Committed in: 1937
The place of the crime: Chongling Tomb of the Qing Dynasty
Victim: The Guangxu Emperor and his concubines
Perpetrators: Eshichen, Guan Youren, Li Hanguang and eight others
Modus operandi: Dig up his grave and then whipp the corpses to three hundred
Consequences of the crime: All the funerary items of Zhenfei's tomb were looted
Credibility: Folklore
Founded in 1909, the mausoleum site is named Jinlongyu, 5 kilometers east of Tailing, and is the last of the existing imperial tombs on the mainland. At that time, the Qing Dynasty had been overthrown and continued to be built by the Sunqing Imperial Family. Inside are buried emperors Guangxu of Emperor Dezong and Empress Xiaodingjing of the Yehenara clan.
When Guangxu died, the mausoleum had not yet been built, and his Zi Palace (coffin) was temporarily secured in the Guande Hall of the Forbidden City. In 1913, the Chongling Underground Palace was completed, and on November 16, guangxu's coffin was officially placed in the Chongling Underground Palace. Empress Longyu, who died of illness in 1913, was also buried in the underground palace.
Chongling is the last imperial mausoleum on the mainland. Although its scale is not as large as the mausoleums of Yongzheng and Jiaqing, there are no large monuments, stone statues and other buildings, but in addition to inheriting the regulations of the Qing Dynasty, referring to the style of the Xianfeng Emperor Dingling Mausoleum and the Tongzhi Emperor Huiling, it has absorbed some of the essence of ancient architectural technology and still has its own characteristics. The structure of longen hall is made of copper algae and iron algae wood with a hard texture, and is known as copper beams and iron pillars.
In particular, the four golden pillars in the hall are decorated with a panlong decorated with asphalt and gold, which is the unique feature of the Qing Emperor's mausoleum. According to the needs of the guards and sacrifices, the entire mausoleum built a five-hole bridge, a patrol house, an archway gate, a divine kitchen warehouse, a three-way three-hole bridge, a chaofang, a class room, a longen gate, a furnace, a side hall, a longen hall, a three-door gate, a stone five offerings, a square city, a Ming tower, a treasure roof, and an underground palace. In order to enhance the drainage performance, each palace base was built with 2 meters wide scattered water, the Imperial Belt River was dug in front of the Ming Tower and in front of the three gates, and 14 water holes were chiseled into the underground palace to communicate with the Dragon's Whisker Ditch.
introduction
When the July 7 Incident broke out in 1937, the Japanese invaders invaded on a large scale, and the following year occupied Yi County, blackmailing the puppet regime and stationing the so-called "Tomb Guard" in Xiling. At that time, the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party of China rose up to resist the war and liberated the vast mountainous areas west of Xiling, and the guards of the pseudo-Xiling Office were frightened by the divine threat of the Eighth Route Army and fled into yi county in a hurry.
In this way, the entire mausoleum area became a guerrilla zone contested by both the enemy and us. In addition to the elderly tomb keeper who has been serving here for many years, there are no more armed personnel to do guard work, and the guarding of the entire Xiling Tomb has formed a vacuum for a while, and the common people can also go to the mausoleum area to collect firewood and cut grass, walk around, and come and go at will, which has caused an opportunity for the outlaws who think of stealing and excavating the tomb.
In the autumn of 1938, a group of unidentified soldiers excavated the Chongling Underground Palace. Legend has it that the theft of Chongling was done by people who participated in the construction project in that year. Others say it was done by a local band of bandits. Exactly who stole the Chongling Underground Palace is still uncertain, but according to the old people who lived near Xiling at that time, in the autumn of 1938, it was the time of the chaos of the soldiers and horses, and the Japanese army had occupied yi county. As an imperial mausoleum, Xiling no longer has the majestic Eight Banners Guard of the past, and has set up a garrison brigade composed of descendants of the imperial family and the Japanese, which is nominally a tomb protector, but in fact it is for the Japanese to do things, specifically against the Communist Party.
At that time, there was a young man near Xiling who was determined to resist Japan and save the country, but he did not know the Communist Party, did not want to defect to the Communist Party, nor did he want to defect to the Kuomintang, so he found several relatives and friends in a neighboring village and prepared to set up a team to fight Japan, but he did not have a gun in his hand. Several people decided to excavate the tomb of Zhenfei. On the second night they went to Zhenfei's tomb, they saw about a battalion of soldiers running toward Chongling, and the next morning they saw traces left by tomb robbers on the road out of Chongling: Ayako cloth and other trivial things. Chongling was stolen, and who the team was is still an insoluble mystery.
