Deep in the mountains, the tombstone of the king was surprised. Above the cliffs, hidden mysterious treasures. Does the legend that has been circulating for three hundred years prove the mystery of the earth-shattering treasure? Can the continuous clues solve the unsolved mystery of history? Li Zicheng treasure mystery, stay tuned!
Tiantang Village at the foot of Mangshan Mountain, for hundreds of years, has been passing on a mysterious secret:
"Shi Yan Chong, Three Bridges, Slow Walking Hundred Steps, Three Kiln Gold".
It is said that as long as you can crack the mystery hidden in this secret, you can get a huge fortune. And this wealth is exactly the "nine donkeys and eighteen quintals" gold and silver jewelry brought to Mangshan by Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
The mystery of King Li Chuang's treasure
First, mangshan treasure hunting
There is a folk saying that after the defeat of Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, his final destination may have been in Hunan, and he also brought a large amount of treasure. Historically, some people have estimated the value of that treasure, saying that it is at least more than two hundred million.
Since the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, this huge wealth that may have been buried has always attracted the attention of groups of treasure hunters. But as the years passed, the hope of finding it gradually faded.
After liberation, with the advancement of a series of technical conditions, this legend became real again.
King Lee
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, that is, in 1644 AD, the peasant revolt was raging, and Li Zicheng, a peasant from Shaanxi Who was born in poverty, led the crowd to expose the uprising. Seventeen years later, Li Zicheng led the peasant rebel army to defeat the Ming army, and after capturing the capital, they occupied the imperial palace and seized a large number of palace jewels.
According to the history book of the Ming Dynasty Northern Strategy:
After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he retrieved from the palace the internal ingots of "37 million silver ingots and 10 million ingots of gold", and "37 million ingots of the old town treasury, 500 ingots, engraved with the word Yongle".
However, 42 days after Li Zicheng ascended the throne and became emperor, the Ming general Wu Sangui led Qing troops into the pass and launched a fierce siege of Li Zicheng's newly established Dashun regime.
When Li Zicheng was defeated and withdrew from Beijing, he ordered that the gold and silver treasures in the treasury be swept away and the remnants of the army should be led south in order to make a comeback in the future.
After that, Li Zicheng moved to Henan, Shaanxi and even the Two Lakes region, and finally did not know the end.
The whereabouts of this reckless hero and the great wealth he carried became one of the greatest mysteries in Chinese history.
Li Zicheng's treasure is a mystery
Tiantang Village, at the foot of Mangshan Mountain in Hunan Province, is an ancient village that maintains the historical style of two hundred years ago, and most of the villagers are mainly surnamed Tan. In this ancient village, for hundreds of years, a mysterious saying has been passed down by word of mouth:
It is said that as long as anyone can crack the mystery hidden in this secret, who can get a huge fortune, a fortune brought to Mangshan by Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant rebel army in the late Ming Dynasty.
The provenance of this recipe can no longer be verified, but there have been many people who believe in it.
Sunset over Mangshan Mountain
More than forty years ago, in 1977, a strange thing happened in Tiantang Village. At that time, many villagers saw a strange scene at night: a figure with a shawl, and a cluster of ghost fires floating around on the opposite hill - the village was haunted!
For a time, the people in the village were panicked, and every night, every household closed its doors early and locked it, and did not dare to go out.
Are there really ghosts? In order to find out this strange thing, several courageous villagers crouched at the head of the village, and when the ghosts appeared, they rushed forward, but the ghosts scattered, leaving behind a few hoes and shovels. It turned out that the ghost that appeared in the village was nothing more than a tomb robber pretending to be a ghost and hiding people's eyes.
At that time, seeing the large pit dug by the tomb robbers, some villagers who participated in catching "ghosts" could not help but think of the ancient rumors in the village: "Shi Yan Chong, three bridges, slow walking, three kiln gold." These villagers were very excited at that time, could it be that these tomb robbers had cracked the treasure hunting secret in the village?
"Instead of letting outsiders find the treasure, we should do it ourselves", a villager could not help but put forward this idea, and his treasure hunting idea was immediately approved by everyone.
In order to get this tempting treasure, the 5 men in Tiantang Village secretly made a covenant on a dark and windy night in the middle of the month, and they swore a solemn oath that whoever found the treasure first would share the blessings and difficulties.
