Chapter 79 Section five

How much treasure was robbed in this crazy robbery?Because there is not a complete list of the sacrificial objects in Dongling, and there is no detailed registration of the stolen treasures after the robbery, so there is no accurate information. Before robbing the tomb, Sun Dianying first sent a letter to the governor of Zunhua County, saying that he planned to raise military rations on the spot, but he was sympathetic to the local suffering and could not bear to raise rations on the spot. They shipped rations from elsewhere.Zunhua County was very happy to receive the letter, and immediately prepared the mules and carriages according to Sun Dianying's request.The stolen treasures filled the more than 30 mules, horses and carts to the brim.

The number of sacrificial objects stolen from Qianlong Yuling Mausoleum and Cixi Putuoyu Dingdong Tomb is also recorded in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other materials preserved by the Palace Museum, especially the records of Cixi Tomb are relatively detailed.The burial objects of Cixi's underground palace are divided into two categories: before and after death. ) to October 15th in the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (November 8, 1908), the treasures placed in the underground palace by Cixi during his lifetime include gold flower flat bracelets, red Baguio beans, gold inlaid holding pots, golden Buddhas, coral There are more than 150 pieces including Buddha head pagodas (thousands of Zhengzhu, Dongzhu and Mizhu tassels on each treasure).

The treasures in the coffin after Cixi's death were even more abundant and rare.Li Lianying, the chief executive of the inner court, has been involved in this matter, and his eldest son Li Chengwu is also the personal bodyguard of the Empress Dowager Cixi.Li Chengwu wrote "Notes of Ai Yuexuan", which has detailed records in the book: "When the Empress Dowager was not in the coffin, a layer of golden filigree mattress was laid on the bottom of the coffin, and a layer of beads was spread on the mattress, and a thin mattress embroidered with Buddha beads was covered on the beads. Green lotus leaves were placed on the head, and a tourmaline lotus was placed under the feet. After she was released, she began to carry the queen mother in. The back feet were on the lotus, and the lotus leaf was on the head. She was wearing a gold silk beaded and colorful embroidered dress, and the outer cover was embroidered with beads, and she was surrounded by nine beads. Eighteen clam Buddha statues are placed on the back arms. The above-mentioned treasures are private filial piety, not listed in public accounts. When everyone puts them in the back, they will cover the back body with a golden quilt. A beaded crown is worn on the back head, and next to it is another There are 108 statues of Golden Buddha, Emerald Buddha, Jade Buddha, etc. One watermelon, two melons, and 200 pieces of treasures including peaches, plums, apricots, dates, etc. are placed on the left and right sides of the hind feet. Jade lotus root is placed on the left side behind One has lotus leaves, lotus flowers, etc. on it; a branch of coral tree is placed on the right side of the body. Beads, stones, etc. are sprinkled all over the empty space. The eldest princess comes. Open the bead net again, take out a set of eight jade horses from the box, and a set of eighteen jade arhats, put them next to the back hand, put the lid on, and the funeral ceremony is now complete."

The watermelons, melons, peaches, plums, apricots, and dates mentioned here are not melon fruits, but are made of jadeite, jade, etc., especially watermelon. The melon is green jade skin and purple jade flesh, cut in the middle, Melon seeds are black. As for the value of the treasures of Cixi's underground palace, it is also explained in "Notes of Ai Yuexuan".The production price of the gold silk cotton mattress is 84,000 taels of silver; the production price of the thin mattress embroidered with Buddha beads is 22,000 taels; 160,000 taels; the beaded robes on the back are estimated at 1.2 million taels; the golden Buddha beside him is worth eight taels, the jade Buddha is six taels, the emerald Buddha is six taels, and the ruby ​​Buddha is three taels and five taels. Twenty-seven each, a total of 108, worth about 620,000 taels; two emerald watermelons, worth about 2.2 million taels, four emerald melons, worth about 600,000 taels; It is worth one million taels; the red coral tree is worth about 530,000 taels; the most valuable is the bead crown on Cixi's head, on which a four-two-weight large bead is a foreign tribute, worth 10 million taels. The price is about 10.5 million taels.In addition, there are about 500 large beads and about 6,000 small beads on Cixi's body, with an estimated value of 228,000 taels.

When such a shocking case happened, Chiang Kai-shek, He Yingqin and other important Kuomintang officials were celebrating the victory of the Northern Expedition in Beiping, which is only more than 100 kilometers away from Dongling, and they knew nothing about it.Sun Dianying was also worried. On the third day after the tomb robbery began, he specially sent Tan Wenjiang to Beiping to find out the news, and saw that everything was calm; Until July 11, when the tomb robbers ransacked Dingdongling and Yuling, Peking still knew nothing about it. During the tomb robbery, residents near Dongling heard two explosions.Because it was announced to hold military exercises in the mausoleum area first, people didn't think much about it, mainly because they didn't expect that a dignified national army commander would use the national army to dig graves and rob graves like bandits and thieves.

In early August, Tan Wenjiang went to Peiping and entrusted jewelry and antique dealer Huang Baichuan to sell stolen goods. A large number of Dongling treasures appeared on the market.At the same time, a soldier named Zhang Qihou who participated in the treasure robbery felt that he no longer needed to be a soldier after receiving some jewels, so he deserted and slipped back to his hometown. On August 4, he and two other deserters were caught selling stolen goods in Qingdao. . The Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty were looted on a large scale!Reuters was the first to disclose this major case. The agency published the news with an eye-catching headline on August 5. Afterwards, all major newspapers across the country reprinted it on August 6. There was an uproar in the whole country and shock overseas.

