Empress Dowager Cixi, unsatisfied with her tomb, ordered its destruction and reconstruction in 1895. The new tomb was a complex of temples, gates, and pavilions, covered with gold leaf, and with gold and gilded-bronze ornaments hanging from the beams and the eaves. In July 1928, Cixi's tomb was plundered by the warlord Sun Dianying and his army as part of the looting of the Eastern Mausoleum. They methodically stripped the complex of its precious ornaments, then dynamited the entrance to the burial chamber, opened Cixi's coffin, threw her corpse (said to have been found intact) on the ground, and stole the jewels contained in the coffin. They also took the massive pearl that had been placed in the empress dowager's mouth to protect her corpse from decomposing (in accordance with Chinese tradition).