November 5, 1924, was a very extraordinary day for Emperor Puyi. That morning, Feng Yuxiang led the Kuomintang army to surround the Forbidden City and demanded that Puyi move out of the palace.
After Puyi was deposed, until Feng Yuxiang led the army, he was still allowed to continue to live in this precious Forbidden City, and he still had the right to use all the treasures in the Forbidden City.
With the departure of Puyi, this great Forbidden City is no longer owned by the descendants of Ai Xinjueluo, and the cultural relics inside naturally no longer belong to Puyi. However, during that period of war and chaos, the government's custody of cultural relics was naturally not as strict as it is now, and many cultural relics were lost.
After the founding of New China, the state sent special personnel to carefully clean up the debris of the Forbidden City, and an old man surnamed Liu accidentally found a pile of "rags" from the garbage that was cleaned up, who ever thought that these rags sold by his son's greedy wealth are now worth 400 million yuan. What kind of mystery is hidden in this pile of "rags"? Where is it now?
Treasure buried in the stage
In 1912, the last emperor of China's feudal dynasty, Emperor Xuantong, Puyi, officially announced his abdication, and according to the "Preferential Conditions for the Qing Dynasty" sent by the Nanjing Provisional Government to the Qing government, the deposed emperor Puyi could still live in the Forbidden City, and Puyi still had the right to use all the items in the Forbidden City and the right to control the people in the Forbidden City.
Although the deposed emperor lost the entire country, he was at least able to live in the Forbidden City, and the quality of life did not decline at all, and his daily life was peaceful and comfortable.
Unfortunately, such a change is really unacceptable to the eunuchs in the Forbidden City, these eunuchs who were sent to the palace are almost all from poor families, and the only purpose of being willing to enter the palace is to get ahead and enjoy the glory and wealth.
However, their masters were forced to abdicate, and their lives became more and more difficult, and the outside of the palace walls was no longer the scene at that time, and once the Republic of China government moved, they might not even be able to save their lives.
In this way, the eunuchs began to think of a way out for themselves.
For these eunuchs who live in the palace walls all year round, if they want to live a good life after leaving the palace in the future, they must first have endless wealth. As a result, these "clever" eunuchs set their sights on the treasures of the Forbidden City, and a large-scale "theft" began.
At that time, there were many antique shops in the Di'anmen area, and the business was still very prosperous, and the owners behind these antique shops were basically eunuchs in the palace. At first, Puyi did not know what the eunuchs were doing, until one day he learned from his foreigner teacher Zhuang Shidun that the shops outside the palace were placed with treasures that belonged to the palace.
After learning this news, Puyi was furious and ordered a strict investigation of the matter. But because of this, in order to protect themselves, many eunuchs hid things in the drainage holes of the brick wall, some hid them directly underground, and some people even burned down the Jianfu Palace, which contained many cultural relics.
Because of this, many cultural relics have been lost, and to this day no one knows how many cultural relics have been lost in the Forbidden City.
Until 1949, in order to prepare for the founding of New China, the state sent people to thoroughly clean up the Forbidden City, and the huge palace had been abandoned for many years, and the clean-up work was very huge.
With the advancement of the clean-up work, the staff of the Forbidden City Management Office came to Chonghua Palace, the east side of this palace is Shufangzhai, which was the place where the Qianlong Emperor read, rested and entertained, which was abandoned for many years, and Shufangzhai has long been in tatters, especially an ancient opera stage in the palace is overgrown and has been ignored by everyone.
In mid-September 1950, the Forbidden City Administration Began the carpet cleaning work of Shufangzhai and had to thoroughly clean up all the debris in the palace.
Just under the stage, when a staff member was moving stone bricks to clean up weeds, he accidentally saw an inconspicuous small box hidden under the bricks, and the staff thought that they had found the most precious treasure and quickly opened the box.
Unfortunately, only a lump of cotton was placed in the box at that time, and when the cotton was uncovered, inside was a few pieces of rags that had been moldy.
The staff was disappointed, thinking that this was just the belongings of the palace eunuch, and casually threw him into the garbage truck. Every day, the Forbidden City Management Office will clean out a pile of garbage, and these garbage will be sent out of the garbage dump outside the palace every day, and this small box will enter the garbage heap along with other garbage.
Liu Laohan Debao
At that time, it was still in the early stage of the founding of New China, the whole country was in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, and the living standards of the people were not high. The surrounding residents naturally knew that the Forbidden City Management Office would throw garbage to designated places, so they became "gatekeepers" and went to the garbage dump regularly every day to "treasure hunting".
Almost every day, these "gatekeepers" will crouch in the garbage dump in advance, as long as the garbage truck comes, they will rush to grab it, and everything with a little value will be divided up by people.
Not only that, most of the people waiting here are young people, and the "gatekeeper" like Liu Laohan, who is old, often can only get things that others don't want, just like that day, Old Man Liu only picked up the moldy rag.
Liu Laohan's family is poor jingle, the window paper at home has long been broken, there is no money to buy, the weather is getting cold, and there is no reserve of thick quilts.
Liu Laohan thought to himself, these pieces of cloth can still be pasted on the window to shield the wind, and the cotton can also be tucked in the quilt, which can warm some.
The pattern placed on the rag, Liu Laohan thought, these are things thrown out by the experienced staff of the Forbidden City Management Office, naturally they cannot be valuable things. In this way, he took it home with peace of mind and pasted the rag on the window as he thought.
In those days, every family was poor, but there were few people like Liu Laohan's family.
At that time, almost all young people took on the responsibility of supporting the family early, but Liu Laohan's son was completely different, not only did he not help his father to make money, but he mixed with the small around him every day, idle and drunk.