Although the mystery of the theft of Chongling has not yet been solved, the people who stole the tomb of The Guangxu Emperor's favorite concubine Zhenfei have long been corrected on the spot. At that time, Princess Zhen was poisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi because she supported the Guangxu Emperor's change of law. Who could have guessed that less than half a year after the Guangxu Emperor's Tomb was stolen, the tomb of Zhenfei also suffered a nightmare, and the two were really connected to each other.
The Legend of Zhenfei
Princess Zhen was a concubine of the Guangxu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty and his favorite concubine, Zhenfei's grandfather was Yutai, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, her father Changxu was the right attendant of the household, and her uncle Changshan was a general in Guangzhou, and Zhenfei and her sister Concubine Jin grew up in Guangzhou with Changshan. When Princess Zhen was 10 years old, Changshan stepped down as a general in Guangzhou, and she and her sister returned to Beijing with them.
In 1889, the two sisters of Princess Zhen were selected into the palace, and Princess Zhen was only thirteen years old when she entered the palace, innocent and lively, intelligent and clever, cheerful, talented, and quite popular with Guangxu. Every time Guangxu retreated from the dynasty, Zhenfei accompanied her all day long, and her ideas conformed to the emperor's favor. Sometimes dressed as a man, full of black hair, long pigtails, three eyes on the head, wearing a robe and a horse coat, a ribbon around the waist, and a foot towards the boots, like a beautiful teenager-like bad official. In this way, he ate and drank with Guangxu and played together. She also "read through the history of books and interpreted the poetry and painting things", and was able to support Guangxu in taking power and implementing the new policy at a time when the great powers invaded China and the country's strength was declining, so as to realize the long-cherished wishes of "rich countries and strong soldiers" and "not to be the king of the country". When Guangxu was politically suppressed and his actions were monitored, he naturally regarded Zhenfei as a confidant and loved her in every way.
Empress Dowager Cixi's understanding and attitude towards Zhenfei had a transformation process from liking to jealousy, disgust, and hatred, and finally poisoned her. According to the record: "When Princess Zhen first entered the palace, she was very pleased with Cixi and taught to write with her hands. Later Cixi gave the characters of Fu, Shou, Dragon, tiger and so on, all of which were ghostwritten by concubines. The strength is greener than the blue, Cixi is gradually jealous, jealous and evil, and dissatisfied when things happen. (Humanities Monthly, vol. 6) Zhenfei "Each attendant Cixi wore a chapter, and when she peered from the side, she could know its outline and predict how the empress dowager would answer." Retreating from the words of his peers, and under the will of Yi, he was not happy. Later, as the empress dowager knew, she was surprised that she had overcome herself, and was particularly jealous" (Cixi Soft Affair). Zhenfei likes photography, often dressed up and exposed, and listens to the internal monitor shooting. Cixi reprimanded her for saying that "the concubine did not know what to do." Playing with her in men's clothes, Cixi thought that she was debauched and rebellious. As for Zhenfei's support for Guangxu's reform of the law, she was naturally hated by Cixi, so Cixi, while imprisoning Guangxu in Yingtai in the South China Sea, also placed Zhenfei under house arrest in the Forbidden City.
Regarding the murder of Zhenfei, there is a reminiscence article written by a eunuch in the late Qing Dynasty, "Wang Xiang Personally Saw Zhenfei Being Thrown into the Well", which gave a detailed description of the scene: The Eight-Nation Alliance army invaded Beijing, and the Western Empress could not stand up, fled to Xi'an, and when she left, she killed Zhenfei. On July 20 of the year of Gengzi, the palace was in chaos, and both Empress Xi and the emperor changed their costumes and were about to escape from the palace. At this moment, she personally led Concubine Jin and the eunuchs Cui Yugui and Wang Dehuan to the Ningshou Palace and brought Concubine Zhen out of the Three Houses. Princess Zhen did not know how much torture she had suffered in the Cold Palace. She was brought before empress dowager Xi, trembling and looking haggard. Empress Xi told her that now the empress dowager and the emperor were about to leave the capital, and originally wanted to take her away, but in the years of chaos and chaos, in case something happened and lost the dignity of the royal family, she would not be able to stand the ancestors, and let her quickly commit suicide. Princess Zhen told Empress Dowager Xi that the emperor should stay in Beijing. But without waiting for Princess Zhenfei to explain the reasoning, Empress Xi sneered and snatched her white: "You died in front of your eyes, what else do you advocate!" Princess Zhen knelt in front of Empress Dowager Xi and begged to keep her alive, but Empress Dowager Cixi was not moved, and still ordered Cui Yugui to go forward, pull Princess Zhen over, and throw her into the well with a belt.
