In early July 1928, the northwestern warlord Sun Dianying drove away all the qing tomb guards in the name of military exercises, blockaded the pass, imposed martial law, and looted the Yuling Tomb in Qianlong and the Dingdongling Tomb in Cixi. Although Sun Dianying had already obtained many rare treasures at Cixi's Dingdong Mausoleum, Sun Dianying was not satisfied. He also sent people to blow up Qianlong's tomb, from which he obtained pearls, jadeite, ivory, precious stones, calligraphy and paintings, swords, and many other treasures, packed forty or fifty boxes of large and small sizes, and then stamped them with official seals and pulled them back to the barracks.
After Sun Dianying left, the news of his illegal excavation of the Tanglin Tomb was immediately spread. The Manchus were horrified, and some of the flag people's groups and the Sunqing royal family even filed a complaint against Chiang Kai-shek. After the matter was reported by the newspapers and media at the time, many people demanded that Sun Dianying be severely punished, and the Beiping General Chamber of Commerce even requested that a special court be organized to try the case. Sun Dianying did not take it seriously at first, but at the suggestion of Xu Yuanquan, the commander-in-chief of the Sixth Army, he selected several of the most valuable treasures from the treasures he had stolen and gave them to the top brass of the Nationalist government.
For example, the Nine Dragon Sword he entrusted to Give Todai Kasa to Chiang Kai-shek, Cixi's favorite emerald watermelon was given to Song Ziwen, and the night pearl contained in Cixi's mouth was given to Song Meiling. He also sent 500,000 taels of gold to Yan Xishan and so on. After some operation by these people, Sun Dianying not only escaped responsibility, but also continued to increase his rank and become knighted, successively serving as the chairman of Anhui Province and the commander of the provisional Fifth Army.
Later, Sun Dianying was sentenced to imprisonment after the war because of his defection to the Japanese army and other acts in the course of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Originally, he was still active in labor, but soon after he began to degenerate, and even tried to escape from prison. Later, because he smoked opium for decades, he suffered from smoking diarrhea, which was an incurable disease at that time. In 1947, Sun Dianying fell ill and died in a war criminals shelter. What is the situation of Sun Dianying's descendants?
Sun Dianying's son Sun Tianyi and his father are completely two types of people. Sun Tianyi was born in Beijing in 1931, and he heard everything about Sun Dianying's tomb robbery from his mother and father. Sun Tianyi, who grew up in a warlord family, did not get tainted with his father's banditry, graduating from the Department of Western Languages and Literatures of Fu Jen University in Beijing in 1952 and working at the Xi'an Foreign Chinese College after 1957. In 1959, when he first accompanied the guests to visit the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum, his heart was very shocked. "This is the root of the Chinese nation, but when you walk past it, the place is too small and too simple." It does not match the arrogance and status of China's great power. Since then, he has begun the protection and construction of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum, and has also become an expert in the protection of cultural relics. In 1994, Sun Tianyi officially became the president of the Yellow Emperor Mausoleum Foundation in China and became the "tomb keeper" of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum.