Holding it in his hand, Han Kongque carefully observed the luminous pearl, wanting to verify whether it was the real Cixi luminous pearl.
Characters who like antiques and beautiful jade must know that the Night Pearl is by no means a false "magic weapon" in "The Romance of the Gods" or "Journey to the West", but is indeed a high-end treasure in the world.
The black luminous pearl buried with Cixi is divided into two pieces in terms of shape. Once they are put together, it turns into a round and perfect "treasure ball".
Interestingly, this treasure has a special temperament. Once separated, it is often transparent and dull. After being closed, it reveals a green "cold light" like magic.
It is said that within a hundred steps at night, every strand of hair can be seen.
This treasure is like a corpse.
According to Yu Shanpu's "Sun Dianying Dongling Tomb Stealing Treasures": Cixi's mausoleum is luxuriously built, surpassing all the mausoleums of emperors and empresses in the Qing Dynasty, especially the jewelry buried in the coffin is even more precious. In the 34th year of Guangxu (1908 AD)
After Cixi died on October 22, the eunuch Li Lianying participated in the funeral and included one of the buried treasures in a book.
Thinking of this, Han Kongque pulled out a pamphlet. This should be the list of Cixi's burial objects. Soon, Han Kongque skipped some of the things he knew, but the rest were things he had never seen before.
Looking at this detailed list, Han Peacock's face lit up with joy.
At that time, Sun Dianying first took away the large treasures around Cixi's body. The jade watermelon was definitely the first choice. In addition to this treasure, other jade products include jade cabbage, jade lotus, coral tree, etc.
Many Han Peacocks have heard of these treasures. These are legendary treasures. If they were all collected at once, the harvest this time would definitely exceed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom treasures obtained by Han Peacocks.
After all, most of the last harvest was gold and silver, and compared to these treasures here, the value of those gold and silver is nothing.
As for the value of the treasures here now, it can be said to be immeasurable.
According to Zhao Ruzhen's "Guide to Antiques": "In short, if all Cixi's burial objects are recovered and used to repay foreign debts, there will be more than tens of millions left, which will be enough to enrich the country. The prices and valuations listed are the treasure prices at that time, and will be used in the future."
In the first year of Xuantong, it was estimated by Chinese and foreign antique collectors and jewelers that the value of all items had increased tenfold. In the late Republic of China, another appraisal was conducted. It must have increased by a hundredfold, and it is no longer possible to estimate the value today.
From this we also know that during the Republic of China, the value of these treasures increased a thousand times, and by now, it is certain that it will increase another hundred times.
Let’s just talk about the Luminous Pearl buried in the mouth of the Empress Dowager Cixi. It is a rough diamond with an approximately spherical shape and weighs about 787.28 carats. Its valuation in 1908 of 10.8 million taels of silver was approximately equivalent to the current value of 810 million yuan today.
So even based on the value at that time, just such a luminous pearl could be exchanged for more than two tons of gold, let alone its current value.
In Cixi's tomb, in addition to this one, there are nine famous luminous pearls on Cixi's phoenix crown.
In addition to the well-known luminous pearls in Cixi's mouth, the nine luminous pearls on her phoenix crown are also quite famous, but unfortunately, only five of them were found by Korean Peacock here.
In this detailed booklet, there are records about these five luminous pearls. This is the annotation sitting next to it. It should be written by Sun Dianying.
It records the ins and outs of these nine luminous pearls.
According to Li Yingfa's "Literary and Historical Interests": In June 1900 AD, the invading army composed of Britain, Germany, Russia, France, the United States, Japan, Italy, and Austria invaded Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi did not allow the invaders to fight back, but
Carrying out treasonous activities, he took four luminous pearls from the phoenix crown and gave them to foreigners, begging them to withdraw from Beijing.
The chief eunuch Li Lianying who was handling the matter was not around at the time. He asked a palace maid named Wang to take him to the Ximen Hotel and hand him over to someone sent by Li Hongzhang.
Li Hongzhang is in charge of negotiating with foreigners about withdrawing troops.
The palace maid was only 17 years old at the time. Empress Dowager Ci De warned her to be careful along the way. If she lost her head, she would fall to the ground.
The palace maid hid the beads and thought as she walked: This is a treasure of our country. How can we give it to foreigners?
So, she cleverly got rid of the guards and hid the night pearl among the people.
Sixty-four years later (1964 AD), these four luminous pearls were discovered in a worker's family living in Baishulin, Xi'an City.
The family's surname was Wu. The couple were both workers in a chemical factory. One time when they were cleaning, the child took apart a dirty and oily pillow to clean, and found a red cloth bag inside.
After uncovering the red cloth, there is another layer of yellow cloth. There is also a layer of oil paper inside the yellow cloth. Inside the oil paper, there is a layer of tissue paper, wrapped with four longan-sized, shining night pearls.
Knowing that he could not collect nine luminous pearls, Han Kongque sighed, took out the five luminous pearls and the black luminous pearl and placed them on the ground.
At this time, Han Peacock looked at the stone coffin again. The first thing that caught his eye were numerous large and small glass boxes, and in one of the glass boxes, there was a pair of emerald watermelons.