Afterwards, someone wrote a poem that expressed a deep sigh about the death of Zhenfei: "Jinjing is called depraved, and the desolate Yao Temple is next to it." The stumps are not scattered, and there is a glow in the sun. Ditch water empty stream hate, neon clothes and broken intestines. He is like a zepan grass, Jude endowed with mandarin ducks. ”
The origin of the tomb of Zhenfei
In November 1901, the Qing court made peace with the Eight-Nation Alliance, and Cixi and others returned to Beijing from Xi'an, and cixi saw that the well that Zhenfei had thrown was still the same, so she ordered Zhenfei's family to recover Zhenfei's body. Zhenfei's body had been soaked in the well for more than a year and a half, and the wellhead was so small that it could not be fished out. Cixi was furious and wanted to question the whole family, and Princess Zhen's younger brother was so frightened that his soul was not possessed, so he hurriedly put on the incense case, burned incense and prostrated his head, and begged his sister to show grace and save the life of the whole family. Zhi tearfully straightened one of her sister's twisted legs and buried her in a coffin, and Cixi ordered someone to bury Zhenfei and declared to the outside world: Zhenfei committed suicide by throwing herself into a well in order to avoid being insulted by foreigners, and restored Zhenfei's reputation, and was crowned as a noble concubine from the concubine, in an attempt to cover the ears of the world in the name of "martyrdom of martyrdom."
Why did Cixi kill Concubine Zhen and pursue her? It is said that during her escape, Cixi repeatedly had nightmares, dreaming that Princess Zhenfei was drenched in water and covered in blood, and her eyes were tearful to come and ask for her life, which frightened her, so she pretended to be kind and comforted Zhenfei's undead spirit.
After Princess Zhen died, where was she buried in the western suburbs? Various accounts are different. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty says: "Buried outside xizhimen"; the Anecdotes of the Sunqing Royal Family says that "enjizhuang was buried outside xizhimen"; the Zhenfei Qiren says that "buried in the palace maid cemetery south of the tomb of the eunuch princess enjizhuang outside Fucheng Gate"; the "Chongling Transmission Record" says that it was "buried in the village of Xitian in Jingxi". Enjizhuang is located in the west of Balizhuang in Haidian District, Fuchengmen, which can also be said to be "outside the Xizhimen". Is Princess Zhen buried in Enjizhuang, Haidian District, or in Tiancun? According to the investigation, enjizhuang does have a "old cemetery", that is, a eunuch cemetery, and even the tomb of the great eunuch Li Lianying is not far from here, but no palace cemetery has been found south of the old cemetery. In the village of Tiancun in the west of Enjizhuang, there is a place where concubines stop their coffins. According to the "Records of Poetry and Books", "In the third year of Qianlong, Prince Duanhui stopped the coffin in Tiancun, west of the city. According to the "Yangguang Zhai Series", during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, "concubines died of illness, and the golden coffins were stopped in auspicious places." Five days later, it was moved to The Village of Tada. From this point of view, "Zhenfei Buried Tiancun" is in line with the facts.
In 1914, Empress Longyu died and was buried with Emperor Dezongjing (i.e., Guangxu) in the Chongling Tomb of Jinlongyu in Xiling, while at the same time relocating Zhenfei from Tiancun, Haidian District to Chongfei Garden. In this way, Zhenfei was buried forever under the Yongning Mountain.
The theft of The Tomb of Princess Jane
After each imperial tomb was built in the past, there would be tomb keepers who settled near the mausoleum in order to guard the imperial tomb for many years. Therefore, there are always many villages near the imperial tomb. The Qing XiLing is no exception. In its vicinity, there are also many villages, and Huabei Village is one of them. There is a man in the village named Eshichen, this man is bold and black, and dares to do anything that can make a fortune.
