General of the Heavens

Chapter 79 A Land of Profound Beauty [Seeking Recommendations]

The concept of Feng Shui has a long history.

There is a saying among the people: first, fate; second, luck; third, feng shui; fourth, accumulating good deeds; fifth, studying. However, these sayings cannot encompass all changes.

Feng shui ranks third, and there is a reason for that. The "Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique" states: "The burial person knows the location, and the withered bones are used as a basis, then the skill of feng shui is complete."

This means that if a person is buried in a prime location after death, they will not only have a fulfilling life, but also bring blessings to their descendants.

Therefore, people in ancient times emphasized elaborate burials, and the wealthier a person was, the more they wanted a grand and lavish funeral.

One aspect of this is the wish of the ancients during their lifetime. They lived a life of abundance and wanted to continue living the same life after death.

Secondly, it is believed to protect the prosperity of future generations. However, while one cannot completely disregard feng shui, one should not believe it entirely either.

For example, emperors of past dynasties, these heroes, although they could be buried in glory, every dynasty eventually came to an end.

This illustrates that feng shui cannot determine everything.

Ning Chen spent a long time finding the main burial chamber. Generally, the entrance to an imperial tomb is sealed with a dragon-severing stone, separating the living and the dead.

Therefore, Ning Chen chose to dig a tunnel vertically downwards from the upper diagonal of the main burial chamber. The imperial tombs of the Qing Dynasty were not as extreme as the tombs of the Jin people in the late Northern Song Dynasty.

Some Jin people even covered the tops of their tombs with glazed tiles and poured in fire dragon oil from the Western Regions, preferring to perish together rather than let tomb raiders gain any profit.

Moreover, Emperor Qianlong never imagined that within a hundred and eighty years, not only would his tomb be robbed, but the Qing Dynasty would also fall...

Ning Chen held a Luoyang shovel, and dirt flew everywhere. In just one hour, he dug a hole six or seven meters long.

Since it only needed to accommodate one person, Ning Chen didn't need to increase the diameter of the tomb passage. Half an hour later, the Luoyang shovel hit a stone.

Imperial mausoleum projects are massive and often take many years to complete. For example, the Yu Mausoleum took nine years to be fully completed.

Therefore, even if Ning Chen dug a hole from above the tomb chamber, he would still encounter a roof made of huge stones. However, compared to the massive Dragon-Slaying Stone, the huge stones on the tomb roof were easier to deal with.

Ning Chen poured the prepared strong acid onto the boulder. The acid corroded and softened the boulder, while continuously releasing a pungent gas. Ning Chen had no choice but to retreat.

The poisonous gas was released for over two hours. Finally, no more pungent gas escaped from the cave, and Ning Chen knew the time had come. It was already past 2 a.m., and in another two hours, the roosters would begin to crow.

There's a rule that you shouldn't touch the treasures until the rooster crows and the lamp goes out, so Ning Chen needs to collect the burial goods in the tomb and open the coffin to retrieve the treasures within two hours.

After being corroded by strong acid, the boulder had softened, and Ning Chen used a Luoyang shovel to quickly create a hole.

"Finally, we can go in!"

Unlike the Pingshan Tomb, Yuling was free of black mist. Ning Chen lowered the pigeon cages he had prepared earlier down with ropes.

About five minutes later, Ning Chen pulled up the pigeon cage. The pigeons inside were jumping around, indicating that there was indeed no poisonous gas in the tomb; everything was thriving.

Ning Chen leaped down and, without needing any lights, saw that the tomb chamber was extremely spacious. What shocked Ning Chen the most was that the feng shui of Yuling was such that the internal and external feng shui patterns echoed each other, making it one of the few feng shui treasures Ning Chen had ever seen.

The Book of Burial states: "Burial is about harnessing vital energy; when Yin reaches its extreme, Yang is born; when adversity reaches its limit, prosperity returns." At this moment, although Ning Chen was in the tomb, he did not feel the slightest bit of eeriness.

