While Tan Wenjiang was desecrating Cixi's tomb, Han Dabao, brigade commander under Sun Dianying, led another army to Yuling Mausoleum declaring another "war exercise." They blew up the entrance to the underground palace and burst through the first, second, third and fourth stone doors to enter the rear room. The coffins of Emperor Qianlong and his two empresses and three concubines were pried open and all of the valuables were stolen; the royal remains were thrown into the mud.

The looting operations were directed by Sun Dianying, who kept watch from his car. Once a truck had been filled with the booty, the army fled. The soldiers then rushed to Yuling Mausoleum and the underground palace of Putuoyu East Dingling to do the same.

Locals snuck into the two underground palaces to pick up the leftovers. The looters left nothing in the two mausoleums except broken coffins.

People listened in horror as the robberies were reported throughout China and around the world. Emperor Aisin-Gioro Puyi, who had dismissed Sun from his post, sent telegrams to Chiang Kai-shek; Yan Xishan, commander of Garrison Force in Beijing; the Central Committee of Kuomintang, and local newspapers demanding Sun Dianying be punished severely. However, Sun Dianying bribed those in power and nothing was done.