History can't bear to look at the complete collection

Chapter 65
Huge treasure of peasant leader unaccounted for

There have been countless peasant uprisings in Chinese history, but few of them succeeded in the end.Behind some failed peasant uprisings, the huge amount of wealth they collected actually died along with their failures. What a gimmick, they don't have so much money at all?

Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the Peasant Army in the late Ming Dynasty, established the Daxi regime in Shu.According to legend, before Zhang Xianzhong was forced to withdraw from Chengdu in July 1646, he dug a large pit in the lower reaches of the Jinjiang River, buried countless treasures in the pit, and then released water to bury it.

This matter was mentioned in the notebooks and unofficial histories of the Qing Dynasty. There is also a folk song circulating in Chengdu that "Stone cattle and stone drums are worth ten thousand and five yuan. Some people can see through them and buy up all the Chengdu houses."In the late Qing Dynasty, someone set up the "Jinjiang Gold Rush Company", and it really dug up a big stone cow and a big stone drum!But in the end the workers only dug out three large baskets of small copper coins.

In Jiangkou Town, Pengshan, the lower reaches of the Jinjiang River, there is also a folk song: "Stone dragon and stone tiger, gold and silver are ten thousand and five. Whoever knows it will buy Chengdu Mansion." In Shilonggou of Jiangkou Town, Shilong and Shihu face each other far away, where will the gold and silver be million and five?
According to "Pengshan County Chronicles", in the third year of Shunzhi, when Zhang Xianzhong withdrew from Chengdu, because the dry road had been blocked by the Qing army, he had to change his way out of Sichuan by water.When Zhang Xianzhong traveled along the Jinjiang River to the Jiangkou territory of Pengshan County, he was ambushed by the troops of Yang Zhan, the general of the Ming Dynasty. Almost his entire army was destroyed, and many wooden boats full of gold and silver also sank.

According to Yang Hongji's "Records of the Difficulties in Shu", when Zhang Xianzhong's troops came out of Sichuan by water, there was too much silver in the wooden boat, so Zhang Xianzhong ordered the craftsmen to make a lot of wooden troughs, put silver ingots in them, and let it float down.It was originally planned to salvage them ashore in the narrow area of ​​the river near Wushan in the lower reaches of Chongqing, but they encountered resistance in Jiangkou Town, and a large amount of gold and silver sank here.The records say that the silver is "accumulated by hundreds of millions and filled with hundreds of ships".

The Qing government organized a large-scale salvage operation, and some heavy silver was found, but most of the silver was missing. In April 2005, some silver ingots were unearthed at the construction site of the Laohutan riverbed water diversion project near the Minjiang Bridge in Jiangkou Town. From the inscriptions in the silver ingots, it can be seen that they came from Hunan and Hubei regions. They were tax banks in the Chongzhen period and fought with Zhang Xianzhong and the location it occupies are very consistent, thus confirming that Zhang Xianzhong's theory of Shen Yin here is in line with historical facts.However, the great wealth mentioned in the ballad has not yet fully surfaced.

For hundreds of years, although many people have coveted this huge wealth, they have worked to no avail.It seems that this wealth is still a mystery.

Not only did Zhang Xianzhong's wealth disappear, Hong Xiuquan's wealth also disappeared, making future generations puzzled.The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom worked hard in Nanjing for ten years, and searched for a lot of people's fat and people's cream. There has always been a legend among the people that Hong Xiuquan hid treasures.At that time, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ordered that all public and private property must be centralized in the "holy treasury" (that is, the national treasury), and people who had more than one tael of gold or five taels of silver would be executed.Why did this huge treasure suddenly disappear?

In July 1864, after the Hunan army invaded Nanjing, they wantonly looted the whole city for three days.The Hunan army dug cellars everywhere, and Zeng Guofan even issued an order that "anyone who discovers the gold in the cellars of thieves will be reported to the officials and confiscated, and those who violate it will be punished."

It is said that Zeng Guoquan, Zeng Guofan's younger brother, was very excited after catching Li Xiucheng. Gold drop.Soon, Zeng Guofan rushed from Anqing to Nanjing, and repeatedly used both soft and hard tactics to ask where the gold was stored.Later, the Qing emperor also sent Seng Gelinqin and Duolong A to Nanjing to supervise, but Li Xiucheng never disclosed the whereabouts of the treasure.This matter has divergent opinions and has become a suspicious case.

After the Hunan army entered the city, there was another saying that Zeng Guoquan got the gold in the cellar.Its troops were the first to enter the Heavenly King's Mansion. It is said that they dug up Hong Xiuquan's hidden gold and pocketed it privately.In the end, in order to destroy the evidence, a fire burned down the palace of the Celestial Dynasty.Some people believe that after Tianjing was breached, more than 1000 soldiers followed Li Xiucheng to protect the young king Hong Tianguifu and escaped, and the treasure was taken away.

According to folklore, at that time in Nanjing, there was a merchant named Jiang who relied on donkeys to smuggle goods, nicknamed "Jiang Donkey".Once, when transporting military rations, he was favored by the loyal king Li Xiucheng.Tianjing was besieged, and the imperial concubines and nobles gathered thousands of boxes of gold and silver and entrusted him to bury them. As a result, the Chiang family became a modern rich man.

Zeng Guofan once reported to the emperor that no hidden gold had been found.However, the "Shanghai New News" on May 1866, 5 stated that "Mrs. Kung Pao Zeng Zhongtang returned home from Jinling in early March and escorted a ship of about 19." Including the treasures of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

After the Revolution of [-], there were still warlords who wanted to mine the gold from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but it was all in vain.The whereabouts of this jewel and whether there is such a treasure are still a mystery.

(End of this chapter)