China has a long history, the past dynasties of dignitaries, wealthy businessmen and magnates are like cattle hair, along with the Han nationality "to serve the dead as a waiter" tradition, after the death of these people, a large number of rare goods as burial goods were buried in the ground, becoming a "buried wealth empire".
Therefore, in China, the culture of tomb robbery has been passed down for a long time, so much so that the so-called "official thieves" and "people thieves" have been formed.
"Official thieves" such as Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms period, that is, tomb robbers with official backgrounds, and "folk thieves" refer to tomb robbers formed by ordinary people.
But whether it is an "official thief" or a "civil thief", their ultimate goal is to dig up the wealth in the tomb and keep it for themselves.
There is no doubt that the acts of these "tomb robbers", whether in ancient times or in modern times, are criminal acts prohibited by the state.
But if we talk about the most far-reaching tomb robbers in modern times, we have to talk about the "Donglin thief" Sun Dianying, the whereabouts of the countless treasures he stole from the Dongling Tombs of the Qing Dynasty still make people feel confused and uproarious.
On July 2, 1927, with the loud blasting sound of explosives used by the army under the warlord Sun Dianying, Qianlong Yuling, as the luxurious representative of the tomb of the emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and the Dingdong Tomb of Cixi were stolen and excavated, and countless rare treasures in the tomb were stolen by Sun Dianying, the "great thief of Dongling".
Seeing that the matter was exposed, the "Tanglin thieves" began to use the rare and rare treasures they had stolen to bribe high-ranking Kuomintang officials, including Chiang Kai-shek, and under the offensive of treasures and property, in the end, this serious theft and excavation incident was not resolved, and Sun Dianying himself was not brought to justice by the People's Liberation Army until the Liberation War.
But the treasures that Sun Dianying stole in Yuling and Dingdongling are far more than what he bribed and squandered, where are the remaining huge treasures of Qing Dongling hidden?
Some people say that these treasures are hidden in the tunnels of the Xu Mansion in Xinzhou, Wuhan, but what is the real situation?
The Qing Dongling Tomb is the royal cemetery of the Qing Dynasty, the last feudal dynasty in China, and it is located in the territory of Zunhua City, Tangshan City, Hebei Province.
The mausoleum area is surrounded by mountains on all sides, 12.5 kilometers long from north to south, 20 kilometers wide, there is a "dragon gate" with a width of only 50 meters, which is an excellent feng shui treasure land.
The Qing Dynasty Imperial Tomb of the Qing Dynasty in the Eastern Tomb of the Qing Dynasty began to be built here from the filial piety tomb of Emperor Shunzhi until the final completion of the Dingdong Mausoleum of Cixi in 1908, and the construction of the imperial tomb continued for 247 years, with a total of 15 large royal tombs.
Among them, Qianlong's Yuling and Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum were the most luxurious.
The Qianlong period was the heyday of the Qing Dynasty's national power, and its national and financial strength was the highest in the world at that time.
Therefore, when Qianlong was alive, he threw more than 2 million silver to build a mausoleum for himself, he searched for famous craftsmen all over the world, collected rare and precious materials all over the world, and carefully carved and built, it can be said that Yuling is the most beautiful in the Qing Tomb.
And the Empress Dowager Cixi, who controlled the middle and late Qing Dynasty for 48 years, as the most powerful woman in the Qing Dynasty, she naturally would not be stingy in her mausoleum.
Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum was built for 14 years and cost nearly 2.3 million silver, and the construction was magnificent and extraordinarily gorgeous, even the Forbidden City is incomparable.
Qianlong's Yuling and Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum are among the most luxurious, so their funerary goods will naturally not be bad, and most of the rare treasures in the Qing Dynasty's treasury at that time were sealed underground with these two supreme rulers of the Qing Dynasty.
In 1912, the Qing Dynasty, which had ruled China for three centuries, came to an end with the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
With the fall of the Qing Dynasty, those royal cemeteries that were originally protected by the Qing Dynasty rulers were impenetrable, isolated from the world, and the sacrosanct royal cemeteries were naturally exposed to the world, and countless people began to covet the underground wealth in these Qing tombs.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, warlords of all sizes in China flocked to each other, and it seemed that in an instant, they had entered the "Spring and Autumn Warring States" in which the heroes competed for hegemony.