However, not long after, terror struck, the villagers who were searching for treasure fell ill, and soon someone died. Rumor has it that they were cursed by the undead guarding the treasure.
tumulus
More than a decade later, when the shadow of death gradually faded, Tiantang Village once again appeared a treasure hunting boom. This time, the enthusiasm and scale of the treasure hunt are much higher than the last time.
Tan Xiangji, born in 1933, is a local rural talent, although he only read the fourth grade of primary school, he learned painting, carving, agricultural machinery repair and other crafts. The bodhisattva he carved would sell for two or three hundred yuan at the lowest price.
In the 1980s, he was the first ten thousand yuan household in the surrounding ten miles and eight townships. This farmer, who had only studied primary school for four years, embarked on an archaeological path to trace the treasures of Li Zicheng Mangshan.
In order to find the legendary place where Li Zicheng buried his treasure, you must first find the basis for Li Zicheng's return to Mangshan. Through his visits, Tan Xiangji discovered that most of the place names in the area around Mangshan seem to be closely related to Li Zicheng's title and the place names of his hometown.
In Mangshan, there are Fengtianping, Fengtian Temple, Yongchang Village, Yongchang Temple, Yongchang Niangniang Temple, and Li Zicheng is a native of Mizhi County, Shaanxi, there is a Mizhi Pass, and there is a Tai'an Temple. Tan Xiangji has always been convinced that King Li Chuang eventually hid the treasure in Mangshan.
It is only in this search that two locations in the ancient treasure hunt: "Shi Yan Chong and Three Bridges", have not been able to verify their specific directions.
In fact, compared with the previous treasure hunting villagers, Tan Xiangji is thoughtful and professional. He did not randomly dig with a hoe, but chose to start by tracking down the traces of the king. Tan Xiangji, who did not read much, carefully studied the literature this time.
There is such a legend in mangshan folklore.
After Li Zicheng's army defeated Jiugong Mountain, he came to Mangshan via Shimen, Wugang, and Yizhang, and in order to avoid being pursued by the Qing army, he garrisoned troops in the name of Cao Zhijian, a Deputy Commander of the Ming Dynasty at that time.
After reading a large number of historical materials, Tan Xiangji found a doubt that was difficult to explain.
The Guangxi Lanshan County Chronicle records that Cao Zhijian, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, died of illness in He county, Guangxi in the seventh year of Shunzhi, and there is a similar description in the Yizhang County Chronicle:
In March of the eighth year of Shunzhi (1651), Cao Zhijian, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, trapped the two forts of Huangsha and Fence, and was later surrounded by Qing soldiers.
The same person died twice in two years, and this discovery made Tan Xiangji think that the folklore of Mangshan mountain was not out of thin air, and Tan Xiangji's suspicion also attracted the attention of relevant experts.
Through these historical doubts, coupled with local legends, the mystery of the treasure of Li Zicheng Mangshan was reprocessed:
Locals believe that Li Zicheng himself, or his remnants, had entered Mangshan in the name of Cao Zhijian, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, when nine donkeys were carrying gold and silver and eighteen men carrying jewelry, which were hidden in various secret cellars on Mangshan.
However, hundreds of years have passed, and the geographical situation of Mangshan has also undergone great changes, and the treasure hunters have followed the folk treasure hunting tips - "Stone Rock Chong, Three Bridges, Slow Walking Hundred Steps, Three Kiln Gold" Treasure Hunting, almost all of which are fruitless.
Mangshan is located at the junction of Hunan and Guangdong, with a radius of 20,000 hectares, such a large area, where should Tan Xiangji, who is bent on treasure hunting, start?
After Tan Xiangji began to study this matter, he visited a large number of villagers and collected a number of relevant literary and historical materials. He drew a series of places he doubted on a map, which was Tan Xiangji's "Treasure Map of Li Zicheng Mangshan Mountain", which marked the locations that he thought might be the place where the king hid the treasure.
More than thirty years ago, he began to examine and excavate the first site, Mangshan Zeziping.
Zeziping, located in the southeast of Mangshan Mountain. In the early Qing Dynasty, because there were a large number of anti-Qing forces stationed here, it was once called "Thief Ping" by the Qing army, and it was once lined with shops and was very lively. Time has passed, and now only a few rangers and family members of the Mangshan Forestry Management Bureau live in the area.
