It should be the mausoleum of the Empress Dowager Cixi
On October 22, the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu, a woman who had controlled the Qing Dynasty for forty-eight years left behind a devastated Confucius and Jiangshan Sheji, who suffered internal and external troubles, left this world at the age of seventy-four. She is the Empress Dowager Cixi who has all the power in the world and is the only one who is supreme. Cixi, the uncrowned empress in modern Chinese history, lowered the curtain three times, decided the successor to the throne twice, and played with the power of the Qing Dynasty in her hands.
During her lifetime, Cixi was politically powerful and enjoyed all the wealth and honor in the world, and the mausoleum she built for herself was even more luxurious. Cixi's mausoleum is the most interesting sight among the Qing Dynasty Tombs complex. The Minglou has red walls and yellow tiles and eaves. Although it is separated from the Empress Dowager Ci'an Mausoleum by a mancao ditch and faces north and south in exactly the same scale and style, the internal decoration and detailed design are not the same. The historical records and legends about the construction of the mausoleum form an amazing "feminist" story. The Mausoleum of Cixi is located in the Eastern Tomb of the Qing Dynasty, east of the Dingling Tomb of Emperor Xianfeng.
After the death of Emperor Xianfeng, Cixi's biological son Zai Chun succeeded to the throne. Behind the six-year-old Emperor Tongzhi, Ci'an and Cixi also served as the empress dowagers of the East and West. Five years after Tongzhi, the two empress dowagers chose Botuo Valley and Puxiang Valley, the geomantic treasures of Dongling, to build the mausoleum. Since there was no precedent for two empress dowagers to build a mausoleum together in the 200-year history of the Qing Dynasty, how to build the mausoleum became a mystery. It was difficult to build two tombs without any rules and regulations. After the minister in charge of the construction proposed to be buried in the same mausoleum (coffins and coffins side by side without distinction of rank), or the proposal of officials from two places in one mausoleum was rejected by Cixi, he finally implemented the construction of two mausoleums. According to the plan, the funds for building the mausoleum will be solved by increasing taxes. The construction of these two mausoleums started at the same time in August of the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873) and were completed at the same time in 1879. Ci'an Mausoleum is located in the west and Cixi Mausoleum is located in the east. The construction scale of the two mausoleums is roughly the same, but Ci'an's mausoleum used 2.6 million taels of silver, while Cixi only used 2.27 million taels. At that time, although the empress dowagers of the two palaces were in power together. But Ci'an's status was higher than that of Cixi. Cixi is a competitive woman, how can she be willing to be second to others? In fact, it is the best among all the queen's tombs, but Cixi was not satisfied with it. After Ci'an's death, the Empress Dowager Xi took over all the power. Taking advantage of the water seepage in her mausoleum in 1895, she ordered the three main halls to be demolished and rebuilt. The entire project lasted 13 years and cost a lot of money. It was not completed until Cixi's death. Although the system of the mausoleum has been finalized, Lafayette not only found new ways in the scale and style of the mausoleum, but also spent all his money on interior decoration and architectural details, making the rebuilt Cixi Mausoleum the most beautiful in the Qing Dynasty. A luxurious and unique royal mausoleum.
The rebuilt Cixi Mausoleum ranks among the tombs of the Ming and Qing emperors for its exquisite materials, superb craftsmanship, and unique decoration. It can be called the "three unique features" of Cixi Mausoleum.
One of a kind, the materials used are exquisite. When you step into the Long'en Gate of Cixi Mausoleum, you will immediately see the unique reddish-brown door and window rhombuses and beams, squares and brackets, which are integrated into one, giving people a pure and pleasing feeling. At first glance, it is not as gorgeous as the red lacquered beams and columns commonly seen in the palace. Only when you look closely can you find that the wood texture is fine and the colors are elegant. This is a precious yellow rosewood, mostly produced in Hainan Island. After visiting various buildings, only the Mausoleum of Cixi was built using this wood. Among the 64 pillars in the three halls, except for the 7-meter-high golden pillar and the middle pillar of the Longen Hall, which are boxes, the rest are single straight logs with a diameter of 1 meter and a height of 3.65 meters. These precious materials constitute the exquisite wood of Cixi Mausoleum. According to Qing historical records, the amount of leaf gold used in the three main halls alone amounted to more than 4,592 taels. Although this authentic and magnificent piece of gold has been greedily looted by tomb robbers, the luxurious remnants and fragments of the "golden treasure" can still be seen today. As for the wood, it is enough to make people stunned. The beams in the three main halls are all made of top-grade huanghuali wood. It is said that this kind of hard wood and fine-grained wood is now an endangered species. Its price is measured in pounds. It can be said that every inch of wood is worth every inch of gold; and Cixi's coffin was made of extremely precious golden nanmu.
