The Warlord Sun Dianying of the Republic of China once claimed to be a descendant of Sun Chengzong, a famous minister of the late Ming Dynasty. As a teenager, he was not good at learning, did not think of making progress, fought, skipped school and even set fire to private schools, and when he became an adult, he ate, drank, gambled and smoked, and became a jerk. He first participated in the "Temple Taoist Association" and became the head of the non-governmental secret organization, and then dragged the congregation to his direct family, followed the warlords of all sizes and wandered the rivers and lakes, the official fortunes were good, and the number of people and horses also reached more than thousands.
In 1928, zhang Zongchang was defeated, and Sun Dianying quickly surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek, and was appointed as the commander of the Twelfth Army of the Sixth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, leading his troops to garrison Jixian and Zunhua. This place happened to be the location of the Qing Dynasty's Eastern Mausoleum, and Sun Dianying, in order to raise military salaries, in the name of military exercises, crossed the sea in secret, stole graves, and excavated the tombs of the Qianlong Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, collecting a large number of treasures, becoming the largest tomb robbery case in the Republic of China.
Although Sun Dianying committed a felony and aroused public anger, he luckily escaped legal punishment and led to a complete break between the last emperor Puyi and the Republic of China government, laying the groundwork for the future establishment of Manchukuo.
It was rumored that in order to appease the anger of the people, Sun Dianying gave Qianlong's Longquan Sword to Chiang Kai-shek, the jade watermelon to Song Ziwen, and Cixi's Night Pearl to Song Meigong, and as a result, Sun Dianying escaped criminal responsibility.
For such a thing as stealing a grave, whether in ancient times or in modern times, it is a felony and will be cursed, so Sun Dianying will never do it himself, but will only arrange for his officers and soldiers to do it.
Even if some people knew about it, they were afraid of Sun Dianying's obscenity and did not dare to publicize it, but they did not expect that a hundred secrets were sparse, and a month later, a foreign newspaper disclosed the news that the burial treasures of the Qianlong Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi appeared in the antique market, and since then the lid of the pot has been lifted, and a stone has stirred up thousands of waves. Under the investigation of the Investigation Team of the Republic of China Government's Cleansing and Aftermath Investigation Team, this matter was solidified, which once again attracted an uproar in public opinion and caused a sensation throughout the country. Especially in the Sunqing imperial family, the strong reaction of the Manchu Qing remnants, including Puyi, who lived in the Japanese Concession (Zhang Yuan) in Tianjin, directly reported to Chiang Kai-shek and demanded that he must be severely punished.
Because it is a military crime, it cannot be tried by ordinary courts. The Sunqing royal family demanded the establishment of a "special court" and asked to participate in the jury trial. In order to calm public opinion, the Republic of China government set up the Army High Military Law Conference and Military Special Tribunal in Peiping, and the Tanglin tomb robbery case initiated judicial procedures. Yan Xishan, who was the commander-in-chief of the Beiping garrison, was responsible for the specific management, and instructed the four group armies of Jiang, Feng, Yan, and Gui to each elect a lieutenant general as a judge. The chief judge was General Shang Zhen, commander of the First Army of the 3rd Army and chairman of Hebei Province.
After Shang Zhen became the chief judge, the first step was to "investigate and collect evidence."
The first witness was Shou Ling ren ren jun. He accused Sun Dianying of going to the scene of the tomb robbery and presiding over the sharing of the loot, but because the evidence was incomplete, and the witnesses could not even figure out the date sequence, He Jun insisted that he saw Sun Dianying blow up the mausoleum around June 20, but at that time Sun Dianying was still in his hometown of Tianjin, and the army would not really enter the Tanglin until July 4. All kinds of uncertainties have greatly reduced the number of witnesses and not been accepted by the court.
The second witness was a deserter, Zhang Qihou, who boarded the ship with jewels stolen from the mausoleum and was arrested and interrogated on the spot for his strange behavior. He testified: "Under the order of the commander, the engineer battalion was ordered to use mines to blow up the tombs of empress dowager Xi and the Qianlong Emperor. At that time, I did not go in, and the men of the commander of the army guarded the door, and the regiment, brigade, and battalion commanders went down to get things, and no one else was allowed to enter. They finished, and I didn't go until after dawn. I picked up these 36 beads in the grave of Empress Xi. Zhang Qihou's confession confirmed the tomb robbery, and the military commander Sun Dianying was the main envoy, and the human and physical evidence was all there, and the situation was very unfavorable to Sun Dianying.
The second step is to question the person concerned.
Just as he was preparing to summon Sun Dianying, Yan Xishan suddenly stopped asking.
It turned out that at this time, the famous "Central Plains War" in history occurred. Chiang Kai-shek ostensibly unified China and surrendered to various warlords, but his position was unstable, so he decided to disarm the whole country and seize the territory and army of the warlords, big and small. Yan Xishan, the "King of Shanxi", could not sit still, so he took a fancy to Sun Dianying's thousands of men and horses, hoping to be able to use them. So, something happened to terminate the inquiry.
Since the superiors did not allow the trial, the presiding judge Shang Zhen also had to obey the order, and hastily concluded the trial, convicting Tan Wenjiang, Zhang Qihou, Zhang Dianyuan, and others, as well as several antique merchants and Tanglin tomb households, on the charge of "colluding with the Garrison of Zunhua County to steal stolen goods from the Shouling Garrison," and the culprit Sun Dianying was punished with impunity.
After the verdict was sent to the Military Justice Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs in Nanjing, there was no further news on this.
Subsequently, the Central Plains War was full of wolves, and Sun Dianying led his troops to follow Yan Xishan to fight against Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army, and completely fell to the Yan, Feng, and Gui camps, because they were all in the same camp, no one pursued Sun Dianying whether he was involved in tomb robbery.
Sun Dianying lived until 1947, when he died of a recurrence of drug addiction.