Chapter 9 Section 2 Royal Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties

The Mongols ruled the Central Plains for nearly 100 years. In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty.After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it inherited the tradition of the Han nationality's rule in the past dynasties, vigorously advocated Confucianism, and especially advocated the rule of law.From the very beginning of the Ming Dynasty, strict grave rules were formulated for civil and military officials, and cremation and water burial were clearly prohibited. Anyone who followed the Yuan people and burned their remains would be convicted.Zhu Yuanzhang's own Xiaoling Mausoleum was built in Nanjing, the capital. There is a tomb passage lined with stone men and stone animals in front, and there is a Lingen Hall for sacrificial activities in the back.Behind the hall is a large mound of earth above the tomb, built into a circular castle, called "Treasure City".In front of Baocheng, another tall city platform was built, and there was a tower on the city platform, which was called "Fangcheng Minglou".This arrangement established the basic format of the imperial tombs of the Ming Dynasty.

(1) After Emperor Yongle Zhu Di of the Ming Tombs in Beijing ascended the throne, the capital was moved to Beijing.Although the decision to move the capital was not officially announced until the eighteenth year of Yongle (AD 1420), Zhu Di began to plan Beijing and build the imperial city on a large scale since 1407; at the same time, he did not relax the construction of the mausoleum.In 1409 AD, when Zhu Di returned to Beijing for the first time after becoming emperor, he sent people to search for geomantic treasures near Beijing to build the imperial mausoleum.The construction of the imperial palace began, and the site selection for the imperial mausoleum also began, expressing his determination to move the capital to Beijing.

The location chosen for the imperial mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty is at the southern foot of Tianshou Mountain, north of Changping County, Beijing.Tianshou Mountain is a branch of the Yanshan Mountains. The mountain stretches to the east and west sides in addition to the north to form a form surrounded by three sides, forming a small basin with an open south.Zhu Di's Changling Mausoleum is located at the foot of the mountain in the north of this basin, facing south from the north.The tombs of the 12 Ming emperors since Zhu Di were all built on the left and right sides of the Changling Mausoleum, forming a huge mausoleum area called the "Ming Tombs".What is the difference between the Ming Tomb and the previous Tang and Song Tombs?First, although the Ming Tombs were all built on the back of the mountain, they are not like the Tang Tombs where the mountain is the top and the mountain is the tomb.The tombs of the Ming Mausoleum were built by digging the ground, and the overlying loess mound is the treasure roof, which forms a complete architectural group with the ground buildings.Second, the tombs of the Ming emperors, like the Song emperors, were built together, and each imperial tomb formed its own system.However, it is different from the Song Emperor's Mausoleum in Gongxian County, Henan Province in that each emperor's mausoleum is independent and related to each other. The 13 mausoleums have a master plan, a general entrance, and a common Shinto path. The 13 mausoleums form an extremely magnificent and complete mausoleum area, which has never been seen in the imperial mausoleums of past dynasties.

The entire mausoleum area is about 80 miles around, and the main entrance is in the south, named Dahongmen.There is also a tall stone archway in front of Dahongmen, which is the symbol of the mausoleum area.Entering Dahongmen, there is a tall stele pavilion facing you. The so-called stele pavilion is a building dedicated to placing steles. It is square in plane and has doors on all sides, so it is called a pavilion.The tall "Ming Changling Stele of Divine Merit and Virtue" is placed in the center of the pavilion, on which is engraved the inscription written by Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi for Zhu Di.After passing the stele pavilion and going north, you enter the Shinto in the mausoleum area.There are a pair of hexagonal stone pillars at the southern end of the Shinto, followed by 12 pairs of six stone beasts including lions, xiezhi, camels, elephants, unicorns, and horses, of which there are half lying statues and half standing statues.There are three types of stone figures: Xunchen, Wenchen and Wuchen, a total of six pairs, all of which are standing statues.These 18 pairs of stone statues are arranged on both sides of the Shinto, which is very spectacular.Walking through the Shinto, you will face a Lingxing gate. After entering the gate, you will pass through two stone bridges. The terrain gradually rises, and the road divides into various imperial tombs.If you go all the way north, you will come to Changling.From the stone archway to the Lingxing gate, it is 2,600 meters long, and a series of stele pavilions, stone carvings and gate seats are set up, which indeed shows the unique grandeur of the imperial tomb.