There are a pair of emerald watermelons. Through the glass box, you can see the green skin of the melon, with dark green stripes. The black melon seeds and red flesh of the melon can still be seen vaguely.
The emerald watermelon was a treasure paid tribute by "Fan". Empress Dowager Cixi was not only obsessed with power, but also liked antiques and treasures. She fell in love with the "emerald watermelon".
So after ascending to heaven, he had to carry this treasure and bury it with him. Unfortunately, the rogue warlord Sun Dianying then publicly snatched it away, and now it fell into the hands of Han Peacock.
According to legend, the Empress Dowager Cixi had a jewelry room in the Summer Palace, surrounded by sandalwood cabinets and containing glass brocade boxes of various sizes, all wrapped in embroidered satin and exquisitely decorated.
It was filled with all kinds of jewelry, gold and silver, precious stones, pearls, agates, emeralds, corals, countless things.
Among the thousands of treasures, her favorite was a pair of emerald watermelons.
Cixi loved these two emerald watermelons so much that she placed them in the most solid cabinet with a mechanical lock.
To open this lock, you must insert the key into the lock core and turn it to the left five times. If you turn it in the wrong direction, you can't open the lock if you turn it more or less.
Cixi sent several close eunuchs, three to a shift, to take turns day and night to closely guard the jewelry room.
Whenever she was happy, she would ask the eunuch to take out the emerald watermelon and enjoy it. She would often boast to others, saying that it was a unique and rare treasure in the world!
These glass boxes here should be the treasures in the jewelry room of the Summer Palace in Cixi, and were used as funerary objects after her death.
After looking at it for a while, because he didn't want to damage the mechanical lock on the glass box, Han Peacock took out the glass box together and placed it on the ground.
Originally, he wanted to take out all the glass boxes inside, but at this time, he could not help but be attracted by the jade cabbage next to the glass box.
Jade cabbage, a world-famous treasure, is very famous. Empress Dowager Cixi likes it the most. It is shaped like a bud, with green leaves and a white heart. On the green stem is a green grasshopper with bulging eyes, stretched out its neck, flapping its wings and chirping. In addition,
, accompanied by two red and yellow wasps.
This treasure is vivid and exquisitely crafted, as if there is a simple and innocent poetic feeling permeating the vegetable leaves.
Jade Cabbage is almost 100% similar to real cabbage. It is made of jade. The friendly subject matter, the white vegetable body and the green leaves make people feel very familiar and close. Don’t forget to take a look.
The two insects staying on the vegetable leaves are the katydid and the locust, which symbolize fertility.
This work was originally placed in Yonghe Palace in the Forbidden City. Yonghe Palace was the residence of Emperor Guangxu's concubine Jin Fei.
Although the material of jade and the shape of cabbage first became popular in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the themes of cabbage and grass insects were common in professional grass and insect paintings from the Yuan to the early Ming Dynasty, and have always been popular auspicious themes among the people.
Jade is a very precious material in China. It is quite labor-intensive and time-consuming to craft jade into utensils. How to save materials and labor has become one of the principles of spatial thinking in the jade design process, and "the quantity of materials determines the quality."
"This is the artistic quality produced under this direction of thinking.
And here, there are seven such jade cabbages in total. Except for the one that attracted Han Peacock's attention, the other six are also made with ingenuity. It can be said that each one is ingenious.
But among so many emerald cabbages, the one that attracts Korean peacocks the most is the grasshopper cabbage.
After taking out the jade cabbage and placing it on the ground, Han Kongque was not happy at all. He seemed to have thought of something and felt something was wrong. But then he was once again attracted by the treasure in the stone coffin and stopped thinking about it.
Something is wrong.
What attracts Korean peacocks here is the jade lotus. In ancient times, China paid great attention to the close relationship between power and size. For example, "Xi" is a symbol of the emperor, so the homonym of "tourmaline" is exactly "avoiding evil", which means good luck.
In fact, "tourmaline" is the pillow treasure of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Among the burial objects of the Empress Dowager Cixi, this lotus carved from tourmaline weighs about 5092 grams. In fact, this is a pillow made of watermelon tourmaline. It is said that at that time
The market value is 750,000 taels of silver.
Putting the tourmaline pillow on the ground, Han Peacock took out the coral tree again.
This is the Empress Dowager Cixi's favorite large, bright and magnificent coral tree. This coral tree is covered with strings of small cherry trees, green stems, green leaves and red fruits, which are delicate and bright.
In addition, there is a pair of spotted kingfishers inlaid with pearls and jade standing on a cherry tree. This is definitely a rare treasure. Of course, all the other Korean peacocks bring out are also considered rare treasures.
Taking out this coral tree, Han Peacock didn't even think about it, and took out many more coral trees. Of course, these coral trees couldn't be compared to the first one, but for some reason, Han Peacock didn't hesitate at all.
Yes, I took out all these corals.
The feeling was getting more and more wrong, but Han Kongque had no time at this time to calm down and think about what was wrong. He just felt that if he didn't take out the treasures in the stone coffin as soon as possible, maybe these treasures would be missed by him. ( To be continued, please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!