China is an ancient civilization with a long history and a rich and colorful cultural heritage, including some precious national treasures, which have witnessed the glory and suffering of the Chinese nation and demonstrated the essence and charm of Chinese culture. However, some national treasures are not well known, and have even been despised and insulted, becoming the "most aggrieved" national treasures in history. This article will talk about one of the most typical examples, it is the Great Jade Sea of Desecration, a giant wine urn made of 7,000 catties of jade, once regarded as a treasure of the town by the Yuan Dynasty Emperor Kublai Khan, but later reduced to a pickle jar, experienced 300 years of vicissitudes of wind and rain.
The birth of the Great Jade Sea of Desecration
The Great Jade Sea is a jade carving work in the Yuan Dynasty, which is the earliest and largest giant jade carving in Chinese history, creating a precedent for large-scale jade carving works, and is an epoch-making art treasure in China, and is also a rare masterpiece in the history of the development of the world's gem and jade industry, and is the first of China's nine "treasures of the town".
The shape of the big jade sea is an oval large wine urn, 0.8 meters high, 1.65 meters long, 0.57 meters deep in the abdomen, weighing 3.5 tons, carved with the whole black and white seal of black jade, the jade is mottled and changing, the ink color is mixed with white lines, the production adopts the expression technique of combining relief and line carving, inheriting and developing the traditional skills of "measuring materials and taking materials" and "applying art according to aptitude" in the Chinese jade craftsmanship.
The inside of the jade urn is hollowed out, the hollow chamber is 55 centimeters deep, and the black and white changes of jade are used to outline the ups and downs of the waves and express the eyebrow spots of the animals. The natural shape texture of the jade on the wall around the body is carved with waves and the magical sea beasts such as ichthyosaurs, seahorses, sea pigs, sea sheep and so on, and the base is an octagonal stone bed stacked on top of one large and one small, which is both rough and bold, but also meticulous and elegant, and has both realistic temperament and romantic color.
The production time of the Great Jade Sea is in the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (1265), which was specially ordered by Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, to reward the three armies, which cost 7,000 catties of jade, gathered hundreds of skilled craftsmen, and took a year to complete. Considered a treasure of ancient Chinese architectural craftsmanship, this book is also a mystical spell book with unimaginable power and wisdom. However, the book was lost in history and became a legendary existence.
The splendor of the great jade sea of desecration
After the big jade sea of the mountain is completed, it is "placed in the Guanghan Palace", the Guanghan Palace is one of the royal palaces of the Yuan Dadu, broad and majestic, "seven, one hundred and twenty feet from east to west, sixty-two feet deep, fifty feet high", and then built a small jade hall in the hall, specially placed the jade sea.
The Great Jade Sea was Kublai Khan's pet, and he often used it to serve wine and feast on his ministers and warriors, so you can imagine the grand scene when the Mengyuan regime opened the country. The big jade sea of the mountain can store more than 30 stones, and 30 stones is about equivalent to 3,600 bottles of liquor.
In the early days of the Mongol and Yuan regimes, the monarchs and ministers held meetings, and the feast of drinking was a necessary part of the process, and it was also an important activity of the Mongolian court. Emperor Mengyuan often summoned his ministers next to the big jade sea in the small jade hall and held some small-scale meetings, the emperor sat on the golden jade dragon couch, and the ministers sat on the bed with the servants on the left and right, and the monarchs and ministers drank wine while holding meetings, and the wine in the big jade sea was inexhaustible.
When the political core of Meng Yuan pushed the cup and changed the lamp in front of this great jade sea, he agreed on the conquest and civil affairs that would determine the fate of the country. For more than a hundred years, from 1266 to 1368, Da Yuhai quietly listened to the top secrets of the Mongol aristocracy.
The sinking of the Great Jade Sea of the Mountains
The national oppression of the Yuan Dynasty aroused the resistance of the people, and in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, peasant rebels rose up in various places, and Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming army finally unified the Central Plains.
According to historical records, after the Ming army captured the capital of Yuan in Beijing, a fire burned down the Guanghan Temple, and the mountains and jade sea were scorched and blackened, and they were abandoned in the rubble and wild grass.