Ancient imperial tombs have always been coveted by tomb thieves, in order to protect the imperial tombs, successive dynasties will have special tomb guards, such as the Xiaoling Wei during the Ming Dynasty. However, when the dynasty existed, it was better to say that once the dynasty collapsed, the treasures of the former imperial tombs became the main way for tomb robbers and warlords to get rich, and Cao Cao was able to stand out among the heroes of the Three Kingdoms, which was inseparable from the support of the treasures he stole from the tombs. As the last feudal dynasty in the history of the mainland, the Qing Dynasty not only had its own tomb guard army before the fall, but also had an army to guard the Qing Emperor's mausoleum after the fall.
Before the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Fuling Tomb of the Qing Taizu Nurhaci and the Zhaoling Tomb of emperor Taiji of the Qing Dynasty were set up in his hometown of Hetuala, known in history as the Three Tombs of Guanwai. After the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs and established the Qing Dynasty, except for the last emperor Puyi, who did not establish it, the other ten emperors built large-scale mausoleums in Zunhua and Yi County, Hebei Province, known in history as the Qing Eastern Tombs and the Qing Western Tombs.
The imperial tombs of the Qing Dynasty collected treasures from all dynasties, especially the tombs of the two emperors of Kangxi and Qianlong, and in order to prevent the covetousness of tomb robbers, the Qing Dynasty also set up a tomb guard army. In the Three Tombs outside Guanwai, there was a garrison of three thousand people, all of whom were elite soldiers selected from the Eight Banners, who held the right to cut first and play later, and once they found suspicious figures approaching the imperial tomb, they would immediately shoot and kill.
As tomb keepers, their lifelong duty is to guard the royal cemetery, which is not easy. Therefore, their treatment is also very high, the Qing Dynasty tomb keepers, the Qing Dynasty will give each household a small courtyard, on the one hand to three thirds as the standard, that is, the so-called one acre and three points of land. In addition, as the children of the tomb keepers, they immediately enjoyed the treatment of seven products as soon as they were born, and there were special school teachings. The Qing Dynasty gave such preferential treatment to the tomb keepers, probably to prevent them from guarding and stealing.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, these tomb keepers could only be laid off and no longer enjoyed the preferential treatment they had in the past, and the descendants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty had to hire an army to guard the imperial tomb in order to protect the imperial tomb, but at that time, the warlords were fighting and the crowd was divided, how could this army wholeheartedly guard the imperial tomb with a low remuneration? In 1928, Sun Dianying led an army to steal the Qing Emperor's mausoleum, and the army guarding the tomb heard the wind and fled far away. Even more ridiculous. In 1931, Zhaoxu, the prince of Zheng at the end of the dynasty, in order to maintain his livelihood, actually took people to the imperial tomb to steal his ancestral grave, but fortunately someone called the police in time to prevent a disaster.