- 【Preface】
At the end of the late Qing Dynasty, wars raged. The great powers have exchanged frequent wars, the treasury has been empty, and the whole country is like a edifice about to fall, and it is in a state of crumbling. Many people of insight cannot bear it, and are willing to use the knowledge they have learned all their lives to save the Great Qing from danger.
Unfortunately, the ruler of the dynasty, the Guangxu Emperor, was named Emperor and was actually a puppet.
Whether it is for internal politics or external peace talks, where else does the Guangxu Emperor speak? The manipulator hidden behind the Guangxu Emperor, the person who controlled the government, was Empress Dowager Cixi.
When it comes to Empress Dowager Cixi, no matter how much you know, there will always be a few key words in people's minds: old-fashioned, stubborn, extravagant, corrupt... This also reflects people's attitude towards the empress.
Since Empress Dowager Cixi bowed to the government, whether it was to kill the auxiliary chancellor, to arbitrarily rule the government, or to induce the Eight-Nation Alliance to attack, all kinds of behaviors caused dissatisfaction among people of insight. In particular, the sentence: "Measure the material strength of China, and tie the joy of the country." "In the eyes of the people, this is tantamount to ceding the country to the aggressors.
And Empress Dowager Cixi herself? He still indulged in sound and color all day long, and was extravagant, and even allocated a small amount of military expenditure to hold a grand birthday banquet for himself.
Not only that, in the face of the reform of the old and the rescue of the Qing Dynasty at the time of peril, Empress Dowager Cixi's reaction was even more resolute: kill. Later, the "Six Gentlemen of Wushu" were killed by Empress Dowager Cixi at Caishikou, and the Guangxu Emperor, who supported the Change of Wushu, was also imprisoned by Cixi.
Hindered by the prestige of Empress Dowager Cixi, the people in the palace did not dare to talk about it at will, and also gave Empress Dowager Cixi a non-trivial "Lafayette" name, until Empress Dowager Cixi died of illness.
Empress Dowager Cixi, who was graceful and luxurious before her death, even after her death, had to do her utmost in luxury, not to mention how much gold and silver jewelry she buried, and the night pearl contained in the mouth of Cixi's corpse alone was worth more than 800 million.
So, where did Empress Dowager Cixi get this pearl of the night? Where did such a valuable treasure end up?
- 【Mysterious treasure of extraordinary value】
The night pearl, as a substance produced by the accumulation of underground luminous substances in the ore, is named for its ability to emit light at night, also known as the "bright moon pearl".
The history of the Night Pearl dates back to the Yanhuang period and has appeared in different historical stages, but because of its difficulty in mining and its scarcity, it was regarded as a treasure in every dynasty.
According to historical records, there are roughly two ways to obtain the Night Pearl: one is obtained through some vassal states, such as the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, and a part of the Night Pearl was obtained through trade with Western countries; The second is local mining and processing, so that the night pearls produced are often of better quality and will be circulated for a longer time.
And this pearl of the night of Empress Dowager Cixi, if you say its origin, can be traced back to the qianlong emperor period.
At that time, the Qianlong Emperor was at the peak of the "Prosperous Era of Kangqian", with strong national strength and prestige, and various small countries around him paid tribute to curry favor with the Qianlong Emperor in order to seek peace on their own side.
At that time, the leaders of Afghanistan were leading the country to carry out reform and revival, and in order to strengthen the country's strength, the Afghan army launched a large-scale attack on India at that time. In the end, India was defeated by this menacing army, and many gold and silver jewels were looted, including a pearl of night that the Indian emperor loved very much.
Although Afghanistan had a very strong military force at that time and robbed India of a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, these were nothing more than mantis arms as a car in front of the Qing Dynasty. The Afghan leaders, fearing that India would settle accounts with the Qing Dynasty, carefully selected the looted treasures in order to curry favor with the Qianlong Emperor and finally personally sent them over.
And among them, there is the huge pearl of night.
The Qianlong Emperor, who claimed to be a literati, immersed himself in calligraphy and painting, and only felt rustic about such jewelry, so he stored this night pearl in the warehouse at will, along with other ordinary jewels. Although the Qianlong Emperor did not like it, his subordinates knew the value of this night pearl, so they took it out separately and carefully stored it in the warehouse.
This release lasted for more than a hundred years, until Empress Dowager Cixi found it in the storeroom.
