In 1996, archaeologists were thrilled to find a stone tablet in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, which read "Shijia Pit", which may have been the tomb of the king of Ceylon that they had been looking for for a long time. However, the archaeological work was blocked by a Woman from Southern Fujian, who claimed that she was the Princess of Ceylon, which was her family's ancestral grave, and asked the archaeologists to immediately stop the destruction of the ancestral tomb. So, is what the woman said true? Is this tomb really home to the Prince of Ceylon? Today I will bring you closer to the story behind the Princess of Ceylon.
The identity of the Sri Lankan princess was accidentally exposed
The woman who stopped the archaeologists, Xu Shiyin'e, was born in 1975 in a family in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and she herself seemed nothing special, running a restaurant and antique shop, and living an ordinary life. When Xu Shiyin'e was a child, she liked to listen to her grandmother's stories. However, every time the grandmother told the family story, she was always reluctant to tell Xu Shiyin'e too much news, but said that her family came from a paradise, due to various accidents, she came here and began to take root here.
Xu Shiyin'e is not surnamed Xu, but surnamed Xu Shi. But as Xu Shiyin'e grew up, when she was studying at school, many people in the class were very curious about her surname. Later, she learned about the surnames of the hundred families, so she began to search for her surnames everywhere in the hundreds, and found that there was no surname "Xu Shi" at all. When she went home and asked her parents, they were reluctant to say anything more to her. It was not until Xu Shiyin'e grew up and her father wanted to go overseas to inherit the family business, that he finally decided to tell her the family secret, it turned out that she was the princess of Ceylon, and asked Xu Shiyin'e to keep this secret and resolutely not to tell outsiders.
Until 1996, archaeologists in Fujian Province excavated an ancient tomb. The news of this archaeological activity completely disrupted xu Shiyin'e's life, and she fidgeted and was extremely entangled, because the "family pit" found was the ancestral tomb of the Ceylon royal family of their family, and the ancestral tomb of her own family was destroyed, and even faced the situation of being moved out, she could not sit idly by. After weighing it up again, Xu Shiyin'e first explained the situation to her husband who was in the dark.
What is it like for a Fujian man to turn into a Sri Lankan steed overnight? I am afraid that only Xu Shiyin'e's husband Liu Yahong can answer. Learning that his wife, who has been married for 20 years, is actually a noble princess, which makes Liu Yahong cry and laugh. But it is important to save the ancestral grave. Empty words, casually saying that they are descendants of the royal family, I am afraid that people will be considered crazy. Liu Yahong and his wife immediately collected genealogies and objects that could prove their identity, can they successfully save the ancestral grave?
So she dialed the Quanzhou Evening News, and when the phone was connected, she didn't say much but just called herself a descendant of the Prince of Ceylon and asked the archaeological team to stop digging. The Sri Lankan royal family has long heard that the princes of their own country are living in Chinese people, and they ask the Chinese embassy to find the descendants of the prince.
According to clues given by the royal family, their prince was pseudonymous. The embassy staff broke through the archives of classic books, and could only find the last person in China with the surname of the Qing Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty, where to find the descendants of the Ceylon royal family? There was nowhere to be found in the iron shoes, and it took no effort at all, and the Princess of Ceylon found the door herself.
Fujian produced a Sri Lankan princess, and the news caused a sensation in the major media, and some media called her a "foreign princess". The Sri Lankan government also learned of this, and in 2002, Sri Lanka sent a delegation to China to visit the tombs of Xu Shiyin'e and prince Ceylon. The century-old wish of the king of Ceylon can finally be fulfilled, so why did the prince of Ceylon go into exile in China in the first place? Why haven't they returned to Sri Lanka?
The mystery of the exile of Sri Lankan princes to China
Records of Sri Lankan royals coming to China can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty. As early as 1459 BC, when Zheng He went to the West twice, he reached the kingdom of Ceylon, which is today's Sri Lanka. The king of Ceylon wanted to thank the Emperor Zhu Di for the technology and treasures he had brought to ceylon, and he also wanted to see what a powerful country was behind this great fleet. So the king of Ceylon sent his own prince Shiliba to follow Zheng He's fleet to China to meet the current king, thus building a trade bridge between the two countries.
Soon after, Sri Lankan Shizi came to China, and he deeply felt the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty. After meeting the emperor, Setsuko intended to return to China, but there was a coup d'état in Sri Lanka at this time. The king of Ceylon was imprisoned by the prince's cousin, and the throne fell into the hands of his cousin. Not only that, but his cousin also sent people thousands of miles to China to assassinate him. Shizi sent several of his retinues to inquire about the news, but they were caught by the ceylon agents and tortured to reveal the hiding place of Shizi, but the retinue was loyal to Shizi until his death. On the one hand is ceylon of the coup, on the other hand is the central plains land that he loves, how should Shizi choose?
