Chapter 238: The Smoke of History

What Yang Kun said was very mysterious and a little long-winded, but it was very true, Li Ling didn't expect that many things that could be seen in the fog could find the answer in him. ﹎__﹍8w·w·w=.-

In 1630 A.D., Zhang Xianzhong rebelled in Shaximizhi and became one of the most important peasant revolutionary armed forces in the late Ming Dynasty.

After Zhang Xianzhong's uprising, he repeatedly defeated the Ming army, and occupied Wuchang in 1643 AD, called the king of Daxi. In 1644 AD, Zhang Xianzhong entered Shu, conquered Chengdu, established the Great Western Kingdom, and called Chengdu Xijing.

However, after Zhang Xianzhong entered Shu, he did not live a day of peace, in addition to mediating with the Ming Dynasty's army stationed in Sichuan and Shaanxi and the remnants of the forces, he also had to face the attacks of the Shu bureaucratic landlords at any time.

The point is that a more powerful enemy has come: the Qing Dynasty has risen, and the Qing army has entered the pass and moved south, pointing its sword at Sichuan and Shaanxi.

At the beginning of the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the Qing court, which was initially determined by Guozuo, sent Prince Su Haoge as the general of Jingyuan, and Wu Sangui and others led the Manchu and Han armies to pounce on Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi peasant army.

But Zhang Xianzhong had a more urgent enemy - at that time, Yang Zhan, the representative of the remnants of the Ming Dynasty and the armed elements of the bureaucracy and landlords in Shuzhong, led his troops to recapture Nanzhou County in Sichuan, and led his army to the north.

Then he fought fiercely with Zhang Xianzhong's troops at the mouth of the Pengshan River, Zhang Xianzhong was defeated and retreated to Chengdu, and Yang Zhan forced Chengdu from the south.

These remnants of the military and political forces of the Ming Dynasty and the landlords in Shuzhong gave Zhang Xianzhong a fatal blow to the Daxi regime and exhausted the last trace of the Daxi peasant army.

In July of this year, in order to preserve his strength and at the same time go north to Shaanxi to fight against the Qing army, Zhang Xianzhong decided to give up Chengdu. _ w·w·w-.-y·a·w'e'n=8=.-c-o·m' and "kill all his wives and concubines, and kill one of his sons while they are young."

At this time, Zhang Xianzhong already had the determination of Lianming to resist the Qing Dynasty, and in September, Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to leave Chengdu. Prepare to go north to meet the Qing army. In November, Zhang Xianzhong's army camped in Phoenix Mountain in Xichong.

On November 26, the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1646), the commander of the Qing army, Haoge, sent the commander of the escort army, Ao Bai and other generals, to lead the Eight Banners to march lightly into the northwest of Sichuan and launch a surprise attack on the rest of Zhang Xianzhong.

In the area of Phoenix Mountain in Xichong, Zhang Xianzhong led the peasant army to engage in a fierce battle with the Qing army. He was eventually shot and killed at the age of 40.

"Qing Historical Manuscript" records: Zhang Xianzhong is dead, his subordinates "wrapped the body in a brocade mattress, buried in a secluded place, and escaped", the Qing army dug graves and dug graves, "to get the hair and behead it, and the head of the emperor was in Chengdu".

After Zhang Xianzhong's death, his generals Sun Kewang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu, Ai Nengqi, Feng Shuangli and others led the peasant army to continue to fight southward.

Later, he united with the Southern Ming Dynasty and moved to fight in the vast areas of the southwestern provinces, jointly resisting the Qing army, and persisted for nearly 20 years until the early years of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty.

Zhang Xianzhong rebelled from Shaanxi, lasted 16 years, moved to Huguang Shu, and was proclaimed emperor in Chengdu. and where they pass, as locusts pass through. Burning, plundering, burning, doing everything,

Every time a city was occupied, it was necessary to plunder the property of all the local officials and bureaucratic landlords and gentry, and to take thousands of gold and silver treasures into their accounts.

After the capital was settled in Chengdu, how much gold and silver treasures did Zhang Xianzhong loot?

According to the conclusion of the research of the Office of the Leading Group for the Compilation and Revision of the History of the Qing Dynasty:

Zhang Xianzhong once held a treasure conference in Chengdu. 8﹏>﹍w-w-w`.· y·a-w'e-n·8-.'c=om proudly flaunts his wealth: 24 rooms are filled with curiosities, gold and silver ingots, and a dazzling array of them.

Some historians roughly estimated that Zhang Xianzhong had at least 10 million taels of silver. According to the purchase power of one tael of silver at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which is equivalent to 300 yuan now,

At that time, he had a fortune equivalent to 3 billion yuan now. If you add other non-gold and silver jewelry. The number of fortunes is certainly much greater. ”

Some historians believe that Zhang Xianzhong's silver may have reached tens of millions of taels. Because Zhang Xianzhong was very conceited after conquering Wuchang at that time, he rewarded his subordinates and the local people who welcomed the army in Kaecheng.