Second, superb craftsmanship. The three halls of Cixi's Mausoleum are decorated with colorful paintings on beams and squares inside and outside, all of which are gilded. The 64 pillars in the three halls are completely decorated with gold plating, which is more gorgeous than the 6 gold pillars in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City in Beijing. On the 30 brick walls inside and outside the three halls and within an area of ??228 square meters, there are carvings such as "Five Blessings Holding Longevity", "Length of Ribbon", "Ten Thousand Words Endless", etc., and red and gold powder are sprinkled on the bricks. Make it look more resplendent. The luxury and beauty of gold jewelry are unparalleled.
Three unique features, unique decoration.
To show that women are in power, the "phoenix leading to the dragon" pattern is carved on the stone railings around Long'en Hall. On the 3.18-meter-long and 1.6-meter-wide step stone in the center of the hall, a dragon and a phoenix are carved: the red phoenix spreads its wings in the air, passes through the clouds and bends down; the dragon emerges from the water, bends its body, and soars into the air with its head raised upward. The phoenix attracts the dragon and plays with the fire beads. The "phoenix leading to the dragon" pattern is also carefully carved on the 69 white railings around Long'en Hall. Especially the 76 pillars between the railings are the most unique. Among the stone pillars built by the royal family, the "dragon and phoenix pillars" are the highest level. Most of them are arranged with a dragon and a phoenix alternately on the top of the pillars. The platform pillars of Cixi's Mausoleum are even more unusual. They are simply carved with phoenixes flying through the clouds, with a complacent expression. This is a group of pairs of "phoenix leading to dragon" patterns. The entire railing is carved with a total of 240 phoenixes and 308 dragons. Carvings with meanings like this are rare in the world. How can we not call this a masterpiece! This unique "one phoenix pressing two dragons" shape from the royal family echoes the pattern of a dragon chasing a phoenix on the stone railing, which together strengthens and publicizes the gender implications of imperial power; the carvings on the dragon and phoenix stones in front of the palace are even more Stone carving treasures. Its composition breaks the traditional pattern of dragons and phoenixes side by side, showing a novel and unique pattern of phoenix on top and dragon on the bottom. In addition, the high relief and openwork create a lifelike three-dimensional sense and the momentum of the phoenix dancing and the dragon flying, emphasizing the gender of the supreme imperial power. Extreme.
The "Three Wonders" of Cixi's Mausoleum interpret an extremely luxurious "feminist" story. The word "feminism" naturally encompasses not women's "rights" in the sense of the feminist revolution, but the highest "power" of feudal rule. As early as the late Qing Dynasty, a woman named He Zhen denied the concept of women's identity and conducted a class-theoretical examination of women's social gender. In her view, equality between men and women is not simply that men do not suppress women's gender equality, but that men do not suppress women's gender equality. Social and class equality where “everyone is equal”. Victoria in the UK, Empress Lu, Wu Zetian and Cixi in China were all women who held power, but they did not fundamentally change the society where men and women are unequal. This shows that a small number of women hold power, which is very different from a small number of men holding power, and cannot bring about real equality between men and women. To achieve equality, we must first subvert the "rule of man" and "make the world free of controlled women and free of controlled men." In this way, the one phoenix suppressing two dragons in the Cixi Mausoleum, whether the phoenix is ??on top or in front, or the dragon is below or behind, is by no means what we usually call a "feminist" symbol referring to women's power.
The reconstruction project of Cixi’s Mausoleum lasted for thirteen years and was not completed until her death. The rebuilt Long'en Hall and the East and West Side Halls rank first among the Qing Dynasty empress' mausoleums in terms of precious building materials, exquisite craftsmanship, and luxurious decoration. Even compared with the imperial mausoleums of the Qing Dynasty, some imperial mausoleums are much inferior to her. The luxury of her funeral objects is also jaw-dropping and astonishing. Cixi's funerary objects are divided into two parts: the treasures placed in the golden well in the tomb during her lifetime and the funerary treasures when she was buried.
After Cixi's death, she gathered in the coffin the rare treasures she had plundered throughout her life. According to the Qing Palace archives "Chronicle of the Ascension of the Empress Dowager Daxing", Cixi put six batches of treasures into the golden well during her lifetime. And how many treasures were buried with him? His confidant eunuch Li Lianying personally participated in the ceremony of burying the treasure in Cixi's coffin. According to the "Notes of Aiyuexuan" written by him and his nephew: Before Cixi's body was placed in the coffin, three layers of gold-wire beaded brocade mattresses and a layer of pearls were laid on the bottom of the coffin, which was one foot thick. Cixi's corpse is placed among lotus leaves and lotus flowers. On the head is a green lotus leaf, which is full of green and translucent, and extremely delicate. The veins on the leaves are not carved, but are all grown naturally; at the feet are pink tourmaline lotus flowers. Wearing a pearl phoenix crown on his head, the largest pearl on the crown weighs four taels as big as a chicken egg and is worth ten million taels of silver. It is a rare treasure in the world. Wearing a gold silk beaded and colorful embroidered gown. The quilt she was wearing was covered with a large peony flower made of piles of pearls, and the bracelet was composed of a large chrysanthemum and six small plum blossoms inlaid with diamonds. Beside him are twenty-seven Buddha statues carved in gold, ruby, jade and green. There are two emerald watermelon, muskmelon and cabbage on both sides of the foot. The emerald watermelon has green skin, red flesh, black seeds and white silk; one emerald melon has green skin, white seeds and yellow flesh, and the other has white skin, yellow seeds and pink flesh; the two emerald cabbages, both It is a green leaf with a white heart. There is a green grasshopper lying on the heart of the vegetable, and two yellow wasps are parked next to the leaf. To the left of Cixi's body, there is a lotus made of jade. The three segments are from the jade lotus root, with natural gray mud. Green lotus leaves sprout from the segments, pink lotuses bloom, and there is a black jade water chestnut. On the right side of the body, there is a branch of jade-carved red coral tree, with a branch of flat peach with green roots, green leaves and red fruits on it, and a kingfisher perched on the top of the tree. There are also more than 200 peaches, plums, apricots and dates made of precious stones.