The following focuses on the architecture of Changling.Construction of the Changling Mausoleum began in the seventh year of Yongle (AD 1409) and was completed in 11 years. Its shape completely imitates the Nanjing Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum.The building of the mausoleum is divided into three courtyards. The first courtyard is between the mausoleum gate and the Lingen gate. In the courtyard, there were originally a sacred storehouse, a divine kitchen and a stele pavilion, which were used to store and make sacrificial supplies. Now only the stele pavilion remains. .The second entrance courtyard is the location of the main sacrificial building of the mausoleum, the Len'en Hall. The scale of the Len'en Hall is second only to the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City, and the pillars, beams, squares and other structures of the hall are all made of precious nanmu. The pillars are made of whole nanmu, with the largest diameter reaching 1.7 meters, which is not found in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.The roof of the main hall is also double eaves and hipped, and there are also three layers of white stone platforms under the main hall. Of course, generally speaking, the main hall as a mausoleum is not allowed to exceed the main hall of the imperial palace, so the size of the hall and the height of the platform are higher than those of the Tai. And the hall should be smaller.The Lingen Hall and the Hall of Supreme Harmony were built almost at the same period. Compared with the two, each has its own merits. One served the emperor during his lifetime, and the other was enjoyed by the emperor after his death. This shows how much feudal emperors attached importance to mausoleum architecture.The third courtyard mainly includes Baocheng and Minglou.Fangcheng Minglou is a tower with a double eaves roof located on a high city wall.Behind the Ming Tower is the Baoding, which is actually a large tomb with a diameter of more than 300 meters. Under the Baoding, there is a deep underground palace.Generally speaking, a main hall, a stele tower connected to the top of the treasure, plus several gates and side halls form a three-entry courtyard. This is the basic format of the imperial tombs of the Ming Dynasty. This is the case for Changling and the other 12 tombs.The underground palace of Changling has not been excavated so far, but the underground palace of Dingling, which is smaller than Changling, was excavated in 1956.Dingling is the tomb of Zhu Yijun, the 13th emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and his two empresses.Zhu Yijun started to build the mausoleum in the eleventh year of Wanli (1584 A.D.), and it took six years to complete it in 1590 A.D., consuming more than 8 million taels of silver, which was equivalent to the land tax income of the whole country for two years at the beginning of Wanli; There are more than 30,000 people every day, which is the largest one in the Ming Tomb.During the construction, Shenzong visited the site six times in person, which shows how much he cares.It is a pity that the buildings on the ground of the Dingling Mausoleum were almost completely destroyed, leaving only the square city Minglou, Baoding and the archway gate in the backyard.The excavation work started from under the top of the treasure roof. After several years of hard work, the secret of this underground palace was finally revealed.

The underground palace of the Dingling Mausoleum is buried at a depth of 27 meters below the top of the treasure. The plane is divided into five tombs, the front, the middle, the back hall and the left and right side halls, with a total area of ​​1195 square meters.There are passages and stone gates between the tombs. The underground palaces are all built of stone, with stone coupons on the top and high-quality gold bricks on the ground.The stone gates between the three main chambers in the center are equipped with two door leaves, each door is about 3.3 meters high, 1.7 meters wide and weighs about 4 tons.How to close such a heavy door?The clever craftsman came up with a way to make the door panel thicker on one side and thinner on the other. The side near the hinge is as thick as 0.32 meters, while the other side is only 0.16 meters thick, so that the center of gravity of the door moves to the side of the hinge.In addition, the upper and lower ends of the door shaft are made into a spherical shape, which is easy to rotate, so that although the door is heavy, it is not so laborious to open and close.The apse of the underground palace is the largest part of the tomb, 36.1 meters long, 9.1 meters wide, and 9.5 meters high. There are red-lacquered wooden boxes filled with various funerary objects.Among these relics, the most precious are the gold and phoenix crowns worn by emperors and empresses.The golden crowns are all woven with gold silk. There are dragons and phoenixes on the crowns. The dragons are made of gold and hold jewels in their mouths. The phoenixes are also covered with flowers made of gemstones and emerald jade. Each phoenix crown is inlaid with more than 5,000 pearls and more than 100 gemstones. .In addition, there are gold pots, gold boxes, golden jade hairpins, and a large number of jade kui, jade belts, jade bowls and other jade wares; there are also large dragon vats, porcelain furnaces, and various porcelain vases and porcelain bowls specially fired in the "Royal Kiln Factory" in Jingdezhen. a large number of silk fabrics, including the dragon robe embroidered with 12 dragons worn by the emperor; Hundred sub-graphs.There are more than 3,000 pieces of cultural relics unearthed from the Dingling Underground Palace, fully reflecting the superb skills of ancient Chinese craftsmen.

(2) The Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty and the Western Tombs of the Qing Dynasty Taizu Nurhachi and Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty Huang Taiji were the two founding emperors of the Qing Dynasty. Although they had not yet achieved national unity during their lifetime, they had already realized that if the Manchus did not absorb the advanced culture and rule of the Han Experience cannot unify the world and maintain feudal rule.Therefore, they paid great attention to summoning the ministers of the Ming Dynasty and entrusting them with important tasks, and carefully studied the various systems and laws of the Ming Dynasty.After Emperor Shunzhi entered the customs, he inherited the Ming system more comprehensively and used all the buildings in the Forbidden City.In terms of mausoleum construction, Emperor Shunzhi also learned from the experience of the Ming emperor's mausoleum, personally selected the mausoleum site under Yanshan Mountain in the eastern suburbs of Beijing, and began to build the Xiaoling Mausoleum of the Qing Dynasty.Afterwards, the Xiaodong Mausoleum of Empress Shunzhi and the Jing Mausoleum of Kangxi were built one after another, forming a mausoleum area called Qingdong Mausoleum.The Eastern Tombs completely imitate the Ming Tombs, and each tomb is both independent and unified in planning.The Xiaoling Mausoleum of the Qing Dynasty is the largest among all the mausoleums.There is a big stone arch in front of it, and after entering the Dahongmen, there are stele pavilions and a 500-meter-long Shinto and Lingxing gate.This Shinto protrudes before the Xiaoling Mausoleum, which is a bit like the common forerunner of all the imperial tombs.