As the empress dowager, Cixi's rare treasures can be described as dazzling, but she is still not satisfied. One day, when Empress Dowager Cixi was inspecting the treasury, she found this pearl of night.
Empress Dowager Cixi, who knew something about jewelry, could naturally see that the quality and value of this night pearl could be described as one of the best, so since then, this night pearl has been able to see the light again from the treasury.
Empress Dowager Cixi was in love with this night pearl, often playing with it in her hand, and would also use this night pearl to illuminate it. Because of the excellent quality and size of this night pearl, Empress Dowager Cixi was not even interested in the original other jewels, and only felt that other jewels were ordinary, unlike this night pearl.
People around her said to Empress Dowager Cixi: The night pearl can not only be illuminated, but if it is placed in the dead population, it can also ensure that the corpse will not decay for thousands of years. Although there is no scientific basis for this in our view today, Empress Dowager Cixi believed it to be true and instructed the eunuch Li Lianying to put this pearl of the night in her mouth after her death.
Later, Empress Dowager Cixi died of illness, and Li Lianying placed this pearl of the night according to what Cixi said before her death.
I thought that this pearl of the night would henceforth be isolated from the world and would not see the light. Unexpectedly, it didn't take long for it to see the light of day through the hands of a small warlord, and it still went through several turns.
- 【The "legendary" experience of a tomb robber】
In the spring of 1928, Sun Dianying, who was born as a small peasant, could not imagine that he could one day become a military commander and lead his troops to suppress bandits under the command of the National Revolutionary Army.
When it comes to Sun Dianying, people who don't understand him may not be able to say it, but in the eyes of his fellow villagers at that time, he was a small who did nothing wrong. Born in poverty, he has a stubborn temperament since childhood, and at the age when others are seriously studying, he does not do his proper job, breaks into the rivers and lakes, eats, drinks, gambles, and does no evil, which can be described as a bad deed.
Later, by chance, Sun Dianying defected several times in 1925 to the then commander-in-chief of the Yushan-Gansu Bandits, Xi Yukun. However, Yukun was defeated in the battle against Hu Jingyi of the Nationalist Army and eventually committed suicide.
Sun Dianying remained in Henan and Shaanxi to attack the city strategically, thus increasing his strength.
In the autumn of 1925, Sun Dianying was recruited by the warlord Zhang Zongchang and served as a division commander. In many wars, Sun Dianying led the army to make great achievements for Zhang Zongchang, and he himself was promoted from division commander to military commander. Later, Sun Dianying was defeated in the war with the National Revolutionary Army, and was taken in by Chiang Kai-shek and appointed as the commander of the army.
However, Sun Dianying did not have a good time under Chiang Kai-shek. Because he was not an orthodox Kuomintang army, coupled with the fact that the war consumed military expenses and the expenditure was extremely large, Chiang Kai-shek "treated this contingent that did not belong to him differently", not only was he not valued by Chiang Kai-shek, but he was always deducted from his military salary.
If it was before, Sun Dianying could also choose to lead the army to resist, or even fall into the grass. But he knew that he was not an opponent of the National Revolutionary Army, so he could only swallow his anger.
He looked at his soldiers, who had not been paid for nearly half a year, and their faces were full of grief. In this case, the military is most prone to mutiny.
Sun Dianying knew that the possibility of relying on Old Chiang Kai-shek at this time was minimal, and in order to appease the hearts of the army, Sun Dianying could only grit his teeth: find a way to get a sum of money from him and pay the brothers military salaries.
At this time, this army was stationed in Tanglin, the mausoleum of the Qing Dynasty royal family.
Years of war have left the originally beautiful Tanglin in tatters, from a lush hill to a bare earthen mountain, which made Sun Dianying realize that he could raise money by robbing the tomb.
After secretly reporting the matter to the superiors, the superiors did not express their attitude towards this behavior, but only lamented that the situation was difficult. Sun Dianying, with many years of experience in the jianghu, understood the attitude of his superiors and acquiesced to this behavior. Therefore, Sun Dianying dismissed all the unrelated people around the Tanglin Tomb in the name of military requisition, and began a seven-day tomb robbery.
Within seven days, the entire Tanglin Was looted. Especially in the tomb of Cixi, Sun Dianying opened Cixi's mouth, took out the precious night pearl, and took all the remaining jewels out of the mausoleum.
