What was taken out turned out to be a map of St. Helena Island, with the escape route marked on it.

Napoleon Chess

In June 1815, the all-powerful French Emperor Napoleon I was forced to abdicate due to the disastrous defeat at Waterloo. In order to prevent his comeback, the countries of the victorious anti-French alliance exiled him. to the remote and desolate island of St. Helena.

Saint Helena is a volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, sparsely populated, depressed and desolate. Napoleon's activities were restricted to 12 kilometers around Longwood Villa on the island, and he became a lifelong prisoner. Facing the vast sea, he often wanted to escape from the island, but he knew nothing about the topography of the island.

Once, one of his loyal subordinates went to see him. Because there are always people staring at them, they just reminisce and talk about old times.

When they broke up, the subordinate took a chess set made of ivory and nephrite and said to Napoleon: "I will give this to you, maybe you can use it."

Napoleon liked this chess set very much. From then on, he often played with chess pieces alone and studied chess records to spend the rest of his lonely life. The chess was smoothed, and five years later, Napoleon's life came to an end.

After Napoleon's death, some of the things he had used during his lifetime were auctioned. The chess set was bought and sold several times at a high price, and was finally collected by the French National Museum.

While cleaning the chess pieces, the staff discovered that the bottom of the black king chess piece could be unscrewed. After they opened it, they were surprised to find a detailed map of how to escape from the island.

It is extremely regrettable that Napoleon failed to discover this secret, and his friend's good intentions were in vain. He just regarded this chess piece as a chess set, thinking only of entertainment, but never thought of the chess pieces. The secret inside.

It is easy to break a thief in the mountains, but it is difficult to break a thief in the heart." The words of Wang Yangming of the Ming Dynasty may be able to summarize the reasons for Napoleon's failure. In the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon was defeated by the Duke of Wellington; this time, he was defeated Gave to myself, lost to my own mindset

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The Death of Napoleon

Napoleon, a true overlord, his name was. It resounded throughout the European continent and made the monarchs of various countries famous and frightened. Perhaps in the eyes of others, he was a great emperor, but in the hearts of the French people, the victorious general was just a fairy tale. After Napoleon's defeat, he became a legend. He was imprisoned and died mysteriously on a small island.

How did he die? There are two theories commonly circulated in later generations:

First, he died of poisoning

Napoleon particularly loved sleeping in the latter part of his life, because sleep can relax people, but he often suffered from insomnia. This paradoxical situation troubled Napoleon. Not only that, his lower limbs became inexplicably swollen, and his body became more and more obese. The gums were also exposed.

At that time, no one knew what was going on, and there were many rumors. Some even said that it was because of the curse of those who died, because Napoleon had too many blood debts. , but this is nonsense after all.

Later, Napoleon's hair was studied and it was found that the arsenic content was more than ten times higher than the normal value. At this time, people initially suspected that poisoning caused Napoleon's death. Death.

In 1840, after discussions between Britain and France, Napoleon's body finally returned to his hometown. After it was transported back to France, the staff opened the coffin lid and found that the body had not decomposed. What happened? ?

Later, with the advancement of medicine, researchers determined after a long period of research that Napoleon did die of poisoning.

Secondly, Napoleon died of disease

An American doctor named Robert once said that Napoleon had a serious problem with male hormones, which caused major problems in gonadal function and eventually died of hormone imbalance.