Song Meiling, there is no news, some people say that Song Meiling cut the night pearl and embedded it on his own pair of slippers, I think this statement is not very realistic; some people say that Song Meiling sold the night pearl to the oil tycoon Rockefeller during the United States, and was collected by it, I think this statement is not credible; some people say that Song Meiling gave the night pearl to her mother's family as an heirloom, this statement we do not know.
All in all, even when Song Meiling died, she did not mention any news about the night pearl, and where the night pearl ended up has become a mystery, and maybe one day we will learn that before that, we can only wait quietly.
epilogue
Cixi and Qianlong both thought that the wealth when they were alive needed to be taken to another world to continue to enjoy, who had thought of their greed, and finally exchanged for Sun Dianying's tomb robbery, so that even the bones were thrown on the ground, wretched, maybe this is another magic of wealth, it can bring people a lot of things they want, but it can not guarantee a person's eternal safety, Cixi and Qianlong because of wealth caused by no peace after death, Sun Dianying because of wealth led to a desolate end, in the end, they all lost to the magic of wealth, The world should take this as a warning!
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