According to the Yizhang County Chronicle,
"In March of the eighth year of Shunzhi (1651), Cao Zhijian, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, trapped the two forts of Huangsha and Fence, and was later surrounded by Qing soldiers at Fern Ping, ran out of grain, and annihilated them."
If Li Zicheng's subordinates had stationed here in the name of Cao Zhijian, the possibility of hiding the treasure here was extremely high.
For many years, people have continuously come here to explore the jewelry buried by Li Zicheng, and to this day, they can still recognize the large number of mud pits left by the treasure digging in that year.
In the 1980s, with the support of the local Forestry Authority, Tan Xiangji conducted a comprehensive expedition within a radius of more than ten square kilometers to find traces of treasures.
Two months later, he finally made an unusual discovery.
Tan Xiangji found a grave in Zeziping. It is 15 meters long and 5 meters high, and there is a ditch under the grave.
Why dig a ditch? Tan Xiangji opened the tomb with doubts, and it was an empty tomb intact. Fake!
Where there is falsehood, there must be truth! Fake here, really certainly not too far away!
Tan Xiangji searched around carefully, observing inch by inch of land. Later, in another place, Tan Xiangji found a large stone very strange.
This large stone was obviously artificially placed here, could it be the imprint left by the king's men? Tan Xiangji decided to dig three feet into the ground here to find out.
Removing the large stone suspected of being marked, Tan Xiangji organized the villagers to carry out excavations for 6 months, and when the digging reached a depth of nearly two meters, he found a strange thing.
Tan Xiangji was surprised to find that the soil layer here actually had three color layers.
The first layer is the primary layer, the second layer is the fire ash layer, and the third layer is the cover layer. Tan Xiangji believes that the subordinates of king Chuang were stationed here, and then buried the treasure below, and the camp was built on it. Later, it may have been surrounded and suppressed by the Qing army, and a fire burned the camp, so it left a layer of fire and ash.
Along with it, there are many bowls, grinding plates, and tools for making iron.
Underground artifacts unearthed
This made Tan Xiangji excited, and it also made him more convinced that the treasure was below.
However, when they dug until they reached a depth of 6 meters, there was still no trace of the treasure. At this moment, a sudden and strange heavy rain flooded the stone pit, and the huge project had to be stopped.
Could it be that the legend of the "nine donkeys and eighteen quintals" of gold and silver jewelry carried by Li Zicheng is just a lie spread by false rumors? Or is this huge treasure still in a little-known hidden place?
Just when Tan Xiangji's first treasure hunt was gradually in a desperate situation, an important turning point appeared again.
In 1988, Xie Changfa, a villager in Baisha wei Township at the foot of Mangshan Mountain, went to the hill opposite the village to collect medicine as usual, and when he walked to a saddle-shaped grave, he suddenly stepped on a stone slab in the deep grass of qi people, turned over to see that there were faint words on the stone slab.
Xie Changfa carefully identified it for a long time, and found that these five traditional characters turned out to be "Tomb of King Li Chuang".
Xie Longfa's heart was ecstatic, could Li Zicheng's treasure let himself inadvertently step on it? He wiped clean this stone stele, carefully examined it, about 2.5 feet high, one foot wide, about 0.5 feet thick, the inscription is yin carving, and the 5 big characters engraved on it are indeed "Tomb of King Li Chuang".
The discovery of this tombstone suddenly set off a big shock in the local area, and many villagers came to secretly dig treasures, punched holes from the side of the grave, and were dug ten meters deep in 3 years.
Just as the villagers were preparing to continue digging deeper, another downpour suddenly arrived, and the buried graves that had been hollowed out inside were washed away by the rain, forming a depression of more than 3 meters deep in the same place.
Along with the hideous face of the grave, there were also three layers of thick white bones.
Ancient graves
The discovery of Li Chuangwang's tombstone, although it did not directly help the excavation of the treasure, but it strengthened Tan Xiangji's determination to find treasure.
In 1993, 60-year-old Tan Xiangji went to mangshan Rongjiadong forest farm to repair tea machines, and after work, he heard a strange legend.
