The Ming Tombs (Yongling Tombs) are a famous tourist destination for archaeological remains in Beijing.
The Yongling Tomb of the Ming Dynasty is located at the southern foot of Yangcuiling. It is the burial mausoleum of Zhu Hou_, the eleventh emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the three queens Chen, Fang and Du.
Yongling was built in the fifteenth year after Emperor Sejong ascended the throne. It is the "Shou Palace" built during his reign. However, the site for the mausoleum was selected during the divination in the seventh year of Jiajing (1528) when Queen Chen passed away. At that time, Emperor Shizong ordered his assistant minister Zhang Cong and military official Luo Yongqing to select the site for Empress Chen's mausoleum. At the same time, he also secretly selected his own mausoleum.
Luo Yongqing was famous for his proficiency in Feng Shui during the Jiajing period. After he came to Tianshou Mountain, he looked at the mountain shape on the outside and the ground veins on the inside, and chose Acorn Ridge and Shibadao Ridge as two auspicious sites for Shizong. Subsequently, Shizong led his ministers and Qin Tianjian officials to inspect the two Kyrgyzstan lands selected by Luo Yongqing for him. After reading it, I felt that Shibadao Ridge had the best feng shui and decided to build the mausoleum there. But he was still uneasy, so he sent people to the Jiangxi area to find the descendants of famous Feng Shui masters Yang Junsong, Zeng Wendi, and Liao Sanchuan for another inspection. The last eighteen ridges were identified as the site where the mausoleum was built. Shizong thought the name of Shibadaoling Mountain was indecent, so he issued an edict to change its name to "Yangcuiling". On April 22, the fifteenth year of Jiajing (1636), the mausoleum construction began. Emperor Sejong personally presided over the ceremony to commemorate Changling, and Wuding Marquis Guo Xun and assistant minister Li Shi were ordered to prime minister the construction of the mountain tomb. Also started on this day were the repair projects of other Qiling Tombs, Changling Shinto Stones, and stone statues and protective stone platforms.
During the construction process, Emperor Shizong planned to build the mausoleum in accordance with the regulations of Changling. The regulations must be tightened to suppress the killing, and the robes and coffins will be read frequently." The ministers understood Shizong's words and sent the mausoleum design to Shizong for inspection. The scale was only slightly smaller than that of Changling, so he quickly obtained Shizong's approval. .
After about 7-11 years of operation, the construction of Yongling is generally completed. Compared with the former Qiling Tombs, the completed Yongling Tomb is indeed unique.
First of all, it is huge. In ancient times, the size of the cemetery depended on the rules of the cemetery's verandas, bright towers and treasure city. According to the records of the "Da Ming Huidian", the diameter of Yongling Baocheng is 81 feet. The En Hall has seven double eaves and nine side halls on the left and right. Its regulations are second only to Changling and surpass Xian, Jing, Yu and Mao. , Tai and Kang Liuling system. The width of its En facade is five rooms, which is equal to that of Changling. After that, only Dingling has the same design. In addition, besides the square courtyard and the treasure city of Yongling, there is a Wailuo city that does not exist in the previous seven tombs. Its structure is "large and powerful, and the stonework is meticulous and sophisticated, which is beyond the planning of Changling." Within Wailuo City, there are five divine kitchens on the left and five divine treasuries on the right. There are also long east-west streets modeled on the system of deep palaces and long alleys. "Illustrations of Imperial Tombs" once recorded the origin of this Wailuo City: "The Yongling Mausoleum is now completed, and it is extremely magnificent, which has never been seen in the Qiling Tombs. When the Emperor ascended Yang Cuiling, he asked Gongbu: 'This is how my mausoleum ends?'" Chen Canghuang replied: "There are still surrounding walls that have not been built yet." Therefore, the surrounding walls are thick and strong, and although they are not found in the Xiaoling Mausoleum, they were built after the Dingling Tomb." Of course, this passage comes from rumors. . Because according to the records in Volume 187 of "Records of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty", the Yongling mausoleum system drafted by Xia Yan and others at that time was based on Shizong's decree and considered the burial style of the imperial concubine and the cemetery system together. To be more precise, Emperor Sejong wanted to bury his concubines in his own cemetery (although not in a Xuan Palace), so Xia Yan and others designed Wailuo City to bury the concubines outside. Within Luocheng, the location of his burial is planned to be "outside Baoshan City, in front of Minglou", that is, outside the left and right palace walls in front of Minglou, with the left and right facing each other, in order. Later, although the tombs of Sejong's concubines were not built in Wailuo City according to the original plan, Wailuo City was built according to the original plan.
