In 1962, ** hosted a special guest at Zhongnanhai. He is the Emperor of Xuantong - Pu Yi.
In order to alleviate Pu Yi's tension when he came to the political center of New China and make this banquet go on happily, ** specially invited some old acquaintances of Pu Yi when he was young, Zhang Shizhao and Cheng Qian, to accompany the guests.
As *** wished, the banquet went very smoothly, but a problem in the middle of the banquet made everyone nervous.
Do you remember that the jade seal of the country is in **? As soon as this sentence came out, the whole audience couldn't help but shift their attention to Pu Yi.
Faced with such a sensitive issue, Pu Yi couldn't help but start to panic. He replied tremblingly. However, this simple sentence made everyone unbelievable.
So, in the face of this question, what did Pu Yi answer, and why were these people so shocked? And why did *** ask this sentence?
Compared with the current "X son" and "X second generation", Pu Yi is truly from an extraordinary background.
Before ascending the throne as the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, Pu Yi was the son of Zaifeng, the reformist regent at the time, and inherited the bloodline of the Daoguang Emperor.
The identity of a prince is already very unique, not to mention that Cixi brought Pu Yi to the palace to personally raise him when Emperor Guangxu was seriously ill, and also succeeded him to the name of Emperor Tongzhi, inheriting the throne of the two brothers Tongzhi and Guangxu.
It can be said that when he was still a drooping child, Pu Yi had already reached the peak of his life. In 1908, Pu Yi, who was only three years old, officially ascended the throne and set the era name Xuantong. And the last piece of jade seal of the Chinese feudal dynasty was also delivered to this still ignorant young child at this time.
In the eyes of a three-year-old child, the jade seal, which can't be allowed to fall and play as a toy, is not as good as the common dog tail grass on the roadside. The symbolism attached to the jade seal is even more ethereal.
However, Pu Yi's happy life as emperor only lasted more than three years.
In February 1912, the Xinhai Revolution succeeded, and the ideological trend of freedom and democracy was like a raging tide, shattering the crumbling rule of the Qing Dynasty. Under the persecution of Yuan Shikai, the Empress Dowager Longyu, who listened to the government, held the jade seal for Puyi, and printed the words "ordered by heaven" on the abdication edict, and the rule of the Qing Dynasty collapsed, and China's 2,000-year-long feudal rule came to an end.
However, after Pu Yi's abdication, this jade seal, which once symbolized imperial power, remained in the hands of him, the "former emperor", for a period of time.
It was not until Feng Yuxiang's coup d'état that Pu Yi was ordered to leave the palace. At this time, Pu Yi already had some understanding of the meaning of the jade seal, but as a former emperor who was about to be driven out of the palace, he really didn't dare to take away this jade seal that had actually lost the aura of imperial power and was no different from an ordinary stone, and this jade seal was left in the Forbidden City.
In fact, since the Han Dynasty, the emperor has a lot of seals that can be called jade seals, from the "six seals" in the Han Dynasty, to the "eight seals" after the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and more than ten or twenty seals after the Song Dynasty. It's just that the significance is extraordinary, and there is only one dynasty that can be called a jade seal.
The Qing emperor had a full twenty-five jade seals symbolizing imperial power, which were made of different materials and served a variety of purposes in different situations. Among the 25 jade seals, only one can be called the heirloom jade seal, and the other 24 are just newly carved seals after the Qing Dynasty invaded the Central Plains to facilitate the rule.
However, even this jade seal with national significance has doubts that are difficult to dispel.
The first appearance of this jade seal was during Dorgon's conquest of Chahar.
Qing history records that during the expedition against Chahar Lindan Khan, Dorgon obtained a seal engraved with the "Treasure of the Edict" from his widow. After getting the jade seal, Dolgon naturally wanted to dedicate it to Huang Taiji.
And Huang Taiji was even more overjoyed when he saw this jade seal, after all, a jade seal handed down from the previous dynasty played an important role in the Qing **, which had not yet established its ruling authority.
After all, at this time, the Qing Dynasty still claimed to be Jin, and had not yet entered the Central Plains, and needed a jade seal inherited from the previous dynasty as a symbol of the legitimacy of their competition for imperial power.
This jade seal was recognized by the Huang Taiji and the courtiers of the Jin Dynasty as the seal of the Heshi Bi handed down from the Qin Dynasty
If you look at the Lord who has been ordained since ancient times, there will be a sign of ordination. In the past, when the king of Wen was in the palace, the phoenix was around the palace, and now the sweat got the treasure seal, and the two trillion were slightly the same. This treasure is really unusual, it is passed down successively in the Han Dynasty, so far more than 2,000 years, others can't, but sweat gets it. ”
They regarded the jade seal as a symbol of the Qing Dynasty's succession to the Chinese throne.
