In the northeast of Taogou Village, Xumu Township, Sanyuan County, Xianyang City, stands the Duan Tomb of Li Yan, Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty. It is about five kilometers away from the Xianling Mausoleum of Emperor Wuzong Li Yuan in the east and about 10 kilometers northwest from the Zhuang Tomb of Emperor Jingzong Li Zhan. 6 kilometers. This place is located to the west of Xumuyuan, with an altitude of about 540 meters. To the south is a cliff 1,500 meters away, with a flat river and a wide view——
On August 6, 1956, Tang Duan Tomb was announced as the No. 1 mausoleum by the Shaanxi Provincial People's Committee. It was designated as a provincial key cultural relics protection unit; on June 25, 2001, it was announced as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council. On August 19, 2018, I operated my DJI Phantom 4 drone to take aerial photography of the Shinto and tombs of Duanling.
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The cemetery of Duanling is slightly square, about 540 meters long from east to west and 590 meters wide from north to south. There is a gate on each side of the cemetery. There is a shrine outside the south gate, which is about 250 meters long. There are numerous stone carvings symmetrically distributed on both sides, including Huabiao, winged horses, ostriches and stone figures. Among them, the stone ostrich was moved to the Xi'an Forest of Steles Museum.
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The height of the stone figures is nearly three meters. There were originally three pairs of six figures in a group, but now only four are left. There are three stone figures in the east column, which are civil servants holding wat tablets; there is only one stone figure in the west column, which is a military officer holding a sword. On the night of February 23, 1996, the heads of these stone figures were stolen, and their whereabouts are still unknown.
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Duanling is a mausoleum made of mounds of earth, with an overturned bucket-shaped appearance. The tomb is about 15 meters high and is located in the center of the cemetery. The bottom of the tomb is slightly square, 58 meters long from east to west, 60 meters long from north to south, and the circumference of the bottom is about 360 meters. Today, a large number of cypress trees are planted on the tomb, which looks like a huge bonsai when viewed from the air!
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Li Yan (814-846), Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty, was the fifth son of Emperor Mu Zong Li Heng and the younger brother of Emperor Wenzong Li Ang. On the fourth day of the first month of the fifth year of Kaicheng (840), Emperor Wenzong died and Li Yan ascended the throne at the age of 27. The following year, the reign name was changed to "Huichang".
During Wu Zong's reign, the most important thing was to "exterminate the Buddha", which was known in history as the "Huichang Dharma Difficulty". It is compared with the extermination of Buddhism during the reigns of Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and Shizong of the Later Zhou Dynasty, and is collectively known as "Three Martial Arts and One Sect Extermination of Buddha". ?
In the process of Wu Zong's large-scale "extermination of Buddhism", a group of people demolished more than 4,600 temples, confiscated tens of millions of hectares of fertile land in the temples, forced more than 260,000 monks and nuns to return to secular life, and also forced 3,000 people from other sects to The rest returned to secular life. "Wuzong's extermination of Buddhism" dealt a heavy blow to the temple economy, increased the government's taxpayer population, and expanded the country's economic sources. ?
When Emperor Wu Zong was "destroying Buddhism", he advocated Taoism, reused alchemists, and took large amounts of elixirs in the hope of immortality. Later, he was poisoned by taking "golden elixir" and became moody and silent for ten days. On March 23, the sixth year of Huichang (April 22, 846), Wu Zong died of illness in the inner hall of the Daming Palace at the age of 33; on August 3 (August 28), he was buried in Duanling.