The first stolen Song Ling was Wang Wei's Zhao Kai Tomb. Zhao Kai, the second son of Xiaozong, was buried in Tianchang Temple, Fahuashan, Shanyin, Huiji. In the 22nd year of Zhiyuan (1285), Zong Yun and Zong Kai, monks of Taining Temple in Huiji County, cooperated with Wen Fu, a monk of Tianchang Temple, and found Zhao Kai's tomb in Wang Wei, and obtained many pieces of jewelry for Jia Zhen in Yang Lian. The excavation of Wei Mausoleum greatly stimulated the greed of others. They recruited monks from Hexi and its fierce party and began to excavate Song Ling on a large scale. The tombs of the three Empresses Ning Zong, Yang Zong and Du Zong became the first tombs of the Song Emperor who were stolen. Luo (m: n), the guardian of Song Ling, was beaten up and driven out of the cemetery with a knife. Luo fell on the ground and cried.
Among the four tombs, Li Zongling's tomb contains many treasures. It is said that when the tomb was opened, white gas rose into the sky and condensed from precious gas. Li Zong's body is still intact. Some people say that this is because Li Zong has a pearl in his mouth, so thieves took Li Zong's body out of the grave and hung it upside down on a tree. Yun Ze kicked Rizong on the head to show his fearlessness. Anti-corrosive mercury dripped slowly from Li Zong's mouth for three days and nights. There is a custom among Tibetan monks that getting the emperor's skull (kū lóu) can make you tired of winning and make you rich, so Yang Lian really ordered his men to cut off the Japanese Sect's head and keep it for himself. After Yang Yi left, Luo bought a coffin and clothes, reunited the emperor's remains, and was heartbroken. Everyone in the nearby village cried. At night, I heard crying all around the mountains for ten days. Later, Li Zong's head has been circulated among Tibetan monks. After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang sighed for a long time and sent someone to find Li Zong's head. In the second year of Hongwu (1369), he was buried in Yingtianfu (Nanjing, Jiangsu) as a gift from the emperor. In the second year, Li Zong's skull was ordered to be buried in the former site of Yong Mu Mausoleum in Shaoxing.
Song Ling Shinto
Soon, Yang and his gang made a second excavation of Song Ling, and the tombs of the five emperors, Qin Zong, Xiao Zong and Guang Zong, as well as the four queens, Montessori, Webster's, Oh's and Xie's, all survived this excavation. Huidi and Emperor Qin died in the Jin Dynasty. Although the Jin Dynasty returned the remains, Emperor Gaozong did not open the coffin for inspection. Yang Lian Jia Zhen and others opened the tomb of the second emperor, but found nothing. There is only a piece of rotten wood in Hui Zong's coffin, and there is a wooden lamp in Qinzong's coffin. Due to the age, the remains of Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Xiaozong have been "dry and boneless". There are only a few pieces of tin ware and an inkstone in the tomb of Emperor Gaozong, and only a jade bottle furnace and an ancient bronze bottle in the tomb of Emperor Xiaozong. The remains of Empress Wu Guangzong and Empress Ning Zongyang are still "lifelike". Luo later put the bodies of the two queens back in coffins and cremated them. There are tens of thousands of money in the mausoleum, which has been eroded by the corpse gas, like copper coins. Monks refuse to take it, and most of them are picked up by nearby villagers.
During the dynasty change in ancient China, many emperors' tombs were protected. Although there are countless records about the theft of imperial tombs in the history of China, most of them were done by individuals and had little to do with the government. The thief of Song Ling is quite different from this nature. Yang Lian, Jia Zhen and others robbed tombs with the support of the Yuan government. Yuan officials and Zhao Songzong asked Yuan Shizu to protect Song Ling, but Kublai Khan ignored them. Many treasures obtained from grave robbery were dedicated to the Yuan government, and Kublai Khan decorated Tianyi Pavilion with these treasures. Yuan Shizu's support for grave robbery should be related to the political struggle at that time. Although the Song Dynasty perished, some people rebelled against the Yuan Dynasty under the banner of reviving the Song Dynasty. Yang Lian really took the opportunity to say that he was "overwhelmed" and proposed to build a pagoda and Buddhist temple to suppress the remains of the Song Emperor below to subdue the Song people. This statement caters to Kublai Khan's thought of stable rule. Kublai Khan also wanted to cut off people's nostalgia for Zhao and Song by exploring Song Ling, so he supported Yang Lian to rob the tomb.
Yang Lian's grave robbery and the support of the Yuan government had a very bad influence. The history books say that from then on, "there is no tomb in the world when the tombs are dug in the south of the Yangtze River". The tombs left over from the past were generally stolen, which had a devastating impact on ancient cultural relics in China. Kublai Khan tried to subdue the people and stabilize the rule through the actions of Yang and others, but it backfired. This grave-robbing behavior aroused the extreme hatred of the adherents of the Song Dynasty, and the people's resistance was growing. Until the end of the Yuan Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang launched an uprising, he was still using the "Song Ling Incident" to encourage the people to oppose the Yuan Dynasty, which was never expected by the Mongolian rulers.