The general representative of the Qing royal family and the last emperor Puyi was expelled from the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang in 1924, and lived in Zhangyuan, Tianjin at that time.Hearing that the Eastern Mausoleum was blown up, the corpses of the ancestors were humiliated, and all the treasures buried with him were stolen, Pu Yi was so heartbroken that he sent Yu Peng, the Minister of the Mausoleum, to question him.Yupeng encountered such a tragedy in office, how dare he go to see Puyi, hide and not meet.At this time, Pu Yi had no choice but to expel him from his clan. After hearing the bad news, the clan and elders rushed to Zhangyuan to discuss countermeasures with Puyi under the call of Puyi.Everyone wailed loudly, and then set up the spiritual seats of Qianlong and Cixi in Zhangyuan, and paid homage three times a day.They held an "imperial meeting" for two days and two nights, and called Yan Xishan, the commander of Chiang Kai-shek and Pingjin Garrison, demanding that the culprit be investigated and the mausoleum repaired.

The "Imperial Conference" decided to send Bao Ruichen, Qi Shoumin, Chen Yizhong and others to Dongling to investigate and handle all aftermath matters. On August 18, Bao Ruichen and more than 70 people drove to Dongling by car. After arriving at Dongling, what I saw was horrible: the mausoleum area was excavated everywhere, leaving traces of excavation on the top of the treasure, outside the side hall, and in the Minglou; It was looted; Cixi's body was thrown in the northwest corner of the underground palace, face down, with one hand twisted on the shoulder, long hair scattered, mildew all over the body with a thick layer of white hair, and the face and lips It was torn to pieces; in Yuling of Qianlong, several bones of the dead were floating in the muddy water. Those who searched carefully found five skulls one after another, and found a corpse of Empress Xiaoyi in the water, which was confirmed to be the skull of Qianlong with a broken jaw. for two pieces.

Bao Ruichen arranged for a reburial after weeping bitterly.It was originally planned to bury Qianlong first and then Cixi according to the order of seniority, but because Qianlong's Yuling underground palace had a deep water accumulation at that time, the water had to be drained before re-burial, so Cixi was buried first.It was not until August 31 that Qianlong's remains were reburied. The robbery and excavation of the Eastern Tomb of the Qing Dynasty is not only a loss to the Qing Dynasty, but also a major crime against the national historical and cultural heritage.After the robbery case was disclosed, many public groups denounced the tomb robber as a national scum, and called the national government to investigate and punish the mastermind as soon as possible.People immediately felt that this largest tomb robbery in history must have an official background. The All-China Federation of Chambers of Commerce pointed out: The mausoleums of Emperor Qianlong and Empress Cixi are so strong that they cannot be dug by a few people in the shortest time!The National Treasure Reorganization Committee called on the authorities to quickly confiscate the stolen national treasures and strictly prevent them from being exported overseas.

Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan acted quickly.The more people involved in the case, the easier it is to investigate. First of all, Zhang Qihou, a deserter who was arrested, confessed that "the army commander took two brigades... The army commander ordered the engineering battalion to use mines to generalize the Empress Dowager and Emperor Qianlong. The mausoleum exploded..." Then, on August 10, the investigators headed by National Government member Liu Renrui arrived at Dongling and picked up an iron pickaxe in the Yuling Mausoleum Road. I also learned from the villagers that the legs and feet of all the soldiers who went to the street to buy fuel from July 4th to 11th were covered with plaster from the underground palace; At night, Junchang Sun took a car from Mashen Bridge to Malanyu.

So far, the truth of Dongling's treasure robbery case has come to light.The Qing Dynasty, who hated Sun Dianying deeply, sent people to negotiate with the Pingjin Garrison Headquarters and demanded that the culprit be severely punished. However, at that time, Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan were fighting openly and secretly. They both wanted to gather Sun Dianying, who controlled a part of the army, to serve him, and no one wanted to attack him.In the official correspondence on this matter at that time, the number of the tomb robbers and the name of Sun Dianying were kept secret. When Sun Dianying robbed the tomb, he had already considered how to deal with the aftermath. At this time, he used the means of "grinding ghosts" with money to take out treasures from the stolen treasures of Dongling, and went around to deal with important Kuomintang officials.He took the two largest out of the 108 beads on Qianlong's neck and gave them to Dai Li, a Kowloon sword entrusted to Dai Li to Chiang Kai-shek, the emerald watermelon under Cixi's pillow to Song Ziwen, and the night pearl in Cixi's mouth to Song Meiling. The two strings of precious stones on the court boots were given to Kong Xiangxi... In addition, he gave Yan Xishan gold worth 500,000 yuan. In this way, everyone "benefited" in this case, and Sun Dianying was even more difficult to be punished.In order to deal with the turbulent public opinion, Yan Xishan, commander of Pingjin Garrison, ordered to organize a military court trial, with General Shang Zhen as the presiding judge. The preliminary trial began on April 20, 1929, and ended on June 8; on June 15, the entire case file was sealed and sent to the capital, where the suspect was detained and awaited execution by the Military Justice Department of the Military and Political Department.