And some of the precious calligraphy and paintings that accompanied the funeral, these soldiers did not recognize, nor did anyone care, so they were destroyed. Finally, the jewels dug out of the mausoleum were collected by Sun Dianying, who summoned a full thirty vehicles to load them.
And this pearl of the night is also regarded as a treasure by Sun Dianying.
However, there is no impermeable wall in the world, and Sun Dianying's theft of the tomb has attracted the attention of the government. But after Sun Dianying's up and down dots, this matter was finally resolved. The pearl of the night was handed over by Sun Dianying to the top level of the Kuomintang together with other treasures, and transferred from Dai Kasa to the hands of Song Meiling, the "mother of the nation" at that time.
So, in the face of this treasure, how did Song Meiling react?
- 【Borrowing flowers to offer Buddha, treasures across the ocean】
At that time, although Song Meiling did not know much about jewelry, she could also see at a glance that the value of this night pearl was extraordinary, and she also played with this night pearl all day long and loved it.
It was not until sun Dianying's grave digging was rumored that Song Meiling learned the origin of this pearl of night. Although this pearl of the night is extremely valuable, after all, it is a funeral object contained in Cixi's mouth, and if it is played all day long, I am afraid that it is inappropriate.
In the end, Song Meiling felt that the value of this night pearl should be better played, so she divided the night pearl into two, embedded it in her shoes, and wore it on every important occasion. The purpose of this is twofold, one is to reflect their identity, and the other is to make this pearl of the night public in order to seek a better buyer.
As the "mother of the nation" of the Republic of China, Song Meiling saw many tycoons with this night pearl, but people only praised the specialness of this night pearl, and did not have the desire to buy. It wasn't until a meeting during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression that Song Meiling's exchanges with an oil tycoon found the next owner for the bead.
The oil tycoon is Rockefeller from the United States, as a capitalist with countless assets, he also has an extreme love for collecting, and when communicating with Song Meiling, he noticed this extraordinary quality night pearl on Song Meiling's shoes.
Therefore, Rockefeller used the help of an interpreter to inquire about this pearl of night from Song Meiling. When Song Meiling introduced the owner of this pearl to the famous Empress Dowager Cixi, Rockefeller was even more excited, and immediately decided to buy this night pearl, which was exactly in line with Song Meiling's wishes.
Rockefeller asked Song Meiling to make a price at will, and after a conversation, Song Meiling generously decided: Give this night pearl to Rockefeller.
Of course, Rockefeller also knew that there must be a reason behind Song Meiling's generosity. Sure enough, Song Meiling proposed that China had consumed a large amount of materials in the anti-Japanese war, and she was willing to use this pearl of night as a condition to request Rockefeller to provide materials for China's War of Resistance Against Japan.
This was not difficult for the Rockefeller family, who had a solid family, so Rockefeller boldly agreed to Song Meiling's request and brought the night pearl back to the United States as he wished.
When I heard the news related to this pearl of night again, it was the founding of New China.
After dealing with relevant internal affairs, New China began its diplomacy. An important part of diplomacy is the recovery of cultural relics taken away by Western countries, which are of extraordinary significance as part of the spiritual and cultural symbols of our Chinese nation.
At that time, many cultural relics were either donated back to China by philanthropists or auctioned back to China by merchants at a high price, and in this way, many cultural relics were recovered, but there were still many cultural relics that did not return to China, including this night pearl.
After many investigations, the government learned that the pearl of the night still existed in the Rockefeller family. Therefore, the government offered many conditions and was willing to buy back the night pearl at a high price, but after many fruitless negotiations with the Rockefeller family, the night pearl was finally not heard, until now.
- 【Write at the end】
In modern times, China has suffered aggression from Western countries, and its scars are unbearable.
But fortunately, after decades of ups and downs, we stood up and became the world's eastern great country. The reason for this is that the spirit of our Chinese nation over the past five thousand years is precisely this indomitable and persevering national spirit that has enabled us to stand up until rejuvenation after hundreds of years of aggression.
The cultural relics that have been left out may seem to foreigners to be just a string of money symbols, but for us, their price is only its lowest value, and these treasures are the materialized symbols of spiritual civilization for the Chinese nation.
We are very pleased to see that many cultural relics can cross the ocean to return to the motherland, and we also look forward to the smooth return of more and more cultural relics that have been displaced overseas in the future, so as to reproduce the spiritual value of these cultural relics.