A jade lotus is placed on the left side of the body, and a jade carved coral tree is placed on the right side of the body. In addition, there are eight jade horses and eighteen jade arhats, totaling more than 700 pieces. After the burial, four liters of pearls and 2,200 pieces of red and sapphires were poured in to fill the gap in the coffin. Among the four liters of pearls, there were 500 eight-point pearls, one thousand two-point pearls, and two thousand two hundred three-point pearls. grains; the gems and pearls are worth approximately 2,230,000 taels of silver. According to the "Books of the House of Internal Affairs", the number and types of jewelry and jades buried in the coffins are extremely amazing, almost a "complete collection of jewelry and jades". These treasures are all carved from natural materials. The selection of materials alone is extremely rare, not to mention the ingenuity of conception and the ingenuity of carving. According to estimates by people at the time, the value of this coffin of rare treasures, excluding the private donations from the royal relatives, princes and ministers, and only the royal burial objects included in the account, was worth fifty million taels of silver! As for the artistic value of these treasures, it is even more immeasurable and can be described as priceless. The coffin of the Empress Dowager Cixi has so many treasures and is so valuable that it can be called the most valuable in the world.
In 1928, Sun Dianying, commander of the 12th Army of the National Revolutionary Army stationed near the Dongling Tomb of Qing Dynasty in Zunhua, Hebei Province, became interested in Dongling Tomb and sent division commander Tan Wenjiang to find out the situation. Through the mouth of an eunuch who had served Cixi, Tan Wenjiang learned that there were a large number of rare treasures buried in Cixi's tomb in the Dingdong Mausoleum, and copied the "Aiyuexuan Notes" from this eunuch. "Treasure Map of Cixi's Burial Treasure" and "After Xiao Qin was buried, she was given a copy of the clothes and appreciated the clothes left behind", etc. After finding out the situation, Tan Wenjiang proposed to Sun Dianying the idea of ??excavation of Cixi's Mausoleum. On July 1, 1928, Sun Dianying ordered Tanwenjiang to strictly guard all the arteries of Dongling to prevent others from entering. After moving two brigades of troops into the vicinity of Dongling, he began to explore the entrance to the underground palace, and planned to evacuate Dongling on the grounds of a change of defense after the tomb robbery was completed, and put the blame on the bandits. After some twists and turns, the soldiers who robbed the tomb found the entrance to Cixi's underground palace. Entering the ancient cave door from the Ming Tower, at the end of the corridor is a wall made of cast steel bars. The entrance to the underground palace is under this "King Kong Wall". From July 4th to July 10th, the sound of gunfire continued to be heard from Dongling. The local people thought it was a war and no one dared to go out. But what they didn't expect was that the two tombs had been blown apart. The tomb robbers who entered Cixi's underground palace did not expect that entering the main tomb chamber would be very smooth, and they would see the coffin and buried treasures without any trouble. The main tomb of Cixi is a stone chamber completely paved with white marble. In the center is a white marble platform, which is also the "treasure bed". On the stone platform, there is a huge coffin. On the two stone piers on both sides, there are incense treasures and incense albums recording Cixi's posthumous title. How did the tomb robbers open Cixi's coffin? This used to be a mystery. It was not until many years later that a book called "Miscellaneous Memories of Shizaitang" revealed the memories of a company commander who was said to have participated in the robbery of the tomb, that the mystery was solved. According to the company commander's account, in order to pry open Cixi's inner coffin, the gleaming gold-lacquered outer coffin was hacked to pieces by bandit soldiers with swords and axes. After the bandits removed the chopped wood, they revealed a red-painted inner coffin. Fearing that knives and axes would damage the treasures inside the coffin, the officials ordered the bandit soldiers to carefully pry open the inner coffin with knives. "At that time, when the lid of the coffin was opened, the coffin was filled with glowing light. The soldiers each held a large flashlight and snatched the light away. Everyone was shocked. Looking down into the coffin, the Queen Mother's face was lifelike, and her fingers had more than an inch of white hair... Jewelry The large ones were taken away by the officers, and the small ones were put in the pockets of the soldiers. So the commander-in-chief ordered to remove the dragon robes and search for all the personal jewelry."