Yongling’s masonry-structured Minglou, the novel-shaped sacred monument, the unique design of the Baocheng platform, and the battlements made of colorful stones on the Baocheng wall, _En Palace, _En Gate The royal road stone carvings with the pattern of "dragon and phoenix playing with pearls" were also not found in other tombs before. These practices were later followed by Dingling.
Due to the exquisite materials and grand regulations of Yongling Mausoleum, the "Changping Prefecture Chronicles" of Longqing of the Ming Dynasty said that "it has heavy gates, grand and deep palaces, towering buildings, green pines and cypresses, just like a fairy palace. Its regulations It is accurate to Changling, but it is even more magnificent and exquisite." The construction of Yongling cost a lot of money from the treasury. According to the "Records of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty", there were 40,000 officers and soldiers from the three battalions participating in the construction of Yongling Tomb at that time. In addition, in the first month of the 16th year of Jiajing (1537), the construction of the Xinxing Palace and the Shengji Pavilion in the mausoleum area, as well as the imperial palace The monthly cost of internal and external projects is no less than 300,000 taels. However, at that time, the Ministry of Industry had only one million taels of silver in its treasury, and it was very difficult to fund the construction of the mausoleum. For this reason, Sejong had no choice but to adopt the opinions of his ministers and use the method of collecting large amounts of money to support the mausoleum workers.
In the 50th to 52nd years of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1785-1787), when the imperial court renovated the Ming Tombs, the Yongling Tombs were also renovated. At that time, although the Enmen and Endian of Yongling Mausoleum were "completely damaged by the rafters, and the rafters, purlins, rafters and mats were also in decay", due to the majestic materials and fine construction used when they were first built, their large wooden frames were still intact. No major damage. The ministers in charge of repairing the tombs, Jin Jian (Ministry of Industry), Cao Wenqian (Minister of Household Affairs) and others, should have suggested repairing the tombs according to the original system. However, due to the large scope of repairs to the Ming Tombs, the nanmu had been "exhausted" by the Qianlong period. , if "renovation continues in the old style, it will be more difficult to purchase large wood for Changling and Yongling". After discussion, a suggestion was made to demolish the large and small ones: "It is planned to demolish the Xiangdian Hall of Yongling and other places." First, all the large pillars and timbers of the Changling Mausoleum were evenly matched. The Yongling Palace Gate and the Xiang Hall were then dismantled and matched with the timbers of the two verandas, and five Xiang Halls and three Palace Gates were built according to the regulations of each mausoleum." They believe that "with such a transfer, not only the scale of Changling can be maintained as it was before, but also the Yongling palace can be repaired and neatly maintained like all the other tombs, and the view will be grand and spacious." This suggestion seems to be incompatible with the principle of "repairing the old buildings as before" today, but at that time, this was the only way to take it, because Emperor Qianlong ordered the repair of the Ming Tombs in order to soften the relationship between the Han and Manchu tribes. , in order to maintain the rule of the Qing Dynasty, its political purpose is at the forefront. As long as the political purpose is achieved, it does not matter whether the cemetery conforms to the original system. Implementing this suggestion will reduce the cost of repairing the mausoleum. Therefore, the memorial of Jin Jian and others was presented to the palace, and Emperor Qianlong quickly completed it. Therefore, the _Enmen and _Endian of Yongling were all built under reduced regulations: the _Endian was composed of seven rooms in width (50.65 meters in width) and five rooms in depth (27.72 meters in depth). It has been reduced to five rooms in width (25.91 meters in width) and three rooms in depth (14.4 meters in depth). The roof of the hall has been renovated from double eaves to single eaves and mountain style; 26.26 meters) and two rooms in depth (11.26 meters in depth), it was reduced to three rooms in width (12.3 meters in width) and three rooms in depth (8.7 meters in depth). The shape of the top of the mountain with a single eaves remains unchanged.
During the Republic of China, the _En Palace and _En Gate rebuilt during the Qianlong period collapsed one after another. To this day, the pillar foundation stones for the reconstruction of the back door and hall are still intact on the platform foundation. Not much of the pillar foundation stones of the gates and halls of the Ming Dynasty remain, but it can be seen that their size is significantly larger than the pillar foundation stones after reconstruction. Among them, the diameter of the existing Ming Dynasty double eaves, gold pillars, pillars, drums and mirrors in Endian is 1.2 meters, which is only 2 centimeters less than that of Changling. It can be imagined that the nanmu pillars of Yongling and Endian in the Ming Dynasty were also very thick. gt;