It is said that the reward amounted to 6 million taels! With just one reward being so generous, he actually possessed far more than six million taels of silver.

In just a few years after Zhang Xianzhong's uprising, several royal palaces surnamed Zhu in Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei and Shu in the Ming Dynasty were looted by Zhang Xianzhong, and it is not surprising that he can have huge gold and silver treasures.

In March 2002, the authoritative magazine World Almanac published a list of the world's treasures, including more than a dozen unsolved mysteries such as Napoleon's Moscow treasure and the gold treasure of the Inca Empire.

Among them, China's treasure ** occupies five seats, namely the treasure of the tomb of the Xixia king, the treasure of the king of Loulan, the treasure of the Dashun Emperor Li Zicheng, the treasure of the Daxi Emperor Zhang Xianzhong and the treasure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wing king Shi Dakai.

The treasure that has the most hidden treasures, the largest number of people to find, and the largest cost of human financial resources is the treasure of Zhang Xianzhong, the emperor of the Great West.

According to the World Almanac, this wealth is the third most valuable in the world and the first in Asia.

So, after the fall of Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi regime, where did these mountains of gold and silver go?

In September of the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1646), in the face of the threat and encirclement of many hostile forces, Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to evacuate Chengdu.

According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty", Zhang Xianzhong "used the method to move the Jinjiang River, solid and que, several zhang deep, buried hundreds of millions of gold treasures, and then broke the embankment and released it, the name of the water reservoir, said: There is nothing for future generations."

According to the history of the Ming Dynasty, when Zhang Xianzhong evacuated Chengdu, a large amount of gold and silver treasures could not be taken away.

It can only be buried in the waterway wharf of Chengdu (it is also said that billions of treasures will be thrown into the Jinjiang River and released along the river), and it is planned to be taken away when he returns to Chengdu in the future.

It is said that Zhang Xianzhong specially left a secret number in order to find these buried treasures in the future-it is also a famous ballad of the treasure land:

Stone ox to stone drum, gold and silver ten thousand five. Someone recognized it and bought all the Chengdu Mansion.

However, according to the "Pengshan _ County Chronicle": in the third year of Shunzhi, the Ming staff general Yang Zhan and Zhang Xianzhong fought a decisive battle in Jiangkou Town, and Zhang's warship was burned, sinking more than half, and suffering heavy casualties.

When Zhang Xianzhong evacuated Chengdu, because the dry road had been blocked by the Qing army, he had to change the route to Shu. According to "Shu Bi":

(Zhang) Xian Zhongwen (Yang) Zhan's troops were very strong, fearful, led tens of thousands of troops, loaded thousands of gold treasures, went down the river to the east, and fought a decisive battle with Zhan,

Zhang Xianzhong's fleet full of gold and silver treasures reached several thousand, and when he set off from Chengdu and traveled along the Jinjiang River to the mouth of the Pengshan County, he was ambushed by Yang Zhan's troops and almost completely wiped out.

And the more than 1,000 wooden boats loaded with gold and silver treasures sank in the waters of the mouth of the Pengshan County.

Therefore, according to historical records, there are two whereabouts of Zhang Xianzhong's treasures:

One is that before Zhang Xianzhong withdrew from Chengdu, he buried all the gold and silver treasures at the bottom of the Jinjiang River, or threw them into the river, unwilling to let others take possession of them.

Second: Zhang Xianzhong loaded all the gold and silver treasures into more than 1,000 wooden boats, and set off from the waterway, but encountered Yang Zhan's ambush, and the treasures sank into the waters of the Pengshan River estuary with the wooden boats.

From the end of the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, from the Republic of China to today, for more than 360 years,

In order to find the mystery of Zhang Xianzhong's whereabouts of the gold and silver seas, people from all walks of life in the world followed the opportunity and moved in groups.

According to legend, Zhang Xianzhong scavenged the gold and silver treasures in a place near Chengdu, using stone oxen and stone drums as secret marks.

In order to obtain this treasure, the remnants of the Ming Dynasty, the bureaucratic landlord army, local warlords, the peasant rebels, the Qing Dynasty, foreign missionaries, Yuan Shikai, Admiral Melles of the United States during World War II,

Chiang Kai/Shi and the Japanese invaders, including the three sects and the nine sects of the three sects in the rivers and lakes, all mobilized the people, and did not hesitate to spend a lot of manpower and financial resources to come to hunt for treasures, but none of them were found, and they returned disappointed.

"But there are also later generations who deduce that these treasures of Zhang Xianzhong are not unobtainable according to historical data." Speaking of this, Yang Kun paused,

"And real history is better than what is written in the history books! Perhaps, no one knows that our descendants of the Yang family are really people who have an indissoluble bond with Zhang Xianzhong's treasure. (To be continued.) )