As everyone knows the "underground wealth treasure", the Qing Dongling naturally did not escape the bandits and warlords who took advantage of the chaos to excavate, in the 20th century or so, the furnishings and decorations on the ground of the tombs of the Qing Dongling have been looted, only the underground part has been preserved.
However, this situation was soon changed, and the culprit for the later destruction of the Qing Dongling Tombs was probably an oral record called "Ai Yuexuan Notes" that circulated on a small scale at that time, which is said to have been dictated by Li Lianying, a eunuch who served the Empress Dowager Cixi.
This mysterious notebook describes in detail the funeral goods of Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum Underground Palace, and those rare treasures have made countless people blush, what are they?
According to the notes, the great value of Cixi's coffin is:
The jade lotus leaf is worth 850,000 taels, the back beaded robe is worth 1.2 million taels, the two jade watermelons are worth 2.2 million taels, the jade lotus root is worth 1 million taels, and the crown beads on Cixi's head are worth 10 million taels......
There are still many other large and small pieces, and their value is also very great, and this is only the treasure in Cixi's coffin.
According to the historical records of the Qing Dynasty, Cixi's underground palace was also extremely luxurious, with materials and utensils such as gold, silver, and agate also everywhere, and even the beams and houses were built of high-grade rosewood comparable to gold.
As the Cixi of the declining dynasty, there are such extravagant funeral goods, so how many treasures there are in the tomb of Qianlong, which is the peak and heyday of the Qing Dynasty, is also a self-evident thing, and it is naturally coveted by people with ulterior motives for a long time.
When the endless underground treasure meets the ruffian-turned-warlord, the fate of Qing Dongling seems to have been decided.
Sun Dianying was born in Yongcheng, Henan, because the Central Plains has always been a place where soldiers must fight, and the common people of Henan were also the most ruthless by warlords from all walks of life at that time.
But Sun Dianying was not satisfied with just claiming hegemony among neighbors, so he gathered a group of ruffians, bandits, smokers and other scum to form a team to bully men and women, kidnap tickets and extort all kinds of evil.
When Sun Dianying, who had some brains, felt that such a team did not have much success, he began to rely on various warlords to strengthen his strength one after another, and whoever gave food and weapons would do it.
Not to mention, relying on the ability of this kind of wall grass, Sun Dianying's troops became larger and larger, and was later recruited by Chiang Kai-shek, and became the commander of the 12th Army of the Sixth Army under Chiang Kai-shek, but the ruffian and hooligan habits brought by the troops from the roots have never changed.
In 1928, a group of bandits who had been recruited by the warlords of the Feng clan suddenly defected and went straight to Ma Lanyu, which was located on the bank of the Qing Dongling.
At this time, Sun Dianying's department, because of the poor finances of the Kuomintang, did not pay much attention to their miscellaneous troops at all, and had not paid military salaries for several months, and the soldiers below began to be emotional, and Sun Dianying was worried.
When Sun Dianying heard that this group of bandits had gone to the Eastern Tomb of the Qing Dynasty to dig up the tomb, he suddenly came to his senses.
He had also read "Ai Yuexuan Notes", and he had already moved the idea of stealing and excavating the Qing Tomb, but due to the pressure of public opinion and the mobilization of the Kuomintang army, he had no chance to start.
The actions of the bandits this time just found a reason for Sun Dianying.
So on July 4, 1928, Sun Dianying's troops arrived in the Dongling area of the Qing Dynasty and easily defeated this part of the bandits and drove away these people who were preparing to rob the tomb.
Immediately, Sun Dianying ordered the team headquarters to impose martial law and blockade within a radius of 30 miles, and the excuse given to the outside world was to conduct military exercises, but in fact they were afraid that the news would leak and affect their theft and excavation of the Qing Tomb.
Before the official tomb robbery, Sun Dianying also got 30 large mule carts from Zunhua County to load property.
Sun Dianying drove the troops of the two brigades to the gate of the mausoleum of Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum, and with countless earth-shattering explosions, Qianlong's Yuling and Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum were completely blown up, and the underground palace was also damaged to varying degrees, and the swarthy underground palace was revealed in front of the eyes of these soldiers.
When the soldiers entered the Cixi underground palace, they were immediately shocked by the splendid decorations and ingenious buildings in front of them, and they could barely move and fell into a stupor.
When they reacted, their hearts were suddenly filled with greed, and they began to dig three feet into the ground to steal.
