The Looting of the Eastern Mausoleum was a major incident in early June 1928, in which some of the major mausoleums of the Chinese Qing dynasty in the Eastern Qing tombs were ransacked or vandalized by troops under the command of the warlord Sun Dianying.
Background Republican Era
With the dissolution of the Qing Empire in 1912, the new Republic of China and the recently-abdicated royal family signed a treaty, which included the details and agreements guaranteeing formal federal protections of the Mausoleums of the Qing Dynasty. However, after the occurrence of multiple strenuous events such as Yuan Shikai's attempted restoration of the monarchy in 1915 and the outbreak of the Second Zhili–Fengtian War, made the Nationalist government's capability in upholding these obligations increasingly difficult. With logistics and funding for the protection and maintenance becoming sporadic and unreliable, vigilance over the guarding of the tomb sites dwindled.
Sun Dianying
Sun Dianying was a commander of the Fengtian Army, who allied himself and the forces under his control with Chiang Kai-shek during the 1926 Northern Expedition. After its conclusion however, Chiang Kai-shek increasingly began the exclusion of known dissidents; Sun Dianying himself — being a former warlord — naturally became one of the primary targets of disarmament. Distrust, confounded by corruption within the Nationalist government resulted in delayed pay, food, water, and other logistical problems that consistently plagued Sun Dianying's forces under his command. This in turn led to an increase in sporadic cases of insubordination, protests, and even desertions whilst stationed in Hebei province. In face of this growing crisis, Sun Dianying proceeded to search for alternative sources of funding.
Ai Yuxuan Notebook
The extremely opulent and extravagant nature of the Empress Dowager Cixi's funerary procession following her death in 15 November 1908, required a vow of secrecy on certain details by the Qing officials and head-eunuchs responsible for overseeing its planning and procurement. After the abdication of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 however, the token of secrecy over this information were no longer enforceable and were, inexorably, leaked to the public by former palace officials, the eunuchs and their relatives over the course of two decades. Some of these surviving information eventually manifested itself in the form of the 'Ai Yuxuan Notebook'; a compilation work that concerned the detail of Cixi's funerary and burial procession. Not in the least of which most significantly, were the information regarding the procurement of the vast array and amount, of treasure and unique burial items that were planned to accompany her coffin.
It was suspected that it was approximately at this point in time that the document (or most likely a copy of it) fell into the possession of Sun Dianying after having been received from two of his subordinates that had recently returned from Beijing of which, after its study, lead to the decision and planning to loot the Eastern Qing Mausoleums.
Prelude
In the early hours of June 8, 1928, warlord Sun Dianying led his army into the Eastern Mausoleums of the Qing dynasty in Malanyu, northwest of Zunhua, Hebei. This was the final resting place of the Qing emperors and empresses, and was about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the Forbidden City of Peking. The 78-square-kilometer (30.1-square-mile) burial site was for five emperors, 15 empresses and 136 imperial concubines within 15 tombs, including the Shunzhi Emperor (1638–1661), the Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722), the Qianlong Emperor (1711–1799) and Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908).
Looting operation On June 12, 1928, Sun Dianying ordered a large-scale graverobbing operation that removed almost all the underground funeral objects of the Huifeiling and Yuling Mausoleums and the underground palace of Puxiangyu East Dingling. Ma Futian, Regimental Commander in the 28th Army of Zhang Zuolin, had quietly occupied Malanyu. Sun Dianying ordered Tan Wenjiang, one of his division commanders, to capture the tomb area. At dawn on July 2, Ma Futian was driven away and Tan's army looted the mausoleums in Malanyu. After that, Sun's army went straight to the area of the Eastern Qing Tombs, pretending to engage in war exercises in the area. Tan Wenjiang placed policemen all around, denying access to the area and signs declared the army was "protecting the Tombs" to prevent interference. The looting operation was directed by Sun Dianying from his car. Trucks were on hand to speed away with the loot as soon as they were loaded.
Cixi's tomb and the Putuoyu Eastern Ding Mausoleum
The tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi (Dingdong Ling) was first to be targeted, and Sun gave first priority to officers above battalion commander level to collect treasure for themselves. Ordinary soldiers were eventually allowed to take the leftovers. The above-ground memorial hall was the most prominent and easily accessible structure. Upon entering, the thieves tore down the gold and brass dragon ornaments that enveloped the structure's pillars and stole the myriad of ornaments and gold medallions from the beams and eves of the building. Upon reaching the tomb-mound at the rear of the complex, it was realized that none amongst the perpetrators were familiar of complete layout and design of the tomb and its burial chamber. After multiple initial failed attempts at locating the burial chamber's entrance via arbitrary digging and liberal use of dynamite (resulting in extensive structural damage), a suspected former tomb-keeper from the nearby Malanyu village was brought forth, and interrogated into revealing exact location of the tomb's sealed entrance.
Locating the burial chamber's entrance after only a meter of vertical digging whilst under the tomb-keeper's guidance, the looters were met by the first major obstacle; the tomb's foot-thick sealing-wall ('Diamond Wall') whose durability made it almost impervious to all pickaxes, shovels and backhoes equipped on-hand. Further use of dynamite by the engineering corps was therefore required to breach this seal, opening the passage that lead into the underground palace.
