Chapter 82 Section VIII

In 1933, with the support and manipulation of Japan, Puyi made his debut as the emperor of the puppet Manchukuo.He came to the throne at the age of three, and abdicated three years later when the Qing Dynasty collapsed; at the age of twelve, he was restored amid Zhang Xun's nonsense, and abdicated again twelve days later.When he became the emperor of "Manchuria", it was the third time in his life that he ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. The theft of the Dongling Mausoleum stimulated him too much. Of course, he was just a puppet in the hands of the Japanese when he came to power again, but he still had the ability to protect the ancestral mausoleum.The Japanese Kwantung Army and the "Manchuria Army" forcibly entered the Tangling area, placed Tangling under the jurisdiction of Rehe Province, "Manchuria", and set up the "Tangling District Management Office Police Station" here.The Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty, which had been severely damaged and still made countless bandits and thieves jealous, gained a period of peace.

On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender. The Japanese army and the "Manchurian Army" retreated to the north of the Great Wall after the end of the day, and the pseudo-police organization collapsed immediately.At this time, the Japanese rule had come to an end, and the Kuomintang had not had time to take over, and the Eighth Route Army had not yet carried out work here: there was another management vacuum in the Tanglin area. At the end of 1945, the thieves who never forgot the treasures of Tangling began to sharpen their knives again, and sporadic tomb robbery activities such as cutting down trees in the mausoleum area and prying down buildings on the ground gradually appeared.As soon as this sign appeared, the Party Committee of the Jidong District of the Communist Party of China immediately sent a battalion of troops to guard; unexpectedly, because the Kuomintang troops attacked Yutian and Wuqing, the troops to protect the mausoleum rushed to the front line.

The huge, luxurious and precious Tombs of the Eastern Qing Dynasty once again lost all care and were exposed to the wind and rain of history. In 1928, Ma Futian and Wang Shaoyi's bandits were preparing to dig up the mausoleum, but they made a wedding dress for Sun Dianying's robbery.Sun Dianying used the excellent pretext of encircling and suppressing Ma and Wang's tomb robbers, and drove into Dongling to do a big job on his own.After Ma and Wang were defeated by Sun Dianying, their gang became scattered, but the core members were always ruthless, especially Wang Shaoyi, who had worked as a mausoleum worker when he was young and was familiar with the mausoleum structure.

Due to Puyi's strict protection of Dongling, Wang Shaoyi has been unable to do anything for many years. In 1937, Wang Shaoyi, who had passed his forties, settled in Xinli Village near Dongling, and made a living by farming with his two sons. During the off-season, he plucked cotton to subsidize his family.Wang Shaoyi, the bandit leader who seems to have washed his hands in a golden basin, is still in communication with the surrounding gangsters in his farm life, just waiting for the day when the opportunity comes. As soon as the Dongling Nursing Vacuum appeared, Wang Shaoyi, who was as agile as a fox, jumped up, seized this rare opportunity, and made intensive preparations for the robbery of the Tomb.A greater catastrophe is about to come to Qing Dongling.

Wang Shaoyi first colluded with a group of habitual bandits, local ruffians, and hooligans, using them as the main force to steal the mausoleum; he also colluded with local grassroots cadres as backers, mainly Zhang Jinzhong, head of the enemy industry department of the Seventeenth Regiment of the Eighth Route Army, Jieru, chief of the eighth district of Jixian County, and Guo Guo, assistant to the public security. Zheng, civil affairs assistant Ji Xin and others.Zhang Jinzhong made great contributions in the Anti-Japanese War, but after the victory, he was dragged into the water by Wang Shaoyi under the huge temptation of the treasures of Dongling, and became one of the main culprits in the second major theft of Dongling in 1945.

Wang Shaoyi also considered the countermeasures after the incident. He did not have the army that Sun Dianying relied on for his self-respect.In addition to the old bandits with whom he has always been connected, he has connected a large number of people including villagers, village leaders, and militiamen. There are only 15 nearby villages and towns, and more than 200 people participated in his robbery. Under the leadership of Wang Shaoyi and Zhang Jinzhong, the huge army of tomb robbers dug a hole under the screen wall in the Ming Tower, descended along the stone mausoleum, and then blasted open the stone gate with explosives, entering the room and looting mountains of treasures.

Not to mention the complex structure of the mausoleum, the stone gates of the imperial mausoleum alone have four floors, and the stone gates of the Hou Mausoleum have three floors. Each stone gate is one and a half feet thick and is made of white marble and marble.After the emperor's coffin was placed in the underground palace, a stone jack was pulled into the groove with a thick rope, and the stone gate was closed, and the mausoleum was permanently closed.This solidity cannot be broken by human power. Driven by a strong desire to steal treasures, Wang Shaoyi's gang "overcame all difficulties".In the absence of supervision, the stone gates were blasted open by explosives, the underground palaces were dug up, and the coffins of emperors and empresses were smashed. The formerly solemn Qingdong Tomb was almost in ruins.

Numerous treasures were stolen.Zhang Jinzhong and Wang Shaoyi stipulated that everyone has a share, but they must be the first to choose. When opening Kangxi's Jingling Tomb, a bannerman named Tian Dahua read in some idle books that there is a rare treasure in Kangxi's tomb - the Nine Dragon Cup. Want this Kowloon Cup! Jingling Cave opened, and Tian Guangkun, Tian Dahua's son, and a villager from the same village took the lead and rushed to Kangxi's coffin, staring at the coffin with blood red eyes without saying anything; Looking at it, unexpectedly there is a mechanism in the coffin, a ball of green fire suddenly burst out, burning the faces of the two people to pieces.

When it came time to distribute the treasure, although the two quit midway after being burned, they acted as a shield for everyone, and there was "credit" for everyone, and a share of the treasure was also given.There is really a Kowloon Cup in Kangxi's tomb!It was distributed to Tian Guangkun, and his father Tian Dahua really got this rare treasure that he thought about day and night. This group of money-obsessed bandits plundered the mausoleum unscrupulously for three months.The first time Sun Dianying robbed the tombs, it took seven days to excavate the Qianlong and Cixi Tombs; and in this large-scale robbery crime, hundreds of people robbed Kangxi’s Jingling Tomb, Xianfeng’s Dingling Tomb, and Empress Dowager Ci’an’s tomb. There are four Dingdong Tombs in Puxiang Valley and Hui Tombs in Tongzhi!