Seeing that the regime was on the sidelines, and the prince of the world also knew that it was futile for him to go back, it was better to stay outside and keep a little of the royal bloodline. Shizi was disappointed to return to the country and stayed in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and the Ceylon Kingdom Shizi began to live in Quanzhou with the surname of "Shi", where he married and had children, and began to multiply for centuries. The members of the mission that came with him also stayed in Quanzhou with him. There was also a son in their family, which made the family very proud. But later, in a certain generation of the family, there was no male ding to continue the incense, and the family had to find a man with the surname of Xu to join the family, so the family name became "Xu Shi".
The prince was always thinking of returning to China to avenge himself, but he was unable to achieve his wish because of the lack of news and no support. Until later, his life was about to come to an end, and he forcibly endured the thoughts of the ceylon kingdom, leaving behind an ancestral precept: I hope that the descendants of his own clan must keep their identities secret and not let the outside world know. Fast forward more than five hundred years, and although the descendants of the princes of Ceylon have already married and had children in this land, gradually no one knows that their ancestors were once the royal family of the kingdom of Ceylon.
For many years, Xu Shiyin'e has always kept her father's advice and strictly guarded the family's secrets. Because the excavation of her ancestor's grave is a taboo for Fujian people, now she has no choice but to violate the ancestral precepts agreed with her father and call the cultural relics protection center and the media to disclose her identity, explaining that she does not want her ancestors' graves to be destroyed.
The country seemed to be the second home in her heart, and there was an inexplicable sense of familiarity, and she was very curious about the place where her ancestors lived, and at the invitation of the Sri Lankan government, Xu Shiyin'e and Chinese embassy personnel visited. The Ceylon royal family was especially admired by the Sri Lankan people in the local area, and Xu Shiyin'e, as a princess who was exiled abroad, received a very grand reception, and everyone welcomed the princess home. But when the Sri Lankan representative invited Xu Shiyin to return to her home country, why did she refuse?
The Sri Lankan princess rejected hundreds of millions of royal assets
Soon, Xu Shiyin'e and the director of the HaijiaoGuan formed a delegation from Quanzhou and embarked on a ten-day trip to a beautiful Buddhist country, and the place she imagined in the dream could finally be seen in reality, and she was excited. After coming to Sri Lanka, Xu Shiyin'e found that Sri Lanka is not a large country, only 65,000 square kilometers, but it is an ancient island country with a long history and many world cultural heritage sites. After she went there, many local people presented flowers to the princess, received a very warm treatment, and also visited the ruins of the Sri Lankan royal palace with the locals.
Sri Lankans wanted to keep the princess, so the government said it wanted Xu Ton-ngus to move to Sri Lanka to inherit their family's legacy. But the princess is concerned about her hometown, and Quanzhou is her home, so she resisted the temptation and shouldered a mission: to promote friendly relations between China and Sri Lanka. She knew that this was the long-cherished wish of the prince of Ceylon, and she also hoped that the friendship between the two countries would last forever. At the same time, she also wants to live well in China and continue to guard the graves of her ancestors. In addition to Xu Shiyin, does Ceylon have any other royal descendants?
In September 2003, Xu Shiyin'e made a copy of the "Family Tree" and contributed it to the local Institute of History free of charge. She did her best to connect with people whose families were scattered around the world, such as the Philippines and Canada, so that the descendants of these wandering Ceylon princes could be recognized. After several twists and turns, Xu Shiyin'e contacted other clan members of the mainland who were scattered outside the continent by comparing the family tree, so that they could also find their own family roots. The descendants of this family of Ceylon princes who have been living in China for hundreds of years have experienced the passage of time and cannot imagine that they can come from all over the world to gather in Quanzhou.
In order to promote friendly exchanges between China and Sri Lanka, Xu Shiyin'e has made many efforts. In July 2010, Xu Shiyin'e participated in the Sri Lanka National Pavilion Day event, and in March 2017, she attended the commemorative conference in Sri Lanka to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Sri Lanka. In the same year, Xu Shiyin'e also cooperated with her family to officiate at the wedding of the Sri Lankan royal family.
Today, Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, and Quanzhou, Fujian, have become sister cities. Here she is the Sri Lankan princess in people's hearts, and in China she is just an ordinary Minnan woman, Xu Shiyin'e has not forgotten her roots because of the sudden attention, she is still busy with cultural and economic exchanges with China and Sri Lanka.