With the Eastern Qing Mausoleum in Zunhua County, Hebei, why was another Qing Western Mausoleum built in Yi County, Hebei?The cause of this incident lies in Emperor Yongzheng.He had already selected the mausoleum site for himself in Dongling, but before the construction started, he changed his mind again, insisting that after repeated deliberations by those skilled in Fengshui, he thought that although the land of Dongling was large, the situation was incomplete. , the soil is sandy, which is really unusable, and a piece of auspicious land was found in Taiping Valley, Yongning Mountain in Yi County. It is said that this is the treasure land where heaven and earth gather together, and Yin and Yang meet.Of course, Yi County is hundreds of miles away from Dongling's ancestral tomb. Whether this is against the ancient system, he asked the ministers to comment.When the emperor gave an order, how could the ministers dare to say no.They quoted scriptures, explaining that the tombs of the emperors of the past dynasties were also separated by four to five hundred miles, and that both Zunhua and Yi County were not far from the capital, so they could be called parallel Shenzhou and so on.Therefore, the Tailing Mausoleum of Emperor Yongzheng was built in Taiping Valley, Yixian County, breaking the system of "the son is buried with the father, and the ancestors continue to succeed", and opened up another mausoleum area in the Qing Dynasty, called the Qingxi Mausoleum.Emperor Qianlong should have followed his father to build a tomb in the West Tomb, and he did choose the tomb site. However, he considered that if future generations followed suit and were buried in the West Tomb, the East Tomb would be desolate and barren, so he decided to build his own tomb in the West Tomb. Tanglin.For this reason, a rule was established, stating that his son should build a tomb in the West Tomb, and his grandson should build a tomb in the East Tomb. In this way, although the tombs are divided into east and west, they are in the same line, forming a separate burial pattern for the father in the East Tomb and the son in the West Tomb.This rule was destroyed when it was passed on to Emperor Daoguang, the grandson of Qianlong. Originally, he was supposed to be buried in the Eastern Tomb. It took seven years to complete the mausoleum, but he insisted that the underground palace was flooded and moved the mausoleum to the Western Tomb.When it came to Emperor Tongzhi, Xiling should be buried in order, but Cixi, who was listening to the government behind the curtain, insisted that her son's tomb be rebuilt in Dongling and buried with his father.Therefore, the so-called ancestral rules can be easily broken by a powerful emperor.

The difference between the tombs of the Qing Dynasty and the previous dynasties is that another tomb was built for the queen.The imperial court clearly stipulated that before the emperor died, the empress would be buried with the emperor in the imperial mausoleum, so after many imperial mausoleums were built, the empress was buried first.If the queen dies after the emperor, another queen's tomb will be built near the emperor's tomb, which is smaller than the emperor's tomb.The Empress Dowager Cixi was in power for two dynasties, so she was naturally unwilling to be reconciled to the size of the Hou Mausoleum, so she ordered the three halls of her mausoleum that had been built to be demolished and rebuilt.The beams, columns, doors and windows of the reconstructed Lingen Hall and the left and right side halls are all made of precious huanghuali wood and nanmu. Instead of ordinary paint and color painting, gold powder is used to directly paint dragons, dragons, etc. on the logs. Phoenix, cloud, longevity and other patterns.In the colorful paintings inside and outside the three halls, there are more than 2,400 golden dragons, which are still shining golden and well preserved.On the three walls of the three halls, there are 30 carved brick walls of different sizes, all of which are built with bricks to form the patterns of "five bats holding longevity" and "the swastika does not reach the head".The so-called "five bats holding longevity" is five bats surrounding a geometric-shaped longevity character, which means ten thousand characters. and auspicious.The surfaces of these brick carvings are all decorated with red and yellow gold leaves, which complement the golden paintings on the beams, making the whole hall golden and dazzling.Such a luxurious decoration in the hall is not enough. The railings of the base of the Lingen Hall are also carved with patterns of dragons and phoenixes. There are 138 patterns of "phoenix leading the dragon to chase" on both sides of the 69 surrounding railings. The phoenix flies in the sky. The dragon followed behind; the capitals on the railings are often engraved with dragon or phoenix patterns in general palace buildings, one dragon and one phoenix are arranged alternately, but all the 74 capitals here are carved with phoenix piercing the clouds, and on the pillars The body is carved with a pattern of a dragon rising out of water.This kind of carving with a phoenix on top and a dragon on the bottom has not been seen elsewhere, which truly reflects the power of the empress dowager over the emperor.Although Tangling is not large in scale, its construction history and such luxurious decorations illustrate the extravagant and decadent nature of the Empress Dowager Cixi.