"The world at that time was really chaotic..."

After hearing Fang Yi talk about this past, Yu Xuan was speechless for a moment. As the royal garden at that time, not only was it robbed by the Eight-Nation Alliance, but there were still people taking advantage of the situation to rob it. It can be seen that the capital at that time was basically in anarchy.

"Brother, don't worry about the chaos or not, let's take a look at the cultural relics brought back by Fang Yi first!"

When Sun Lianda spoke, his face was full of anticipation. Although he was an expert in the restoration and appraisal of cultural relics, he had participated in the restoration of cultural relics in the Forbidden City many times, and the cultural relics he had seen with his own hands and with his own eyes could be said to be tens of thousands of cultural relics lost in the Old Summer Palace, Sun Lianda did not see much of them.

When it comes to the lost cultural relics in the Old Summer Palace, we have to first talk about the origin of the Old Summer Palace.

The Old Summer Palace was built in the 48th year of Kangxi. It was originally a gift garden for Emperor Kangxi to the fourth son of the emperor Yinzhen. After Yongzheng ascended the throne in 1722, it expanded the original gift garden and added the Zhengda Guangming Hall, the Qinzheng Hall, as well as the cabinet, six ministries, and the military offices to "avoid the noise and listen to the government" in the south of the garden.

During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, in addition to partially rebuilding and renovating the Old Summer Palace, Changchun Garden was also built on the east side and merged into the Wanchun Garden in the southeast. The pattern of the three Yuanming Gardens was basically formed. During the Jiaqing Dynasty, Qichun Garden was repaired and expanded, making it one of the main gardens and residences.

Under the more than 150 years of founding and management of the Qing emperor, the Old Summer Palace is well-known for its grand regional scale, outstanding construction skills, exquisite architectural landscapes, rich cultural collections and profound national cultural connotations. It is called "a model of all gardening arts", and the French writer Victor Hugo is praised as "a model of ideals and art."

In addition to the garden buildings that shocked the world, the Old Summer Palace is also a treasure museum. It was the largest royal museum in the world at that time. It was the world's largest art museum and art museum. It contains many treasures, books and artistic masterpieces. It contains famous calligraphy and paintings, secret palace classics, bells, tripods, treasures, gold, silver and jewelry and other rare cultural relics, which gather the essence of ancient culture.

However, how many cultural relics have been collected in the Old Summer Palace, it is always a mystery. Whether it is the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace or other cultural relics buildings, there will be related furnishings archives that specifically record the cultural relics owned in the buildings. This is commonly known as the cultural relics catalog.

Only the Old Summer Palace lacks furnishing archives, because every generation of Qing emperors would put a large number of treasures into the Old Summer Palace. There is no clear record of the total number of cultural relics collected in the Old Summer Palace. To this day, it has become extremely difficult to find out how many cultural relics have been lost abroad.

However, there were British and French officers, pastors, and reporters who had participated in or witnessed the looting scene: In order to seize treasures, officers and soldiers, British and French rushed into the Old Summer Palace from all directions, indulging in will, taking them and robbing them, and they were in a hurry and in a mess.

In order to seize treasures, they beat each other and even had armed fights. Because there were too many treasures in the garden, they didn't know what to do for a moment. Some moved away cloisonne porcelain bottles, some were greedy for embroidered robes, some chose high-end leather coats, some went to get wall clocks inlaid with pearls and jade, and some carried large pockets filled with various treasures.

Some put gold bars and gold leaves into their wide pockets; some were wrapped in brocade satin half of their bodies; some hats were filled with jewelry such as red sapphire, pearls and crystal stones, some had jade collars around their necks, and one wing room was filled with high-end silk, which was said to be enough for half of the residents of Beijing, and were transported away by soldiers in large chariots.

- A British officer plundered a golden Buddha statue from a temple with 500 statues of gods. A French officer robbed property worth 600,000 francs. The son of the commander-in-chief of the French army, Montopia, had a treasure worth 300,000 francs, and was filled with several carriages.

A second-class British army leader named Helith stole two golden pagodas and a large number of other treasures from the garden at one time, and found seven strong men to carry them back to the military camp for him.

In addition to plundering, the invaders had countless things that were trampled by them. Several houses were filled with silk clothing, and their clothes were dragged out of the boxes and threw them all over the floor. People walked into the house, almost covering their knees.

The engineers, with big axes, smashed all the furniture, took off the gems on them, some people smashed the large mirrors, and others shot fiercely at the candelabra to make fun of it. Most of the French soldiers swung wooden sticks in their hands and smashed all the things they could not take away.

The great French writer Hugo once said: "Even if all the treasures of all the museums in our country are added together, they cannot be compared with this large and magnificent Oriental Museum."

As far as Sun Lianda knows, the Chinese artworks sold at foreign auctions in recent years are basically all cultural relics lost in the Old Summer Palace, and all of them are fine products. This makes many people in China feel heartbroken, but they are helpless.

"Teacher, let's look at calligraphy and paintings first..." Fang Yi took out a few flat boxes from the balcony and said, "Myanmar is rainy and wet, and the calligraphy and paintings on my elder brother are not well preserved. Teacher, can you repair them?"