In early November 1938, Eshichen found guan youren, an old acquaintance, and plotted.
"I said, the Japanese are coming, the heroes of the chaotic world are rising in all directions, we should also get some guys, pull a team, run amok, once there is a day of the head, your brother becomes a high official, and our poor brothers will also follow the light, how about it?"
Although Eshichen didn't say much, every sentence was like a ghost pulling Guan Youren's heart. Yes, at present, this ground is three things, old Chiang has slipped away, the Japanese can't take care of it, the Eighth Route Army has not yet officially driven to the mausoleum area, it is a good opportunity to pull the team, the opportunity must not be lost, and the time will not come again. As the saying goes: if you have a gun, you are the king of grass. Become a king, dominate one side, and become a rich man? I can fulfill my lifelong wishes! Thinking of this, Guan Youren was excited, and without waiting for Eshichen to continue to persuade him, he opened his mouth and chiseled his words to the point.
"Where is this guy going?"
"You are really clever, confused for a while, isn't there no master on this ground right now?" Seeing that Guan Youren had so simply agreed to the partnership, Eshichen smiled, leaned closer, nodded his fingers to his feet, and squeezed a few words out of his teeth with confidence, "Just ask for the dead man underground!" Dig up an imperial tomb, take the treasure out and sell it, and worry about how many guns you can buy? Still worried that no one will come to eat food? ”
At the moment, the two of them summed up specific methods, found several accomplices, and decided to let go of their hands and feet.
The next day, Eshichen and Guan Youren separately found several veteran tomb robbers, including Na Baoyu and Su Zhensheng of Longlihua Village, Li Jiguang of Fenghuangtai Village, and eight others, and decided to rob the tomb of Zhenfei at night.
Why did you steal the tomb of Zhenfei, here is also a story.
Li Jiguang has many years of experience in tomb robbery and is the most experienced of these people. When eight people gathered together to study the tomb robbery plan, he rolled up his sleeves and narrowed his eyes, looked around at the accomplices who were holding their breath and listening, and unabashedly put out the idea in his mind, "Don't hide from you, I have stolen the Taifei Mausoleum and the Wangye Mausoleum, these tomb buns are easy to dig and take, the Imperial Tomb is completely opposite, the Emperor's Mausoleum, the Empress Mausoleum has many treasures, this is clear to everyone, but the ming building treasure roof, the scale is too large, the boulder dark coupons, the grouting hoop iron, the project is strong, just these few of us, tired and can't get it open... I think we'll pick up an easy one first, The Tomb of the Thief Concubine, how about it? ”
"If I see the line, I will rob the tomb of the concubine." Eshichen agreed with Li Jiguang's words, "Old Li's words are reasonable, the amount of concubine tomb projects is small, it can be dug up in a few nights, take away the treasure and do things, it is easy to see results." To do this, what you want is to make a quick decision, first find a concubine to do it again, and then slowly come later, you can open the tomb to take the treasure, and don't let go! Everyone echoed and decided to dig up the concubine tomb first, but there are three concubine tombs in the West Tomb, and they still need to choose.
Finally, they speculated about the degree of danger in the process of tomb robbery based on the geographical location of each tomb. The most important thing is to try not to make trouble out of the ordinary. The location of Mudongling and Changfei Mausoleum is to the west, close to the eighth route army's garrison, and it is easy to expose the target of the excavation of these two tombs. Taifei Mausoleum, closer to the village, more inflexible, but also easy to find, and the Taifei Mausoleum has been stolen, and then spend a lot of effort to dig and search, the gain is not worth the loss. There are also the royal tombs in Yuegezhuang and other places to the north, and although the underground treasures are not as many as the tombs of the empress concubines, they are better to excavate. The problem is that in that area, where the bandits led by Gao Hongfei are armed, these people are vicious and cruel, and they are not benevolent to the rich, and they will not allow others to snore next to the bed!
The eight men finally focused on the tomb of Zhenfei in the garden bedchamber. The reason is that Chongfei Garden is far from the village, is not easy to be found, and is relatively safe. Zhenfei was the favorite concubine of the Guangxu Emperor, although she was not happy before she died, the specifications of burial after death were very high, and there were certainly many treasures buried with her, and it was easy to make windfall fortunes when robbing tombs.