The gold bricks on the ground and the golden dragon carvings on the ceiling were all demolished, and all the valuable ones were looted from the outside of the underground palace to the inside of the underground palace.
Especially after Cixi's tomb was opened, the dazzling treasures almost shocked them to start.
Later, Sun Dianying recalled:
"Qianlong's tomb is so well repaired that the body in the coffin has melted, leaving only hair and braids. There are a lot of treasures to accompany the funeral, the most precious is a string of pearls on the neck, there are 108 pieces, I heard that it represents the eighteen Arhats, all of which are priceless treasures. There is also a Nine Dragons Sword, with nine golden dragons embedded in the sword surface, and gems embedded in the hilt. After the tomb of the Empress Dowager Cixi collapsed, the tomb was not as big as Qianlong, but there were so many treasures that accompanied the burial that I couldn't remember it clearly. ”
"Cixi was dressed from head to toe, and her clothes were full of precious stones, and the amount of one was about five liters. Cixi's pillow is a jade watermelon, and the night pearl in her mouth is divided into two pieces, closed is a round ball, separated and transparent and lightless, and closed reveals a green cold light, and the hair can be seen within a hundred steps at night. I heard that this treasure can make the corpse unmelt, no wonder after Cixi's coffin was split, Lafayette seemed to be sleeping, but when he saw the wind, his face turned black, and his clothes were a little difficult to handle. ”
In this way, when Sun Dianying's troops finished digging up the tombs of Qianlong and Cixi, it was already a few days later, and they filled 30 mule and horse carts with the stolen property, and then they returned to their station.
Because Sun Dianying did a good job of keeping secrets, it was not until the beginning of August that his subordinate Tan Wenjiang went to Beijing to rush to sell the stolen goods, and was seized by others, which made the theft of the Qing Dongling Tomb happen.
Reuters was the first to disclose the incident, and then Nanjing's "Central Daily" carried a headline on the front page of the newspaper with the headline "The Tragic Situation of the Bandits Excavating and Robbing the Tanglin Tomb," which aroused indignation and uproar among people from all walks of life throughout the country.
After the last emperor Pu Yi learned that his ancestor's tomb had been stolen and excavated, he united many people to write to Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan, the commander of the Pingjin garrison at that time, demanding that Sun Dianying be severely punished.
In order to calm the huge public opinion, Sun Dianying declared to the outside world that the Qing court had killed three generations of his ancestors before he had to take revenge on the revolution, and also counted the sins of the Qing government, declaring that his move was to repay the other way to give back to the other, saying that his move was a righteous act of "collecting the world's wealth, collecting the profits of operation, and enriching the treasury".
Of course, Sun Dianying also took out one-tenth of the stolen treasures to bribe the Kuomintang government, up to Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Meiling, and down to the officials who supervised the case all received the stolen goods from Sun Dianying.
According to records, among the stolen goods obtained by Sun Dianying, one Nine Dragons Sword was given to Chiang Kai-shek, and the other sword was given to He Yingqin.
Song Meiling received the night pearl that Cixi held in her mouth, and what she gave to Dai Li was the string of 108 priceless pearls hanging around Qianlong's neck.
The jade watermelon was given to Song Ziwen, Yan Xishan received 500,000 yuan worth of gold, and Kong Xiangxi and Song Ailing of the other four major families also had a share.
In this way, Sun Dianying almost bought off all the senior Kuomintang officials and the "four major families" headed by the Chiang family.
In other words, high-ranking Kuomintang officials, including Chiang Kai-shek, and the "four families" participated in the excavation of the Qing Dongling Tomb in disguise, but they were the beneficiaries standing behind it, and Sun Dianying was the executor standing in the foreground.
Under Sun Dianying's large-scale public opinion and bribery, not only was he safe and sound, but even some of his subordinates who were protected by him were acquitted, and the unlucky ones were some of the little minions who were pushed out by Sun Dianying to "take the blame".
The Tanglin robbery case was over, leaving people from all walks of life across the country stunned.
So the question is, Sun Dianying was born in the miscellaneous army of the Kuomintang and was not treated by the Kuomintang at all, so how could Sun Dianying directly bribe Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Kuomintang, and Song Meiling and the "Four Families"?
The person who has to be said here is Sun Dianying's top boss Xu Yuanquan, he relied on Xu Yuanquan's guidance to "pass the test smoothly", it can be said that Xu Yuanquan single-handedly saved Sun Dianying's life.