Don't sell treasure
Liu Laohan's son has not worked for many years and has no stable income, but instead likes to drink, often reaching out to ask Liu Laohan for money to go out to drink. Where liu laohan has the ability to meet his son's demands, over time, Liu Laohan's son can only find a way to get money to drink.
In 1953, the State Department of Cultural Heritage began visiting communities in search of cultural relics lost during the war. For a time, under the call of the cultural relics department, everyone was busy going home to look for cultural relics, hoping to find valuable treasures from their homes.
The national treasure hunt boom did not attract Liu Laohan. He thought to himself, how can there be a valuable treasure in such a poor family? But the things that Liu Laohan didn't care about deeply attracted Liu Laohan's son, and he remembered a few rags that Liu Laohan had taken home and pasted on the window earlier.
Looking closely, Liu Laohan's son found that there was a pattern on this rag, and he thought to himself, maybe this is not a painting made by the ancients, maybe it is worth a few dollars.
In this way, Liu Laohan's son held the attitude of trying, and could not wait until his father went to work in the field, he immediately removed these pieces of cloth from the window, rushed to the antique shop, and asked the owner of the antique shop to help find the treasure.
Perhaps because the owner of the antique shop was too busy, or perhaps because Liu Laohan's son was notorious in the local area, the boss shook the dust on the cloth, picked up a magnifying glass and looked at it a few times, and then casually threw 20 yuan to Liu Laohan's son.
For now, 20 yuan is not a small amount, but at that time, it was indeed a lot of income. At that time, people worked hard for a month, but only earned more than a dozen yuan of income.
This made Liu Laohan's son happy and broken, he was afraid that the boss would regret it, so he ran away with the money in a hurry and continued to go to his fox friends to drink.
Antique dealers offer treasures
After sending away Liu Laohan's son, the antique shop owner sat down alone to look at the pieces of cloth, but after several investigations, he did not find the mystery in it. Not only that, but because these pieces of cloth were too tattered, they were thrown into the corner by the antique dealer and never picked them up again.
With the promotion of cultural relics, experts from the Ministry of Cultural Relics have also begun to visit the people. One day, an expert from the Palace Museum came to the antique shop, and during the treasure hunt, he accidentally found the six rags in the corner.
The expert slowly picked up the rags and carefully cleaned up all the dust.
At this end, the experts found that something was wrong, and this was no ordinary rag.
Therefore, the expert excitedly and nervously asked the owner of the antique shop where these pieces of cloth were obtained, and the owner of the antique shop saw the expert's look and naturally realized that something was wrong, so he truthfully told him that he had spent 20 yuan to receive it before, and smashed it in his hand and had not been sold.
The owner of the antique shop wondered, "Are you sure this can be a national treasure?" ”
The expert firmly said: "This must be a national treasure-level cultural relic, such a precious cultural relic, I hope you can hand over to the National Museum, the National Museum will certainly be more properly preserved this cultural relic." ”
The antique dealer saw that the expert was so serious and believed his words, so he handed over the six rags in the store to the expert, who brought it back to the Palace Museum. The cultural relics that have been circulated several times returned to the Forbidden City, and the experts carefully cleaned up, and finally the cultural relics that have been sealed for a long time show the light he deserves.
According to the experts of the Palace Museum, these six paintings are very promising. The author of the painting was originally from the Tang Dynasty, a protégé of the painting saint Wu Daozi, named Lu Shuyi, who was a well-known painter in the late Tang Dynasty and even the early Song Dynasty, and his masterpiece was to paint the Arhat Venerable.
These rags are the fine silk canvases of that year, and the patterns on the paintings are the eighteen arhats he once painted.
At that time, this group of eighteen arhat portraits was deeply loved by the emperors of all generations, and after the Tang Dynasty, and even in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it was always collected in the palace and became the pocket of the emperors of all generations. It was not until the abdication of the Xuantong Emperor and the theft of the Forbidden City that this cultural relic underwent several circulations.
Perhaps it was during the eunuch theft that a young eunuch stole six portraits of His Holiness Lu Shuyi and hid them under the floor tiles of Shufangzhai in order to find a suitable time to take them out of the palace.
Who would have thought that later, about this little eunuch had some accident and did not care to take these six portraits, and it was only after the founding of the country that it was cleaned up as garbage by the staff.
According to today's research, the eighteen arhat portraits of His Holiness Lu Shuyi have gone through the passage of time and have long been lost, and the six that exist today are the six that Liu Laohan picked up at that time, and the silk veils are painted on the silk veils: His Holiness the Eighth Ganaga, His Holiness the Eleventh Rented Banataga, His Holiness the Fifteenth Pot Of Baga, His Holiness the Seventeenth Gasha Yaba, and His Holiness the Eighteenth Nana Damidara.
According to expert valuations, these portraits are now worth at least 400 million. The owner of the antique shop handed over the six portraits that year, and the state compensated the antique dealers for their losses, and as of 2022, these precious cultural relics have been preserved in the Palace Museum and restored to their rightful identity.
epilogue:
All along, people have always been able to find many cultural relics in the folk, such as numismatic porcelain, or excavated into thousand-year-old tombs.
With the improvement of people's living standards and cultural quality, everyone has long established the awareness of protecting cultural relics, and now that people have found cultural relics, they will spontaneously choose to hand them over to the state, hoping that these cultural relics can be better preserved and show more people the heritage and culture of China for five thousand years.
bibliography:
[1] The Forbidden City, Episode 7 of the Documentary "Forbidden City", Episode 10 "From the Imperial Palace to the Museum", Episode 11 "The Great Migration of National Treasures"