Some villagers said that on the mountain in the Rongjiadong forest farm, there was a cave with ghosts in it, and it was said that cao Guogong once lived in this cave, and a rock fell from the sky to seal the entrance of the cave.
Will the villagers refer to Cao Guogong as Li Zicheng, who assumes the pseudonym Cao Zhijian, or the remnants of Li Zicheng? Could it be the real treasure hiding place?
At Tan Xiangji's repeated requests, an old employee of the tea farm had the courage to take him up the mountain.
Rongjiadong is located in the middle of the mountains, nearly 30 kilometers from the nearest township, and the road is full of virgin forest that has never been destroyed.
It is also home to the famous Mangshan soldering iron-headed snake. To reach Rongjiadong, you must rely on a machete to open the way in the mountains.
After walking for nearly 6 hours, a mountain wall appeared in front of the eyes, and the old staff of the tea farm pointed to it, and there was Rongjiadong.
The mountain wall is white, there is little vegetation, there are obvious signs of collapse, and a large number of stones roll down under the mountain wall, and the old staff of the tea farm said that behind the scattered rubble, there is a cave that can accommodate tens of thousands of people.
The old man who led the way said that a temple was once built in this cave, called Tai'an Temple, and Cao Guogong was in it. Later, there was thunder, and the mountain was split in half.
The existence of the cave seems to confirm the words of the old man. Standing outside the cave, you can clearly hear the sound of water flowing through the rolling stones under your feet, and there is a small hydropower station built at the foot of the mountain not far away, and the flow of water comes from this cave.
Tan Xiangji, who was not in a hurry to enter the cave, after inspecting around the Rongjia Cave, was pleasantly surprised to find it again.
He found many military monuments, all scattered around the cave, as if to protect the cave.
When Tan Xiangji climbed to the top of the cave to investigate, he found five false graves.
There is a fake tomb that looks quite complete and nice. Tan Xiangji opened it and saw that a long stone slab, stretching all the way to the cave, sealed the opening of the cave below. Tan Xiangji was 100 percent sure that there must be good things in this underground.
The next is the most prosperous period of Tan Xiangji Mangshan's treasure hunting career. He set up a "treasure digging command", appointed himself as the commander, raised 200,000 yuan, gathered more than 20 workers to bring their own grain to the mountain to search for treasure, and lived next to Rongjiadong for 3 years.
In the three years of excavation of Rongjia Cave, they unexpectedly found more stone walls built of stone near Rongjia Cave, which were too numerous to be built by ordinary mountain people.
It was a huge military monument, built in stone by at least a few thousand troops, and it was far away from Rongjiadong.
Caves, stone walls, everything indicates that there is an unusual history and story in the depths of this dense forest, and Tan Xiangji is eager to reveal the answer.
To this end, Tan Xiangji did not hesitate to use large construction machinery, dug a long distance, and the amount of engineering was also very large. I have been digging into it for tens of meters, but I still haven't reached the end.
After digging for three years, nothing was found except for a few fragments of broken porcelain bowls. With the passage of time, the enthusiasm of the villagers for digging treasures has slowly cooled. What is even more embarrassing is that because of economic pressure, Tan Xiangji's treasure hunting "project" had to be stranded again.
Li Zicheng revolted
In order to explore Li Zicheng's home and the legend of the treasure, Tan Xiangji spent more than 40 years, invested hundreds of thousands of yuan, and consumed all his savings and family wealth. Even the money sent home by her daughter to prepare for the house was also taken by Tan Xiangji to explore the treasure.
Tan Xiangji said that he initially searched for treasure because of the temptation of wealth, but later, he was no longer simply for wealth, he said he was more like an archaeologist.
But no matter what, mangshan treasure hunting has not been broken for hundreds of years, and the legend of "nine donkeys and eighteen burdens" still shows no sign of seeing the light of day.
Just when the people of Mangshan were tirelessly pursuing the wealth of the "nine donkeys and eighteen quintals" of the king, in 2001, a shocking news came out of Zhangjiajie -
On Guanyin Mountain, opposite Tianmen Mountain, someone found a dark cave with a batch of valuable treasures. Some people say that these treasures are related to Li Zicheng's treasures.
Thanks for your attention, the next picture and text, for you to tell the mystery of Li Zicheng treasure wild treasure does not hide. The excitement continues!