Typography 丨 A Yanqing
Edit 丨The woman in the palace
More than seven thousand pearls, more than a thousand gems, can you imagine that this is the treasure on cixi's birthday coat?
Today we will talk about the high-profile funerary products of Cixi, a daughter of the Qing Dynasty' defeated family.
On the day of Cixi's funeral, there is a word that can describe "stinking in the sky", when her body was already decomposed, it turned out that Cixi was not buried after she was buried, and after her death, the Qing Dongling Tomb she personally customized had not been repaired.
It was not completely completed until a year later, so the coffin was parked for a year, so the smell of pungent smell on the day of the funeral was unpleasant.
But Cixi's funeral, in addition to having a "taste", is also particularly informative! How to say it? Let's see how big her funeral went.
Not to mention that her cemetery took more than ten years to be completely completed, and the manpower, material and financial resources consumed in it can be imagined. In short, her mausoleum was one of the most luxurious and palatial of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty.
Then came the grand scene of the funeral day, only to see hundreds of people carrying her coffin, the size of which is self-evident, the streets of the day are crowded with people, even foreigners come out to pay attention to this Chinese funeral.
Cixi's funeral, not only from the outside of the scenery is infinite, luxurious, the coffin is also filled with funerary goods, luxurious to a certain extent.
Her birthday clothes are sewn with gold thread, and there are nearly 7,000 large, medium and small pearls on the clothes, not only that, but also various gemstones, large and small, almost more than 1200 pieces, as well as brooches worn on the chest, and the jewels placed around them, and countless jewels.
Just a birthday coat hated not being able to set all the treasures in the world on it, which showed the degree of corruption of Cixi. Don't worry, more luxury is yet to come.
The quilt covering Cixi's body was not simple. It is a gold-woven Toni quilt, bright yellow satin, woven with twisted gold. It is embroidered with 25,000 words of scripture and is embellished with more than 800 pearls.
What is even more amazing is that cixi's phoenix crown is embedded with a pearl as large as an egg and weighing four or two, which was worth more than 10 million taels of silver at that time.
It is said that inside this coffin, there are three treasures, one of which is the jade lotus, Cixi liked it very much when she was alive, and when she went to bed, she also played with it and was reluctant to put it down, and the conservative valuation of this jade lotus is now no less than 100 million.
There is also a large treasure here, an emerald watermelon made of imported tourmaline, which can be said to be extremely golden in Cixi's eyes. She set up a mechanical lock for this watermelon, and specially sent her own close eunuchs to take care of it, not allowing any difference in the pool, which shows its importance, after Cixi's death, her left and right hands each have one, and this world-class treasure in everyone's eyes is now estimated at about 600 million.
Another legendary funeral product is the night pearl contained in Cixi's mouth, but unlike in the film and television drama, it is not purple or other colors, but translucent green.
This pearl of the night can be divided into two pieces or closed, and its special feature is that, first, it can shine on the hair within 100 meters, and the second strange function is to make the body not perishable;
In 1928, after Sun Dianying stole this treasure, he gave it to Lao Jiang, who was pursuing the three daughters of the Song family and directly set the treasure on his shoes and gave it to her.
At present, the market valuation of this night pearl is not less than 800 million.
These three funerary items alone are close to 1.5 billion, so Cixi's coffin is simply extraordinary.
Cixi's funeral goods are actually classified!
Yes. She divides the huge burial items into two categories. One is a large number of priceless treasures prepared by themselves, which were placed in the golden well in the tomb before they were born.
There is also a category of burial items, mostly from the gifts of royal nobles.
The funeral goods that Cixi prepared for herself were simply not too luxurious.
In addition to the large treasures and shouyi quilts worth 1.5 billion yuan, Cixi's coffin is also covered with a 7-inch thick gold wire inlaid jewelry brocade mattress, which you may think is nothing special.
However, to say that this mattress is studded with more than 10,000 pearls, nearly 100 pieces of red sapphire, two pieces of emerald and 203 pieces of white jade, such a mattress, I am afraid that lying down will be people.
Today, emeralds, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires are known as the four precious stones.
It is conceivable that the quality of the gemstones that can be favored by Cixi must be very superior, and if it is calculated according to today's market value, this mattress is also not cheap.
What you wear, what you wear, what you hold in your hands, are all big treasures. In addition to these, there was plenty of space inside the coffin, and of course it was stuffed with stuff.
Cixi also arranged a lotus flower above her head, what is so special about this lotus flower? Its lotus leaf alone weighs twenty-two hundred and twenty-five dollars and four cents, what is this concept?
The equivalent is about 850,000 taels of silver. The top of the head is exquisite, the soles of the feet are naturally arranged, Cixi prepared for herself is a large tourmaline lotus, this lotus is not small, not only its color is rare, it uses fluorescent color, the value of this lotus flower is also more than a few million two.
In addition to the luxurious funeral items prepared by Cixi herself, there were other princess horses, or gifts from the royal family before leaving.
Li Lianying once made a very clear record, which mentioned that a Gege and a donkey put jade horses and white jade arhats into the coffin before the coffin was built, and there were eighteen sets.
Are you really not afraid to crush the body?
So far, there are about five or six kinds of treasures in the coffin of Cixi, including various Buddha statues, according to their materials, there are golden Buddha, jade Buddha, and Tri buddha.
In addition to the emerald watermelon worth more than 600 million that we mentioned earlier, there are other fruits, such as peaches, plums, apricots, etc., which are worth a million taels of silver, which is a staggering amount.
If there had been a scale at that time, Cixi's entire coffin was estimated to weigh several tons.
Because there are no gaps in her coffin.
After waiting for the coffin to be covered, her coffin had design holes filled with pearls and gemstones, filling the pearls that required nearly five liters, as well as thousands of gemstones.
It can be said that in Cixi's huge coffin, there are gems almost everywhere.
According to statistics, these filled gemstones alone are worth more than two million taels of silver, and the total value of Cixi's entire funerary products has exceeded 100 million taels of silver, so luxurious after death, it is conceivable that his daily life can be extravagant to what extent.
But it all stopped in 1928.
In the 20 years after Cixi's death, the warlord Sun Dianying used the name of the exercise to blow up the Putuo Yuding Dongling Tomb. Sun Dianying recalled that he stole a large number of rare treasures from the coffin that day.
He was ordered to hire more than 30 mules and carriages to take away these treasures.
According to Sun Dianying's account, in order to raise military salaries, some of them were sold, some of them were distributed to the soldiers and officers at that time, and some of them were bribed, in short, he did not leave anything at all.
The three treasures worth 1.5 billion mentioned earlier are long gone.
After Puyi learned that the Qing Tomb had been stolen, he was indignant and enjoyed all the glory and wealth of the world, and finally let others slaughter him.
In addition to the loss of a large number of rare treasures, the bodies of his so-called ancestors had long been tossed into disarray. This incident has become a hurdle that Puyi 0 cannot pass in his life.
Cixi was extravagant, and almost the entire country's financial resources were used to satisfy her own selfishness, and it can be said that one of her coffins contained almost all her assets.
No wonder the Qing government was so collapsed and inactive at that time, but now almost most of the treasures are nowhere to be found.
The only scattered funerary items that existed were things that were not seen by thieves at that time, such as the Toni sutra that Cixi wore, which was thrown aside during the plunder and was preserved to the present.
I don't know if one day, these rare treasures will have the opportunity to appear in the world, so that the world can see their true faces.