Chapter 2 Chapter 2 The Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor

In the ancient books of our country, many heroes and related legends are recorded who made outstanding contributions to conquering nature and improving people's lives at the end of primitive society.The famous ones are Huangdi, Fuxi, Nuwa, Shennong, Yao, Shun, Yu and so on.There are also their mausoleums in many places, and there are even several mausoleums of the same person, distributed in different provinces.In fact, the life stories and burial places of these heroes are inconsistently and vaguely recorded in various documents. Some of them are obviously attached by later generations, and even belong to myths and legends.Some of these characters may indeed exist, but they are constantly attached and exaggerated in the legend process, and some may be just symbols of a certain tribe.According to the law of social development and the situation of archaeological discoveries in our country, the era in which these heroes lived was relatively backward in social productivity, and it was impossible to build tall tombs, let alone cemetery sacrificial buildings.These existing tombs are obviously commemorative tombs built by later generations.

According to legend, the Yellow Emperor is the ancestor of the Chinese nation, surnamed Ji, named Xuanyuan or Xiong.He unified the tribes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and laid the foundation of the Chinese nation.He encouraged Nong Sang, created vehicles and boats, invented writing, rhythm, medical skills, and arithmetic, and did many good things for the people, and was respected and loved by the people.In order to remember the kindness of the Yellow Emperor, later generations built commemorative mausoleums in Shaanxi, Henan, Hebei, Gansu and other provinces, among which the one on Qiaoshan, one kilometer north of Huangling County, Shaanxi Province, is the most famous.

Regarding the burial of the Yellow Emperor, there are different records in historical books.Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty, recorded in "Historical Records of the Five Emperors": "The Yellow Emperor collapsed and was buried in Qiaoshan." Today's Hetao area), he went to Qiaoshan to pay homage to the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum.It can be seen that the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Qiaoshan has a legendary history of more than 2,000 years.Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built a platform in front of the mausoleum for sacrifices, emperors of all dynasties often sent imperial envoys to sacrifice the mausoleum during the Ching Ming Festival.After the Republic of China, the national government sent officials to pay homage to it many times. On the Ching Ming Festival in 1937, the then central government of the Soviet Republic of China also sent Lin Boqu as a representative to hold a grand sweeping ceremony at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor, and Mao Zedong himself wrote the sacrificial oration.

The Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor is on Qiaoshan Mountain, with a height of 3.6 meters and a circumference of 48 meters, surrounded by brick walls.To the south is a stone tablet of "Qiaoshan Longyu" in the Ming Dynasty, and to the south there is a four-cornered pavilion with pointed tops, inside which is a stone tablet of "Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum" written by Guo Moruo.There are two earthen platforms about 10 meters high in front of the pavilion, which are said to have been built by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to seek immortals.At the south foot of Qiaoshan Mountain is the Temple of the Yellow Emperor, covering an area of ​​about 8,000 square meters. It was first built in the seventh year of Zongdali in the Tang Dynasty (722 A.D.) and has been rebuilt many times in successive dynasties.The front facade is five rooms wide, with a single eave resting on the top of the mountain.There are three halls in the front yard, in which more than 70 stone steles erected in Song to Ming dynasties are preserved, most of which are Zhuwen made by emperors of Ming and Qing Dynasties and inscriptions on the reconstruction and protection of mausoleum temples in successive dynasties.Behind the hall is the main hall, which is seven rooms wide, with a single eaves resting on the top of the mountain, surrounded by corridors, and a platform in front. In the middle hangs a plaque written by the modern Chinese historian Chen Yuanshu "The First Ancestor of Humanities".The ancient cypresses in the temple are towering, the largest one is 19 meters high and the circumference is about 10 meters. It is said that the Yellow Emperor planted it himself, so it is called "Xuanyuan Cypress".In the west of the hall, there is a small ancient cypress with spotted scales. According to legend, it was caused by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty when he conquered Shuofang and offered sacrifices to Huangling, so it was named "Hanging Jia Cypress".

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the people's government attached great importance to the protection of the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor. In 1955, the Cultural Relics Management Office was established. In 1961, the State Council announced that the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor was designated as a national key cultural relics protection unit. In 1959, the Shaanxi People's Government allocated funds for a comprehensive renovation, and in 1965, it also allocated funds for the renovation of the temple gate, recreating the majestic and majestic style of the Yellow Emperor's Mausoleum, so as to welcome people from home and abroad to seek their roots and visit the ancient times.