This piece of jade seal from the hands of Huang Taiji, has been passed to Puyi, the last emperor of the dynasty, because of the change of orthodoxy in the Qing Dynasty, but also in the mouth of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty from the Qin seal to the Yuan seal and then back to the Qin seal changed back and forth several times, and its symbolic meaning has not changed.
However, when the feudal dynasty has come to an end, the heirloom jade seal has lost its former value, and has become an ordinary cultural relic.
After Pu Yi was used by the Japanese and ascended the throne again to establish the puppet Manchukuo in the Northeast, he remembered the heirloom jade seal that had been left in the Forbidden City.
However, the Japanese, who regarded Pu Yi as a puppet to rule China, did not pay attention to Pu Yi's request to retrieve the jade seal, and only asked Feng Yuxiang about the whereabouts of the jade seal, and after Feng Yuxiang replied that he had never seen the jade seal, he did not act again.
Here in Puyi, the heirloom jade seal has lost its trace since then. However, modern historians also have a lot of conjectures about the whereabouts of the jade seal of the Qing Dynasty when they are archaeological and historical revision.
Experts speculate that the reason why the jade seal of the country disappeared from the Forbidden City may have been stolen out of the palace and sold by the palace maids and eunuchs who did not know the situation.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty had fallen, but there were still a large number of palace maids and eunuchs living in the Forbidden City. These servants, who had never dared to exceed the rules, began to steal items from the palace and sell them out of the palace when the Qing Dynasty was crumbling, and after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, it became even more intensified, almost emptying the entire palace.
In this case, there is some truth in the experts' speculation that the jade seal was stolen and sold.
Moreover, in recent years, some people have said that on the eve of the founding of New China, this jade seal also appeared on the "Wanli" steamship. A big businessman bought the seal of what was suspected to be a jade seal of the country and took it with him on the steamship "Wanli".
It's just that the fate is to let the last symbol of feudal imperial power disappear from the world, the "Wanli" unfortunately suffered a shipwreck, and the PLA soldiers in charge of the rescue at that time were committed to rescuing the passengers who were dying, and had no energy to find the jade seal on the ship, so that the jade seal on the ship did not know the truth and finally sank into the Bohai Bay with the ship.
In 1962, after being convicted of World War II war crimes, Pu Yi was imprisoned in the Fushun War Criminals Management Center.
It was in this place that he received a real communist education and realized the sins he had committed in the first half of his life. Thanks to his efforts, Pu Yi was released from prison in December 1959 under amnesty and released early.
After his release, Pu Yi worked in the Beijing Botanical Garden, a position in which he worked hard and wrote an autobiography in which he made a profound review of the sins of the first half of his life. ** Hearing about his positive performance, I can't help but recognize that he has become a qualified Chinese citizen under the educational transformation of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China.
In order to meet the former emperor, who is now a citizen of China, ** prepared to feast Pu Yi in Zhongnanhai. Pu Yi was even more flattered after receiving the invitation, and made a lot of preparations before going to this banquet.
If you want to talk about big shots, Pu Yi has also seen a lot. But as soon as he entered the Yi Nian Hall, he was still moved by ***'s tolerance and kindness.
**As soon as he saw Pu Yi, he got up and invited him to sit next to his place, and also humorously introduced Pu Yi's identity to Zhang Shizhao, who accompanied the guests.
At the banquet, ** greeted Pu Yi's current situation cordially, and warmly invited him to try his favorite Hunan cuisine. Unconsciously, at the banquet, there was a talk about Pu Yi when he was still the emperor, Pu Yi couldn't help but start nervous, stood up and began to apologize.
**In order to divert the topic and let Pu Yi relax, he took the initiative to ask a question: "After the Xinhai Revolution, the jade seal has never appeared again, I have always been curious, did you put the jade seal of the Qing Dynasty?" ”
It was indeed an interesting topic, and everyone's attention at the table was drawn to it. It's just that Pu Yi replied with a sentence that everyone expected: "Actually, I don't know where it is." And told about the loss of his jade seal.
**After listening to Pu Yi, I didn't regret the loss of the jade seal at all. He said to the people who were lamented by the disappearance of the jade seal, "This jade seal has always been said to be a symbol of China's feudal imperial power, and now that we have ended feudal rule, the disappearance of the jade seal does not mean that feudal rule can never come back." That's a good thing. ”
After speaking, ** also humorously said that he had never seen the jade seal, which was the only regret.
This banquet brought a deep impression to Pu Yi, and until his later years, he still remembered ***'s care and tolerance for him, as well as the kind words that persuaded him to live a good life. Until his death, Pu Yi said that as a citizen of China, he lived the best life of his life.