Why did Xu Yuanquan, who is not related to Sun Dianying, save Sun Dianying?
Why did Xu Yuanquan not punish Sun Dianying's troops for leaving the garrison for many days in accordance with army discipline during the few days when Sun Dianying robbed the tomb?
The answer is actually obvious, that is, the Tanglin theft case is likely to be planned by Sun Dianying and Xu Yuanquan, or to put it bluntly, there must be a close exchange of interests between Sun Dianying and Xu Yuanquan.
From this point of view, no matter whether the Donglin theft case was conspired by Xu Sun or Sun Dianying alone, Xu Yuanquan, as Sun Dianying's life-saving benefactor, must have obtained a large part of the treasures obtained by Sun Dianying's tomb robbery.
According to the situation at that time, after Xu Yuanquan obtained a large number of Tanglin treasures, except for the ready-made gold and silver, the rest of the treasures did not have much chance to sell the stolen goods, after all, the Kuomintang at that time was under public opinion, and it was also closely concerned about this matter.
So where will these treasures that Xu Yuanquan get be hidden by him?
Many people have doubts about this, and they have tirelessly verified it, and finally came to a conclusion that the Tanglin treasure obtained by Xu Yuanquan is likely to be hidden in his hometown Xu Mansion.
Therefore, for a long time, the news of the treasure of the Xu Mansion has been widely circulated among the people.
Xu Yuanquan was born in Huangpi, Wuhan, and the Xu Mansion is in Xinzhou Cangbu Town, which is more than 100 kilometers away from Hankou, which is now Cangbu Street, Xinzhou District, Wuhan.
In 1931, Xu Yuanquan and Chiang Kai-shek had political disagreements within the Kuomintang, and the relationship between the two sides was a little sharp, and Xu Yuanquan had plans to resign and return to his hometown.
At that time, Xu Yuanquan took advantage of the stall of celebrating his old mother's 70th birthday, and suddenly spent a huge amount of money to build a magnificent Xu Mansion in the remote place of Cangbu, and named it "Retire Garden", which means retirement.
This Xu Mansion continues to be built quite exquisitely, the combination of east and west, carved column painting workshop has everything, according to estimates, it will cost at least 700,000 taels of silver to build.
But the strange thing is that after the cultivation, Xu Yuanquan did not live, but his family lived, and Xu Yuanquan did not resign and return to his hometown, still being the commander of the group army.
Later, he himself also lived in the Xiaohongshan General Building in Wuchang.
After the liberation, the Xu Mansion was occupied by a middle school as a teacher's dormitory building.
But whenever you open the door of the main building of the Xu Mansion, you can immediately feel a burst of cold air coming, and the temperature inside the house is about 5 degrees lower than the outside throughout the year, a phenomenon that can only be caused by a large amount of jade.
Around the 70s, someone dug out a deep tunnel near the Xu Mansion, but there was water inside, when the tunnel was dug up, only to see the white smoke steaming, people suspected that it was the organ poison gas, and immediately backfilled.
Since then, the claim that the treasure of the Xu Mansion has become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
In 1994, the Xu Mansion needed to be renovated to prevent the Xu Mansion from collapsing in disrepair.
In September of the same year, the staff of the Xinzhou Cultural Relics Bureau visited the 94-year-old maid of the Xu Mansion, and she provided an important clue: after the completion of the Xu Mansion, many people were shot near the Xu Mansion, and no one knew about the crime.
This has to make people suspect that it is a murder after hiding the treasure.
And the old man who lived near the Xu Mansion revealed a shocking statement, when he was a child, he had seen the tunnels full of valuable things, and Xu Yuanquan's wife even had a golden phoenix crown.
In 2001, a person claiming to be a professor of history at a university came to the Xu Mansion, inspected the Xu Mansion in detail, and inquired about the whereabouts of the Tanglin treasure many times. ”
This once again aroused interest in the "Tanglin Treasure".
But later Xu Yuanquan's son gave another statement, saying that when Xu Yuanquan went to Taiwan, he only brought some necessary entourage, and did not explain that there was a treasure in the Xu Mansion until he died in Taiwan, so he was basically sure that there was no so-called "Tanglin treasure" in the Xu Mansion.
These studies make the statement that the Xu Mansion has "Tanglin Treasures" even more confusing, and also make it a huge mystery where the "Tanglin Treasures" obtained by Xu Yuanquan are hidden, which can only wait for the relevant departments to continue research.