Next to the Royal Ordnance Museum in Leeds? The first of a hundred soldiers? Is it a gun? Yongle sword? According to the museum, this sword was acquired at an auction in 199 1 at a high price of 654.38+ten thousand pounds. It is said that it was stolen from China during the Eight-Nation Alliance period.
In Yongle 1420 and 18, the Forbidden City in Beijing will be completed soon. Cheng Zu of the Ming Dynasty declared Beijing as his capital. In order to stabilize the rear, he sent eunuchs to the western regions. At that time, the land in East India was invaded by Nunapur in the west, and Ming Chengzu also gave gold coins for adjustment.
Seeing that there was a war in the western regions, in order to consolidate the border relations, Ming Chengzu built a sword, and the animals carved by the sword were buddhas and beasts? Joan? The lion, in Tibetan culture, Joan? He is a fierce demon who has mastered the snow-capped mountains. Although he is a fierce demon, he is also the guardian of the snowy plateau.
Yongle sword is 90 cm long and weighs 1.3 kg. There is a ridge in the middle of the body to increase the strength of the sword, and the scabbard is also equipped with embossed patterns, which fully embodies the sword casting technology of China at that time. However, after several generations, Yongle sword has long been scattered among the people.
Since modern times, western powers have coveted China's treasures and markets and launched attacks under various pretexts. /kloc-in the spring of 0/900, the Boxer Rebellion became the fuse of Eight-Nation Alliance War, and Cixi even issued an imperial edict to declare war on other countries. Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Austria-Hungary, Italy? Protect the embassy? Go to Beijing as a soldier.
These eight countries have different purposes. Russia covets the northeast, and the United States wants to open up the market. But wherever the allies went, they kept burning, killing and looting, even the famous American writer Mark? Twain wrote an article revealing that in Qiu County, Hebei Province, Mei Zi Mingyi, an American Christian missionary? Measure for measure? Killed 680 innocent farmers in China for slogans.
And the Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens? Yuanmingyuan? After the British and French allied forces, they were plundered again and eventually became ruins. Even Hugo, a French writer, wrote an article criticizing these two looting, which is not only the destruction of Yuanmingyuan, but also the testimony of western barbarism.
In these two looting, it is roughly estimated that 6.5438+0.5 million cultural relics were lost, and Yongle Sword is only one of them. Since the founding of New China, China has attached great importance to the protection of cultural relics, and has been committed to recovering overseas cultural relics. However, the western countries have also offered sky-high prices, which makes our country far behind.
Yongle sword in Ming Dynasty was sold at a high price of 654.38 billion yuan. In fact, this is not a question of price, but that Britain has never intended to return these cultural relics. In the British Museum, more than 20,000 pieces of China cultural relics have been collected, and the China Pavilion, Dunhuang murals and countless Yuanmingyuan cultural relics have also been opened.