All of this is thanks to the vital energy, which is the primordial energy that circulates throughout the six directions in the heavens and gives rise to all things on earth.

Take people as an example. If a person is full of vitality, it is no surprise that he will have a long and healthy life, free from illness and disaster.

The Sixteen-Character Yin-Yang Feng Shui Secret Technique also records: Without this vital energy, Heaven would have nothing to provide for it, and Earth would have nothing to support it. Therefore, it is vast and boundless, permeating all things, present everywhere and operating at all times.

In summary, the feng shui layout of the Qianlong Yuling Mausoleum can be described in eight words: a place where the wind is sheltered and a land of abundant beauty!

"It's a pity that even the best feng shui cannot withstand the squandering of later generations. Wasn't the Kangxi-Qianlong era, which was considered a golden age, beginning with Kangxi and ending with Qianlong?"

Ning Chen was pressed for time and didn't have time to study it carefully. He turned his attention to the burial objects in the tomb chamber, which were ten times more numerous than those in the Ping Mountain Tomb!

The construction of the Yuling Mausoleum of Emperor Qianlong was the most elaborate and luxurious among the imperial mausoleums of the Qing Dynasty. Emperor Qianlong was a devout Buddhist, so the underground palace of the tomb is filled with Buddhist-themed carvings, making it like a Buddhist sculpture art gallery.

The Yuling Mausoleum contains the remains of six people: in addition to Emperor Qianlong, there are his first wife Empress Xiaoxian, Emperor Jiaqing's mother Empress Xiaoyi, and three imperial concubines, Huixian, Zhemin, and Shujia.

This explains why Sun Dianying saw six corpses and six coffins when he was robbing the tomb. However, compared to the burial goods in the tomb, the burial goods in these six coffins were mostly priceless treasures.

The Fuchun Mountain Dwelling Map was a burial object in the Yuling Mausoleum. Historically, after being stolen from the Eastern Mausoleum by Sun Dianying, it changed hands several times. The first half, the remaining mountain map, was collected by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, while the second half was kept in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Now, Ning Chen is about to have a complete version of the painting. Although it can't be sold in the main world, it's still a great thing to keep it for his own collection.

"May the ancestral master protect us!"

As usual, Ning Chen lit candles in the southeast corner of the tomb chamber. They were windproof candles. The technology of the ancestors was backward back then. If they had the technology we have now, they would probably be living a more comfortable life.

Ning Chen aimed at the largest and most luxurious coffin. He could see the coffin clearly with just a little bit of his X-ray vision.

Taking out a crowbar, Ning Chen slightly pried open a crack, and finally, with all his might, with a sizzle, the coffin lid, which was inlaid with gold and jade, was lifted open.

Ning Chen's hand speed was incredibly fast. In just one second, he made thirteen consecutive moves, each time using the system space to collect a large number of casualties!

His palm instantly turned into afterimages!

After thirteen consecutive attempts, more than half of the burial goods had fallen into Ning Chen's system space. Ning Chen looked back and saw that the flames were completely still.

"continue!"

Ning Chen then made a series of moves with such speed that it left everyone speechless. This kind of hand speed is probably something that one can only develop after being single for thirty years.

The burial objects in Yuling Mausoleum are incredibly diverse, covering almost all types of cultural relics: funerary objects made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, jade, pottery, wood, ivory, and other materials, as well as famous paintings and calligraphy from various dynasties made of silk, paper, leather, and satin.

There were also five coffins and burial objects in the tomb. At this moment, Ning Chen was a little doubtful whether the eight cubic meters of system space would be enough to hold them all.

It seems unlikely now!

Historically, Sun Dianying received eleven boxes of treasures, and his soldiers were equally distributed among them, receiving countless treasures in total.

Among them, the treasures that Sun Dianying received alone have been appraised by someone, who estimated that they could be sold for about 250 million taels of silver. Note that it is silver!

It was five or six times the annual tax revenue of the Qing Dynasty!

Ning Chen kept storing the treasures into his system space. He truly experienced what it meant to be rolling in money today…

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(End of this chapter)