There are more than ten calligraphy and paintings in this batch of antiques, but Fang Yi has not seen them before. However, according to Peng Hao, there are many works like the works of Yan Liben, Dong Qichang and the Qing Dynasty court painter Lang Shining, so Fang Yi also wanted to take a look at this time.

"Quick, open it!" Hearing Fang Yi's words, Sun Lianda couldn't help but look anxious on his face, and he hurriedly urged: "The most difficult ancient paintings to preserve, don't waste these paintings by them!"

Although Sun Lianda didn't know which calligraphy and paintings were, how could the objects hidden in the Old Summer Palace be bad? Thinking that these precious calligraphy and paintings were likely to be destroyed, Sun Lianda wanted to open the box in front of him.

"Teacher, please take a look at this picture first..." Fang Yi's hand moved quickly. In a few minutes, he took out a scroll wrapped in oil paper and placed it carefully flat on the table.

"How did this... keep it? It's so damn. How did such a precious painting become like this?"

Before he could spread the painting, Sun Lianda shouted with pain because he saw that there was no shaft at the top of the yellowed scroll, and there were traces of insects and water stains on the edges, and even a decay smell at the end of his nose.

"Teacher, it's a blessing that these paintings can be preserved..."

Seeing Sun Lianda's angry look, Fang Yi said the truth. No one in the Peng family took these things seriously, including the deceased Mr. Peng. Even in the most declining time, he didn't know that these antiques were valuable, especially these calligraphy and paintings, which would be great if they didn't burn them as firewood.

"Oh, these are all treasures left by our predecessors!" Sun Lianda shook his head and said, "Find a glove and a larger tablecloth, and spread the table..."

Before, Sun Lianda took the lead in looking at the porcelain bottle weapons and the golden Buddha, but his calligraphy and paintings were different. The old scrolls will accelerate the corrosion of their hands after they are exposed to the air after they are exposed to the sweat on their hands.

"Teacher, can this tablecloth be used with bed sheets after gloves?"

When Sanpao lived in Fang Yi, he bought a lot of white gloves to pick up beads, but Fang Yi didn’t have a soft tablecloth, so he could only pull off the bed and take it into the living room.

"Okay, put it on, stand far away, don't spray the spit on the painting..."

Sun Lianda nodded, first put on gloves and explained to everyone, then carefully picked up the scroll, asked Fang Yi to lay a layer of bed sheets below, and finally put the calligraphy and paintings flat, spreading the scroll bit by bit.

"It's a figure painting..."

Standing four or five meters away, Zhao Hongtao first saw a character appearing on the picture. This was an old man, thin and vigorous, wearing a navy blue robe, a red tassel hat on his head, raised his chin slightly, and stood in front of a rockery with his hands behind his back.

Although the paper is old and dim, the old man's expression and body shape are outlined vividly, especially the old man's chin raised, and a momentum that looked down on the world suddenly appeared on the scroll. Although there was only the old man in green in the whole painting, it made people feel that the world was under his sanctum.

"This...is Yongzheng's "Picture of Joy"?"

When Sun Lianda saw the old man on the picture with his eyes, his face looked like he had seen a ghost, and he couldn't help but shout out, "This... this is impossible. Why is there another one in addition to those "Pictures of Joy"?"

Sun Lianda had a deep study of the history of the Three Qing Dynasties. He knew that among the three emperors, Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, although Kangxi and Qianlong could do their best when they first ascended the throne, they were a little happy with merits in the later period. Qianlong shamelessly named himself as the old man, and only almost gave the title of the emperor of the ages to himself.

Compared with his father and son, Emperor Yongzheng was undoubtedly the most diligent among the Qing emperors. After he ascended the throne, he first solved many of the stubborn diseases left by Kangxi, and after his death, he left his son with a full treasury, which led to the so-called Kangxi-Qianqian prosperous era.

Although the Qing Dynasty craftsmanship also developed greatly in Yongzheng's hands, Yongzheng himself did not like to leave a large number of self-portraits wearing dragon robes like his father and son. He had many portraits of himself wearing plain clothes in the mountains and forests, and whether it was content or service, they were richer and more colorful than the other two.

However, as far as Sun Lianda knows, most of the portraits of Emperor Yongzheng are found in the Forbidden City, and only one is located in the Oriental Art Museum in Paris. Therefore, after seeing this picture of Yongzheng's casual entertainment, Sun Lianda was so shocked.

"Brother, do you have any logo on it?"

Yu Xuan also came over. When he saw the face of the figure in the painting, he couldn't help but nodded and said, "It's indeed Yongzheng. This surreal style of painting can only be seen in the portrait of Yongzheng among the emperors, and even Qianlong cannot compare to..."

"Not having any clues, it's an anonymous painting!"

After carefully searching the scroll, Sun Lianda said, "The Yongzheng's traveling music picture is not known by the painter. This painting must be one of the Yongzheng's traveling music picture series, which is of far-reaching significance and far-reaching significance!"
Chapter completed!