Jiaxing Story&Pang Yiying

In June 1860, the Taiping Army captured Jiaxing.

The Jiaxing Jingyan Temple located in the city was changed into the Taiping Army Military Supplies General Storehouse, also called the Holy Treasury.

Jiaxing is the city in Zhejiang Province that the Taiping Army occupied for the longest time, from the tenth year of Xianfeng to the third year of Tongzhi, a total of three years and ten months.

When the Taiping Army retreated, the gold and silver treasures in the Holy Treasury could not be evacuated for a while. The leader of the Holy Treasury had no choice but to bury all the treasures of the Celestial Dynasty deep under the Jingyan Temple in Jiaxing. He also ordered his subordinates: willing Those who are allowed to go to the temple and have their hair shaved off are considered abhorrent.

Many Shengku Taiping soldiers changed from soldiers to monks to avoid life and death in the war. Later, the leader of the holy treasury was appointed as the abbot of Jingyan Temple in Jiaxing, with the title of Jiyan.

Monk Jiyan used Jingyan Temple as his residence and built several temporary huts on the site of Jingyan Temple that was destroyed in the war. He led the monks to self-discipline and practice hard work. Spend time, determined to make it a glorious one and restore it to its old glory.

After Ji Yan's death, Gui Cen succeeded him as the abbot of Jingyan Temple (Gui Cen was also a member of the Taiping Army who entered the temple). A few years later, when the Sutra Library of Jingyan Temple was demolished by Lu Fei Ziruo, a local gentry scholar, Guicen went out in anger and never returned... The Taiping Army buried gold in the holy treasury. Mystery, is it true? Where are you going? One theory: In the second year of Guangxu (1876), Peng Weigao's article "Jingyan Temple Tongjie Luyin" said: "Ji Yan was ignorant and unpretentious. He tried to revive after the chaos. He accumulated money for more than ten years and worked hard, but he could not move. It is also different to recruit people and suddenly become a giant temple." It can be seen that after the Taiping Army retreated, Ji Yan rebuilt the Jingyan Temple in Jiaxing, using an ordinary monk without alms, and rebuilt the mountain gate according to the old rules, so he became the presiding officer. The funds spent may be related to the activation of the Taiping Army's holy treasury to bury gold. Second theory: In the early 1950s, according to Mrs. Jin, the wife of monk Ruisong in Qiqifang, Jingyan Temple: “In the 18th year of Guangxu (1892), someone claimed to be Wang Simao’s nephew, and said that Wang Simao had participated in the Taiping When the gold was buried in the military holy treasury, Wang Simao's nephew also took out a folded hand with a diagram of the location of the gold buried in it. Wang Simao's nephew asked Ruisong to dig up the treasure in the holy treasury according to the diagram, but he found nothing. The foreman of the excavation was named Luo Debao. Monk Ruisong spent more than 200 yuan digging in vain. The location of the excavation was in front of a nearby silkworm breeding farm (the address of Jingyan Temple Street in Jiaxing). "

Master Xiuzhen of Jiaxing Jingyan Temple (front row, first from right) Three remarks: In 1951, Yan Sen, the abbot of Jingyan Temple, said, "When the Qing army Cheng Xueqi and others attacked Jiaxing in 1864, the general library could not retreat. The person in charge of the holy treasury put all the hardware underground and distributed the food to the residents in the city. In order to prevent the heavy equipment that could not be transported away from the enemy's hands, he set fire to the entire temple. As soon as Tianjing (i.e. Nanjing) was destroyed, the person in charge of the holy treasury, who was hiding from the people, even his subordinates came to the temple and had their hair cut off in disgust. The person in charge of the holy treasury is Patriarch Jiyan of Jingyan Temple. The gold buried in the Taiping Army’s holy treasury or the drawings obtained from the secret collection of insiders may of course be false.”

The fourth statement of Master Xueguang of Jingyan Temple in Jiaxing: 1953 Jiaxing City *** Civil Affairs Section The Liejun Manufacturing Factory was built on the east side of the Jingyan Temple site, and later (in the 1970s) a production building was built. In order to protect cultural relics, the Jiaxing Museum successively sent personnel to the site to conduct on-site inspections during the construction. I have been sent on duty at construction sites many times. According to the records, during several large and small groundbreaking projects, nothing related to the gold buried in the holy treasury was found.

Up to this time, the Jiaxing Taiping Army buried gold in the holy treasury. There are even more divergent opinions about the mystery, and there is no consensus.

Guangxu (77) Jiaxing (2) Taiping Army (4)