After Wu Zetian died, she was buried in Qianling, together with her husband Tang Gaozong Li Zhi. The location of Qianling Mausoleum is on Liangshan Mountain in the north of Qian County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province today. It is said that when Li Zhi passed away, Wu Zetian wanted to place the mausoleum in the Guanzhong Plain. She selected two famous Feng Shui masters from across the country, Yuan Tiangang and Li Chunfeng, and they went to the Guanzhong area to select Feng Shui treasures. After Yuan Tiangang picked it, he buried a copper coin there, and after Li Chunfeng picked it, he inserted a needle there. When a large team of people came to investigate, everyone was surprised to find that the needle inserted by Li Chunfeng was inserted right into the eye of Yuan Tiangang's copper coin.
Although the legend is somewhat absurd, Wu Zetian's Qianling Mausoleum is indeed the best-preserved imperial mausoleum in the Tang Dynasty and has not been robbed at all. Others, such as Li Shimin's Zhaoling Mausoleum, were stolen in a disgraceful manner. Even the relief sculptures of the Six Horses of Zhaoling Mausoleum on the walls of the tomb were knocked off, broken into pieces, and sold to the United States. In contrast, the Qianling Mausoleum is much more complete. In recent years, a large number of cultural relics have been unearthed from the tombs of the princes and ministers buried with Qianling Mausoleum, making Qianling Mausoleum a cultural treasure house.
But at present, the main tomb of Qianling, that is, the tombs of Wu Zetian and Li Zhi have not yet been excavated. It is said that the world-famous "Preface to the Lanting Collection" is buried in the tomb. Many tomb robbers in history have tried to rob the Qianling Mausoleum, but they failed every time. The largest excavation of the Qianling Mausoleum was organized by Huang Chao, who revolted in the late Tang Dynasty. Huang Chao, who dared to fill the city with golden armor, was so powerful at the beginning of the uprising that he captured Luoyang and Chang'an and drove away the emperor, but what he needed most to fight the war was money. After Huang Chao's army plundered the capital of the Tang Empire, they began to set their sights on the tomb of the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty, hoping to dig out the treasures buried in the tomb.
Huang Chao organized more than 400,000 peasant troops at one time to Liangshan Mountain and began to excavate Wu Zetian's Qianling Mausoleum. After several months of digging, the rebel army actually dug a large deep ditch on Liangshan Mountain. Later generations called this ditch "Huangchaogou". Even after digging to this extent, Wu Zetian's tomb was still not found, and the excavation yielded nothing. Huang Chao was furious and wanted to organize more people to carry out larger excavations. At the critical moment, it rained heavily, and the excavation site collapsed and became muddy. It was impossible to continue digging, and Huang Chao was forced to give up. Within a few years, someone else was eyeing Qianling. This person was Wen Tao, the military governor of Chongzhou in the Later Liang Dynasty during the Five Dynasties period.
Wen Tao was originally the governor of Yaozhou in the Tang Dynasty. Later, Zhu Wen rebelled. Wen Tao surrendered to Zhu Wen and remained the governor of Yaozhou, but changed the name of Yaozhou to Chongzhou. The area under the jurisdiction of Chongzhou Jiedushi was the Guanzhong area, where the tombs of the Tang Dynasty were located. Wen Tao stayed here for seven years, taking full advantage of the "first-come-first-served" advantage of being close to the water and the tower, and carried out predatory excavations of the local tombs of the Tang Dynasty emperors with the spirit of "the thief does not steal in the air". All the imperial tombs were robbed, a large number of priceless treasures were plundered, and precious works of famous calligraphers and painters including Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi also appeared in the world.
Of course Wen Tao would not let go of Wu Zetian's Qianling Mausoleum, but when he sent troops to excavate the Qianling Mausoleum, it rained heavily again, making it impossible to dig at all, and the matter was delayed. This delay lasted for seven years. Every time Wen Tao wanted to take action against Qianling, God would rain heavily and never give Wen Tao a chance. Seven years later, Wen Tao could only leave Chongzhou with regret. If cold weapons can't dig, there are also hot weapons. During the Republic of China, the warlord Sun Lianzhong also took a fancy to Qianling. His methods were much better than Huang Chao and Wen Tao. The two could only use ordinary equipment to dig. Sun Lianzhong had explosives, so he asked the army to use explosives to blow open the tomb door. However, when he took action, strange things happened again, violent storms fell from the sky again, Sun Lianzhong stared at Qianling and his eyes bled, but he couldn't do anything about it, so he gritted his teeth and left.
I don’t know which god blessed me, but Wu Zetian’s tomb has been brought all the way to this day without any illegal excavation. I’m so lucky that I’m blindingly lucky.