Wei Zi boss Jin Sinan

In the feudal era, both ordinary people and nobles attached great importance to what was left behind, especially the royal family, and paid more attention to the specifications of tombs after death. They lived in beautiful palaces when they were alive, and they also lived in magnificent underground palaces when they died, and their funerary objects were even more valuable.

It is said that among the funerary objects of Emperor Taizong, there is the best running script "Preface to Lanting Collection". It can be said that the emperor's mausoleum is a treasure house, while Empress Dowager Cixi, the ruler of the late Qing Dynasty, was extremely luxurious when she was alive, and the funerary objects of her deceased mausoleum were also priceless.

A coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi is worth millions of silver. Today, we will talk about why the golden nanmu coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi became today's red.

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In the eyes of the ancients, "things die like things happen", and the coffin that sleeps after death should also be worthy of the identity of the tomb owner. Ordinary people's coffins are mostly made of dark wood such as catalpa, nanmu and boxwood. These wooden materials are hard, non-perishable and have a unique fragrance, which can avoid the bites of underground insects and ants.

Therefore, these coffins have become the first choice of dignitaries, and ordinary poor people use coffins well. In troubled times, most people bury straw mats hastily, the world is cold, and everything is a dog.

Moreover, the emperor's coffin is extremely luxurious, using gold-rimmed nanmu with a value comparable to gold.

▲ Jin Sinan Journal

Phoebe bournei is the highest quality category of Phoebe bournei and the most precious wood in the world. Because of its extremely slow growth, Phoebe bournei is extremely precious. Since ancient times, it has been a symbol of royal cultural symbols and is called "Imperial Wood".

The coffin made of nanmu is buried in the ground, and there is a saying that "water can't be soaked and ants can't drill", which shows that nanmu's coffin is not so precious.

Empress Dowager Cixi, as the actual ruler of Tongzhi and Guangxu Dynasties in the late Qing Dynasty, had very high coffin specifications. As early as when Empress Dowager Cixi was alive, she sent Li, a trusted eunuch, to Shoucaipu, an old shop in Beijing Paper Mill, to make golden nanmu coffins. Li personally went to Yunnan to select the golden nanmu used in the coffin. It cost 100,000 yuan to transport the wood from Yunnan to Beijing, and the original price of the wood was higher.

After the wood was transported to Beijing, it was made by the best coffin maker in Beijing. The coffin took three months to take shape. Because there was extra wood, the owner of the coffin shop made a coffin exactly like Empress Dowager Cixi with the remaining wood (stolen, of course).

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In three months, the size of the coffin was initially finalized. For ordinary people, it is enough to dry after painting, but the coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi has to go through 48 procedures to complete, and the cost is incalculable.

The last process of making the coffin is to mix the melted and diluted bone glue with the ground gold powder after the paint is dry, and draw a gold line on the coffin with a moustache pen, and every inch should be perfect. After painting, the whole coffin is golden and fragrant, which can be said to be the most expensive coffin.

But it was such a perfect coffin that Empress Dowager Cixi only slept for twenty years and was destroyed by Sun Dianying, a thief from Dongling.

▲ Sun Dianying

1928, Sun Dianying, commander of the National Revolutionary Army 12 Army, was ordered to be stationed in Zunhua, Hebei. This Sun Dianying was a local ruffian when he was young, but the Qing emperor abdicated for a long time, and the care for the Qing Dongling became a decoration. So, Sun Dianying moved the mind of the Qing Dongling.

Just start, Sun Dianying has no ability to touch a captain's gold. First he let bandits dig around, and finally he dug into the "King Kong Wall" inside. What should I do if I can't dig any more? Then blow it up with explosives.

After the blasting of the King Kong Wall, bandits swarmed in, scrambling to grab the treasures in the underground palace, and Cixi's expensive golden nanmu coffin was completely destroyed by bandits who didn't know the goods. It is said that even a pearl in Cixi's mouth was dug out, and even Cixi's pants were torn off, not to mention that the coffin was destroyed.

The news that Dongling in the Qing Dynasty was stolen soon reached the ears of Puyi, who lived in Bird, Tianjin. However, although Puyi was still putting on airs at this time, he had no power or influence, and Sun Dianying, who held the relieving power, was helpless. However, his ancestral grave was stolen, and his descendants could not stand by and had to send his uncle Zaize to clean up the mess.

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However, when Jae-taek arrived, she found that Cixi's coffin was badly damaged and could not be reburied. She can only change a coffin or repair it again.

I sent someone to inquire about it. Alas, the coffin shop that makes coffins for Cixi actually has the same coffin (such an expensive coffin can't be sold for more than 20 years), but it is expensive and needs hundreds of thousands.

At this time, Puyi was driven out of the Forbidden City, and the government of the Republic of China cut off the offerings to Puyi. Puyi lives in Bird and spends a lot of money every day, so she really can't afford this expensive coffin fee.

▲ Puyi in Bird period.

So Jae Ze asked the craftsman to repair the damaged part of the coffin with red paint, so Cixi's coffin became a red and gold "flower coffin".

In the 1980s, the cultural relics department wanted to repair and restore Cixi's coffin, but some coffin-making techniques had been lost. If the repair cost was too high as usual, they followed the practice of carrying Ze and painted the coffin with red paint.

So the upper part of the coffin we see now is big red, and only one base is gold.

▲ Cixi coffin displayed in the underground palace.

As for the other golden nanmu coffin, it has disappeared. Whether it is a legend or true is impossible to prove.

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Empress Dowager Cixi lived a luxurious life and used the best coffins. But what she didn't expect was that the better the coffin, the more funerary objects, and the more it would attract grave robbers to remember. I'm afraid this fate is beyond her imagination.

When Puyi was chatting with people in her later years, if she was inadvertently asked about Cixi's coffin, most of the time she avoided talking about it. After all, this matter involves many memories that can be called shame.

Fame is as rich as dust, especially in troubled times.