After careful planning, the eight men split up to prepare. Eshichen and Guan Youren disguised themselves as companions to collect firewood and went to explore the path in and out of Zhenfei's tomb. Tomb robbery connoisseur Li Jiguang got a wooden pole more than two inches long, the pole root has a "figure eight" leg, and many short wooden sticks are nailed at equal distances on the pole, commonly known as "centipede ladder", which is specially prepared to cross the wall into the underground palace under the cave, which is very convenient to use. The crowd also prepared iron pickaxes, shovels, hand saws, steel brazes and other tools for digging up bricks and pry doors. When everything was ready to stop, the gang dispersed and hid, pretending to be indifferent, and after waiting for the two of them to find out the path, they marched to the tomb of Concubine Zhen in Chongfei Garden.
The tombs of Zhen and Jin Are juxtaposed on the north side of the three gates of chongfei garden, with lush pines and grasses, and two treasures stand on a rectangular platform, and under the treasure roof is the underground palace where the coffin is located. On the south side of the platform, there are stone steps connecting to the Shinto, and below the stone steps is the stone gate into the underground palace. This group of tomb robbers dug down from the middle of the stone steps and the treasure roof of the Zhenfei Tomb, which was made of large rectangular bricks with putty infusion, each brick weighed more than 40 pounds, and it was bonded with fine slurry and white ash, which was difficult to pry. The four diggers threw away their arms and did not gain much. Later, they came up with a clever way to first use an iron pickaxe and steel braze to chisel a large brick, and then use a pickaxe blade to pry it down from the crack. Although it is trivial to do this, it is a piece to remove a brick. The gang worked for about eight hours to dig a shaft with a diameter of 2 meters and a depth of about 3 meters, and underneath it was a hard dungeon roof stone, and in order to make the process shorter, they blew up the tomb of Zhenfei with gunpowder.
According to the thieves, Zhenfei's dungeon was not large, about 6.7 meters long and 10 meters wide, rectangular in shape. To the south, there is a stone gate, majestic and magnificent. Directly north is the treasure bed, on which lies a huge coffin, which shines throughout the light.
Li Hanguang and the others waded through the water to Zhenfei's coffin, chiseled a small hole with an axe, and sawed a circular hole with a saw blade. Li Hanguang carried a horse lamp and drilled into the round hole.
Princess Zhen wore a phoenix crown on her head and a drapery, and her face was like life. Li Hanguang did not have time to take a closer look, and immediately began to search for the treasure. He saw that Princess Zhenfei was holding a delicate and transparent white jade carving in her left hand, a golden ruyi in her right hand, wearing a pair of gold bracelets on her wrists, several turquoise jade hairpins on her head, and many funerary objects around her, most of which were gold and silver, precious stones, pearls, and agate. He hurriedly packed the treasures into the horses' mats prepared in advance and drilled them out of the coffin.
After counting the stolen treasures, Eshichen and others divided them into eight parts according to their quality. Because Jin Bian Fang was too valuable to give to one person, he split it into eight petals and then grabbed the cast to divide the treasure.
Historians disagree on the theft of Zhenfei's tomb, and a considerable number of them believe that what was stolen by the bandits was actually the tomb of Zhenfei's sister, Jinfei, and that Zhenfei's tomb was only the name of the stolen tomb.
The most representative view is put forward by the famous historian Li Jun, who believes that the stolen tomb cannot be Zhenfei for two reasons:
First, in terms of size, the tomb of Jinfei is slightly larger than the tomb of Zhenfei: after all, Jinfei was the last concubine of Chinese feudal society, and the answer can be found by measuring the distance from the top of the mausoleum to the platform. It can also be seen from the appearance. Of course, the difference is not very big.
Second, the underground palace of Jinfei's tomb is made of stone, and the tomb of Zhenfei is brick. At that time, Guan Youren, Eshichen and other people used explosives when robbing tombs, because the underground palace could not be opened by steel brazes alone; according to historical records, there were two specialized stonemasons among them.
Time passes, and the waves sweep the sand. The "Tomb of the Night Thief Princess" is more than 50 years ago. Nowadays, people visit the Chongfei Garden, greet the fragrant herbs, and through the thick shade of the ancient pine, they will see the restored Tombs of Zhen and Jinfei. The sisters' tombs stand side by side on a flat platform. When hanging Princess Zhenfei, people will only sympathize with her bumpy experiences in her life, and as for whose tomb it is stolen, it is no longer a topic of concern.