Cixi's grand funeral, ten thousand people knelt down!

Hello everyone, welcome to History and Culture. When it comes to the tombs and funerals of various kings and nobles throughout human history, they are truly diverse and unique. From the terracotta warriors and horses guarding Qin Shi Huang's tomb in China to the pyramids of the pharaohs in Egypt, the gold and silver treasures left in these tombs all reflect the noble status of the rulers. In the late Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi, the actual ruler, not only had a luxurious tomb and extravagant burial items, but also had a funeral procession more grand than that of other emperors. In fact, after the completion of Emperor Xianfeng's tomb in 1866, the location for Cixi's burial was already determined. According to Qing Dynasty law, Cixi's tomb could only be located near Emperor Xianfeng's tomb, and only one tomb could be built. As is well known, Empress Dowager Xian was Emperor Xianfeng's designated queen, but with no children of her own, the throne had to be passed to Cixi's son, Xitian, making Cixi the Empress Dowager. In theory, in such a situation, Empress Dowager Cixi and Empress Dowager Xian could only be buried in the same tomb. However, Cixi angrily criticized the officials who were building the tomb. After some deliberation, the officials proposed to build the tombs based on the style of the double concubine's garden mausoleum, but this only further angered Cixi. She said, which tomb buries two Empress Dowagers? Even concubines have their own mausoleums. As a noble Empress Dowager, I must build a separate tomb. So Cixi proposed to build two independent Empress Dowager tombs, breaking the tomb system and destroying ancestral rules, which made the officials who were building the tomb angry but afraid to speak up. During the Qingming Festival of 1873, after paying respects to Emperor Xianfeng and all the ancestors with her son, Xitian, Cixi went to the nearby mountains to see the feng shui and then designated two separate mountains as her and Empress Dowager Xian's burial sites and began construction. The reconstruction of the tomb took six years and cost more than five million tales of silver. In ancient dynasties, there were strict tomb regulations for how tombs should be constructed. According to these regulations, the specifications of Cixi's tomb and Empress Dowager Xian's tomb should have been identical. However, after Empress Dowager Xian's death, Cixi disregarded the tomb regulations and continuously provided funding to expand her tomb. By 1899, the new expenditures had already exceeded 1.5 million tales of silver, and it is unknown how much silver was spent until the tomb was completely finished in 1908. What is known is that the scale materials used in the tomb were so luxurious that it even surpassed that of the Forbidden City. According to records, the highest-level hall in the Forbidden City, the Hall of Supreme Harmony, only had six stone pillars covered in gold leaf, while the tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi had 64 bronze pillars gilded with gold, with all sorts of semi-three-dimensional carved dragons spiraling up the pillars. The gold leaf used just for the three halls amounted to 4,592 tales, which was incredibly luxurious. After the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900, the Qing dynasty was in ruins, and the first thing Empress Dowager Cixi did upon returning to Beijing was to personally inspect the construction of her tomb and urge for its quick completion. Perhaps Cixi already knew her end was near, or perhaps Heaven deemed her too extravagant, as she passed away not long after the tomb was completed. But this grandiose and lavish road was only just beginning. According to the Times, the spectacle of Cixi's funeral procession was only rivaled by that of Wu Zetian in history, with 120 people just carrying the coffin. Including the royal nobles who escorted her, foreign envoys and journalists, soldiers and generals who followed, the entire funeral procession totalled more than 7,000 people. These 7,000 people travelled from the Forbidden City to the Qing East Tomb in Zunhua, Hebei, and along the way, tens of thousands of people had to kneel and bow in respect, taking five days to reach the tomb. In addition to gold and silver and over 10,000 real people, there were also plenty of paper money, belongings, cars, soldiers, horses, eunuchs, and maids made of paper. Before Cixi's funeral, all these things were burned, which meant they were waiting for her over there, and she could be welcomed directly when she arrived. Because these paper objects were so lifelike, and the yellow smoke from the burning was so thick, the people far away really thought they had seen soldiers from the underworld. Furthermore, Cixi's coffin was the most luxurious in the world, both inside and out. Before her death, she sent Li Lianying to find the best gold-threaded nanmal wood, and then had the city's best carpenter spend three months carefully making the coffin. Once the coffin was roughly made, she asked the palace officials to engrave scripture inside the coffin, which needed to be gilded, and to draw gold lines on the outside of the coffin. She also had a pure gold sphere inlaid on the coffin, and only then was the coffin considered complete. Not only was the coffin luxurious, but the clothes she wore were also special. Cixi wore a dragon robe with 12 symbols embroidered on it. Originally, these symbols were the mark of the emperor's status in the Qing dynasty, but Cixi boldly wore them. Cixi was a Buddhist, so her clothing had to reflect that. In addition to the nine dragons and 12 symbols embroidered on her dragon robe, she also had 31 Buddha characters embroidered on it with gold thread. In addition to the dragon robe worn by Empress Dowager Cixi, each of the three garments she wore for her burial was a rare treasure decorated with thousands of pearls, with an estimated value of up to 228,000 tales of silver. Inside the coffin of Empress Dowager Cixi, there were lotus flower pillows, lotus flower shoes, and lotus flower bedding, each lotus flower vividly realistic and symbolizing steps towards the lotus. The materials used were very sophisticated, and according to investigations, the fuel used on these lotus flowers was not the commonly used plant fuel in ancient times, but a chemically synthesized fuel. In addition, a layer of thick pearls was spread on the lotus flower bedding to highlight her aristocratic temperament. After her death, Empress Dowager Cixi was covered with a Tuoluoni scripture blanket, which is a burial item woven with golden Sanskrit scriptures. This blanket is also known as the Passing Away Blanket, as Buddhists believe that if this blanket is placed on the body of the deceased, it can eliminate sin and bring blessings. Compared to ordinary scripture blankets, Empress Dowager Cixi's Tuoluoni scripture blanket was more than four times larger, perhaps because she believed that the larger the blanket, the faster her sins would be eliminated. Li Lianying once said that Empress Dowager Cixi's Tuoluoni scripture blanket was woven with 25,000 characters of scripture and decorated with 820 pearls, with an estimated value of 160,000 tales of silver. In addition to the above items, the real highlight was the dazzling array of accompanying burial objects. According to the records of the Imperial Household Department of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi wore a pearl phoenix crown with the largest pearl the size of a chicken egg, valued at 10 million tales of silver. There were 108 statues of Golden Buddha, Jade Buddha, and Emerald Buddha beside her. The surroundings were scattered with gold, silver, and jewels, with a jade lotus on the left and a jade coral tree on the right. In addition, there were over 700 pieces of jade horses, jade arhats, jade watermelons, and various fruit carvings made of precious stones inside the coffin. Such a large number of treasures and rarities gathering in the tomb would inevitably lead to disaster. Twenty years later, the infamous theft of the Eastern Qing tombs began. Ultimately, the various treasures and rarities in Empress Dowager Cixi's coffin were divided and damaged, and everything she wore, carried, covered, and used was taken away, causing people to sigh and lament. With such extravagance and waste, how could the Qing Dynasty not fall?