The idea of constructing buildings out of metal isn't exactly new. Ever since humanity mastered the art of smelting metal, it wasn't long before they began incorporating it into building construction.
For instance, during ancient Greece, bronze or lead was often used as fasteners to secure stone structures or to create supplementary elements like railings, gates, or sculptures.
Moving forward to the Renaissance, large amounts of lead were used in constructing church roofs, such as the gilded bronze altar in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
In the industrial era, metal buildings became even more prevalent, with structures like the Crystal Palace and the Eiffel Tower standing out. In some eras, using metal and glass in construction became symbolic of the times.
However, these metal structures all share a common trait: they each have a unique style. Particularly in early metal buildings, they often resembled large metal sculptures, vastly different from traditional architecture.
But in China, metal architecture was another story. The copper temple buildings there typically followed ancient wooden structure designs, which can be seen as a continuation of traditional Chinese architectural style.
The construction technique for these copper temples involved casting the various parts separately using the lost-wax method, then assembling them together, much like traditional Chinese wooden architecture.
These copper buildings had no screws, nuts, welds, or rivets. Instead, they used a mortise and tenon structure similar to wooden components for joining.
The copper temple that Liang En and his team were searching for was one such structure. This building, known as the Zongjing Pavilion, was the most isolated building within the Zhuyuan Temple complex. It was located on the south side of the entrance to the Pine Forest Valley in the Summer Resort, on a hillside northwest of the Inner Lake.
The entire temple was built in the 26th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1761), representing the pinnacle of ancient Chinese architectural art and the largest temple within the Summer Resort. The Zongjing Pavilion was modeled after the Baoyun Pavilion in the Summer Palace in Beijing.
Due to the difficulty of construction and the significant costs involved, the pavilion wasn't completed until 20 years later, in 1781. According to records, the entire pavilion stood 7.55 meters high and 4.66 meters wide, with Buddhist statues housed inside.
At that time, 220 tons of refined copper were used to cast the Zongjing Pavilion, costing 65,000 taels of silver—a staggering amount, considering that copper was a hard currency back then.
The Zongjing Pavilion shared several similarities with other copper temples, such as the structure of the double-eaved gable roof and the use of the lost-wax method for casting the parts. The components were also connected using a mortise and tenon structure.
But what made the Zongjing Pavilion unique was the way its parts were secured with a "mortise lock." This meant that the pavilion's components could be disassembled and reassembled at any time.
Legend has it that all the connections between these parts could be unlocked with a special key. Because of this key, the Zongjing Pavilion was considered the finest among all copper temples.
However, this copper pavilion no longer exists. According to legend, in 1944, Japanese invaders, desperate for copper as a raw material for military production, dismantled the entire Zongjing Pavilion and transported it to the Mukden Arsenal, where it was melted down to produce guns and bullets.
Some say that explosives were even used during the dismantling process. There are also more dramatic accounts, claiming that an elderly lama sacrificed himself to protect the pavilion by refusing to hand over the key.
Today, the only relics of the Zongjing Pavilion are the copper plaque and couplets that were removed and hidden by Tang Yulin, the chairman of Rehe Province at the time.
However, according to what Liang En learned from his discussions with Chinese scholars, these stories are likely just legends. For one, the temple was a Han Chinese Buddhist temple, so if a key did exist, it probably wouldn't have been entrusted to a lama.
Moreover, when the Japanese were plundering cultural relics, they did so systematically and methodically. For instance, during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, a plan for the collection of Chinese treasures was personally formulated by Japanese court adviser Kuki Takayoshi.
As China continued to decline, the Japanese sent numerous expeditions to gather Chinese artifacts, such as the heads of the Buddha statues from Tianlong Mountain that were taken by the Japanese.
During the war, the Japanese openly and extensively looted. For example, the Eastern Zhou Jin Village tomb yielded a large number of bronzes and ancient books, including 200 Song dynasty rare book editions from the Baishan Building.
Given the planned nature of the Japanese looting, it's unlikely that the Zongjing Pavilion, which had been printed on banknotes as early as 1920, would have been treated as scrap metal.
Furthermore, according to records from within the puppet state of Manchukuo, such as the "Zhuyuan Temple Copper Component Inventory," the dismantled copper parts of the pavilion were packed into 26 boxes and 30 bundles, approximately 500 pieces in total, and transported by rail to Mukden.
This meticulous record-keeping suggests that the copper wasn't simply meant to be used as raw material. Just as today no one would document the specifics of scrap metal when collecting it, there would have been no need to do so back then either.
Historically, after the Japanese army occupied Rehe on March 4, 1933, various individuals arrived at the Summer Resort and the outer eight temples to carry out different activities.
For instance, in May 1935, Ito Yushin, commissioned by the Ministry of Civil Affairs of Manchukuo, led a team of six technicians to Rehe to conduct on-site investigations of the ancient buildings and to plan and budget for restoration work.
The director of the investigation office, Igarashi Maki, personally led four young staff members to visit the temples daily to conduct on-site surveys. On rainy days, they stayed inside to organize data or rush to complete drawings. This work continued until 1943.
This indicates that the Japanese fully understood the value of the ancient buildings in the Rehe region. If their only goal was destruction, there would have been no need to expend so much time and effort on these tasks.
The Japanese were likely preparing to restore the buildings of the Summer Resort. If their "Greater East Asia Holy War" had been successful, they might have carried out the restorations, and the Zongjing Pavilion might never have been dismantled.
However, as the war progressed, the Japanese invaders faced increasing defeats, and their resources for waging war were gradually depleted, forcing them to scour for all sorts of resources.
Take metals, for example: in Manchukuo, all copper and iron items in the imperial palace, even the copper rings on doors and the iron hooks on windows, were requisitioned. The copper handles and chandeliers on the doors and windows of the highest administrative building in Manchukuo were not spared either.
The common people fared even worse. Door handles, spoons, pastry molds, music stands, stove grates—no matter how small or large, anything with a metal edge was listed in the "Metal Recovery Law," even the copper tobacco pipes that old ladies often used.
But strangely, the records make no mention of the Zongjing Pavilion. Regardless, it's impossible that a copper building weighing over 200 tons could disappear without a trace when even the smallest items, like copper tobacco pipes, were documented.
Given the Japanese reputation for craftsmanship, if hundreds of tons of copper had indeed been used for production, there would certainly be some evidence left behind, especially since the Mukden Arsenal was one of the four major arsenals under strict Japanese control, with rigorous production management.
Yet, strangely, after the copper building was transported from Rehe by rail, it completely vanished. It was never mentioned again in any memoirs or records.
The statue that Liang En has now found is one of the statues that once stood inside that copper pavilion, suggesting that the golden temple may still be somewhere, waiting to be unearthed.
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