Traveling down the burial chamber passageway, the perpetrators reached the final major obstacle: two heavy yet durable sets of marble gates that now divided the burial chamber and the coffin itself, from the outside world. Ignorant of the locking-mechanism of this door, Sun Dianying's men first attempted to hack down and cut at the door with pickaxes and shovels that were on-hand, but to no avail (damage to the doors of which are still visible today). Peering in through the narrow slit between these doors revealed that it was barricaded by an angled bar of carved marble that served as the locking mechanism and, knowing that, was then circumvented by having it set backwards to its original position via the combined use of steel wires and thin ropes to serve as a crude pulley-system.
After the gates were bypassed, it was only the vermilion coffin of the Empress Dowager that now stood before them. Prying open the coffin lid, the perpetrators were met by a near-incomprehensible, almost other-worldly sight - the embalmed and still considerably well-preserved corpse of Cixi herself, wrapped in three layers of gold brocade and an additional layer of pearl approximately a foot-thick were laid around at the bottom of the coffin. On her head was a Qing imperial red-and-black Phoenix-crown also adorned with pearls, with the largest that topped the crown purportedly, being almost the diameter of a robin's egg. In addition to this were jade and tourmaline coral and lotus leaf sculptures respectively, placed at her head and foot. Within the coffin surrounding her corpse were also multiple small sculptures of horses, Arhats, Buddhas and Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) figurines carved of gold, jade, emerald and various other gemstones. At either side of her feet were laid carved sculptures of jadeite watermelon slices, oriental fragrant melons, carved Jadeite Cabbage sculptures and multiple gemstone-carved peaches, plums, apricots and dates.The World's News 16 January 1929 edition, page 29 Encapsulating both the corpse and the immense treasure were the four wooden walls of the coffin itself, entirely engraved with multiple golden Sanskrit excerpt passages of the Amitābha and Amitāyus Sutras, that contained blessings for reincarnation and entry into 'The Buddhist Pure Land' - a blissful spiritual place described as having wonderful adornments including jeweled ponds, colorful jeweled lotuses, raining flowers and jeweled trees that 'make the sounds of the Dharma'.The Display of the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī
The looters first dragged the Empress Dowager's corpse out of the coffin and discarded her aside as if refuse before proceeding to snatch at the largest treasured objects that had been previously placed around her body, such as the Buddha statues, jadeite watermelons, jade coral and vegetables. They snatched at the objects found beneath the body, ravaged the corpse itself - taking her imperial robe; tearing off her gold-threaded undergarments, shoes and socks, and stealing all the pearls and jewels on her body. The looters then violently pried open her jaws with bayonet blades and rifle-butts in a hasty quest to extract the legendary 'Yemingzu' ('夜明珠' lit. 'Night-Pearl') described as having light-emitting fluorescent-like properties, that had purportedly been placed in Cixi's mouth following her death (to supposedly protect her corpse from decomposing, in accordance with Chinese folk-tradition). Ultimately, they looted all the objects under the coffin that had been favorites of Cixi when she was alive. Cixi's burial garments and socks — having being soiled by her twenty-years-since decomposed corpse — were subsequently discarded by the perpetrators, but not before all the sewn jewels and pearls were violently torn away. These surviving garments were recovered, restored and publicly displayed at the China National Silk Museum.
Yu Mausoleum
While Tan Wenjiang was robbing Cixi's tomb, Han Dabao, a brigade commander under Sun Dianying, led another group to the Yu Mausoleum belonging to the Qianlong Emperor and declared his intention to 'conduct a war exercise'.
Armed with the knowledge and methodology gained after the ransacking of Cixi's Eastern Ding Mausoleum prior, the perpetrators once more breached the tomb's 'sealing-wall' with the use of dynamite as they did before. This time however they were taken by surprise by a new, unforeseen obstacle; the underground entrance and the burial chamber itself was inundated approximately by more than a few meters of stagnant water; flooding of which was a result of centuries of rain-water seepage into the chambers caused by construction methods that were not water-tight. Pumps had to be brought it to reduce the water to more tolerable levels prior to entry.
Upon reaching the final set of marble gates, the looters utilized the same method as before to unlatch the locking mechanism. Despite multiple attempts however, the gates to the burial chamber refused to open. It was later discovered that, possibly due to buoyancy, the wooden coffin of the Qianlong Emperor was lifted off from its pedestal, and then relocated itself to the marble gate of the burial chamber whilst the floodwaters were being drained - resulting in his coffin coincidentally serving as a crude ad-hoc barricade, preventing the doors from opening and delaying the thieves' entry. Nevertheless, the gates and the coffin itself inevitably yielded to the use of dynamite. The looters blew down the entrance and doorways of the underground palace and rushed into the tomb. The coffins of the Qianlong Emperor, his empress and four concubines were pried open, all the valuables looted and their remains thrown onto the mud-covered floor of the burial chamber.