Caption about Xianling Mausoleum
Time:2021-04-22 source:Xianling mausoleum Author:Xianling mausoleum Click on:5691
Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Zhong xiang, welcome to Xian tomb. My name is XXX, a tour guide of Xian tomb. It’s my pleasure to be able to take you to the Xian tomb of Ming dynasty today. I’ll accompany you during your stay in Xian tomb. Now before we arrive at the first gate, let me make a brief introduction about Xian tomb.
The Ming Dynasty lasted 276 years. Royal tombs were built for 18 emperors. Xian tomb, is the twelfth tomb of Ming dynasty. And it is a multi-burial tomb for Emperor Jiajing’s parents. Xian tomb is a typical tomb for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It was built in the mid-16th century from 1519-1559. It takes almost 40 years to finish the construction. Xian tomb covers 183.15 hectares. It’s the biggest single mausoleum of tomb for the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. In 2000, it has been listed in the World Cultural Heritage list, becoming the pride of people all of China.
This is Chiyu Tablet, an edict stone tablet, after five hundred years, it still stands lofty. It was built in 1541. There was a pavilion which used to be a part of the tablet, but it was destroyed in a war in the late Ming dynasty. The main content on this tablet describes the total area of Xian tomb and names of people who worked in Xian tomb. This Chiyu tablet is very special due to its unusal direction. When Chinese people begin to build a house, we pay much attention on the direction of this house, due to the fact of Chinese traditional culture: Feng Shui. It is widely believed in China that it is auspicious when houses have the orientation to the South. Because China is in Northern Hemisphere, facing south is to face the sunshine and people will be lucky. But why this tablet is facing north? This is due to Jiajing’s sincere filial obedience. The capital of Ming Dynasty was in Beijing, so Emperor Jiajing needed to live in Beijing for the most of his life time, but his parent’s tomb is in Zhong xiang, so he can’t accompany his parents all the time. He ordered people to build this tablet which represented himself to keep guard his parents and express his filial piety. Therefore, this Chiyu Tablet changed the traditional architecture direction and faced the direction of the tomb.
Every dynasty in the ancient China advocated “elaborate funerals to express one’s filial piety.” That is, a large amount of financial and human resources were used to build tombs for deceased emperors. The mausoleum was a belief of feudal age, which represented a century’s political thoughts, moral opinions and aesthetic interest. At the same time, to build large tomb with the whole country’s resource also reflected the economic, scientific and technological and construction level, thus representing the highest level of funeral art and architecture of China. Xian tomb is one of the outstanding representatives.
Both sides stand the same stele called “Dismounting stele”. The function of it is to remind civil and military officials that they must get down from the horse or get off the sedan chair, and walk into the mausoleum hilly area to show the respect to the host of the tomb.
Please see our left hand, you can see a pond. Don’t underestimate that it is just a small pond, it plays a great role. In general, this pond is used for breading fish and beautifying the environment, but in this mausoleum, it is not. The pond in this mausoleum is to gather water and around the water, there was something called Reiki, which used to cultivate everything so as to bless the generations of the Ming dynasty. This stands for Chinese culture, Feng Shui. Because this pond is out of Xian tomb, so people called it Outer Memorial Pond. But there is another pond inside Xian tomb, called Inner Memorial Pond.
A moment ago we crossed the first gate, the New Red Gate, please see the front, you can see the same gate, Old Red Gate. Compared to the New Red Gate, this one is older. Two red gates were built at different times, the new red gate was built in 1539, and the old red gate built in 1524, but they have the same specifications. Both of them stand for the big features of Xian tomb. The function of them is to protect Xian tomb.
Please see the road we are walking, called Dragon-shaped sacred way. The middle stones like the Dragon’s back, on both sides of the pebbles, it looks like the dragon’s scale. Look at it from a distance, it looks like a dragon, with a length of 1368 meters, but we can only see part of it.
On our right side, you can see a beautiful wall, called Wai LuoWall. (此处的外罗城也可翻译成“Exterior Luocheng”,请根据自己的习惯选择).Its length is 3600 meters and it is around the tomb. If we look down from the sky, you will find it looks like a bottle which we usually hold. And the first gate is the bottle’s neck; we will walk from the bottle neck to the bottom. The construction style is very rare, in order to avoid external sense blunt, it can be said that Xianling is the first one to design this kind of architecture.
The front is the first Imperial River Bridge; there are five Imperial River Bridges in Xian tomb. The bridge in the middle is the highest, it is for the emperor; the rest bridges are relatively lower for officials. Social Hierarchy in the ancient China is very stern, every behavior has its standard. Nobody can cross the boundary. There is a 1688-meter-long river under the bridge, which is called Jiuqu River and it connects with the Outer Memorial Pond. It’s the drainage system made by common people. There are five Imperial river Bridges across the Jiuqu River, it means that the position of an emperor was supreme. Chinese people like the numbers 5 and 9, and they often use these two numbers together, which represents the emperor. Since it is the son of heaven, of course he had the wide power to stand for supremacy.
Please stop at the moment, you can look back the New and Old Red Gate, you can find that the two Red Gates are not in one vertical line, this is different from the Chinese traditional philosophical thoughts. Chinese people care about symmetry when they build a house, but why Xian tomb is not? This is due to the Dragon-shaped-sacred way of Xian tomb, so it is not straight but like the dragon, New and Old Red Gates are in the dragon’s tail, so the two Red Gates are not in one line.
In fact, the host of this tomb was not an emperor when he was alive, he was only one of the brothers of the emperor Xiaozong. When he died, he was endorsed as an emperor by his son Jiajing. Generally speaking, an emperor had many wives, so they could have many sons, but the throne is only one, how to do it? The only way is to give a noble title to them, and they were also given the land and high status. History is constantly changing, but also cycling, actually, this rule applies all over the world. When a dynasty perished, another dynasty replace it. So in the replacement of the old and new, it will be a war. War is ignominious, helpless and often inevitable, it make social losses. Obviously, Xian tomb is an example, in the late Ming Dynasty, there was a general named Li Zicheng by peasant revolution, they attacked and occupied Xian tomb and set fire to the buildings. All the wooden structure buildings were completely burnt out into dust and ashes. Please see the buildings, called offerings Men’t Stele. The roof was burn up in the war, but it was rebuilt in 2010. The main purpose to build this magnificent structure is to protect this stele. The main contents of this tablet mainly records merits and virtues of Zhu Youyuan and advocates good deed. This animal is Bixi, the eighth son of the dragon. According to Chinese traditional culture, the dragon King had nine sons, each son has different special skill. Bixi is good at bearing heavy things, so people usually put Bixi to bear stele in the tomb or temple. Please see these brick which are protected by glass, these brick named “Golden Brick”, but they were not made by gold, because it’s money-consuming. It was fired by special soil, and it takes two years to make one piece of this brick. If we knock it lightly, it can produce clear and melodious sounds, so we call it “Golden Brick”. Please see the corner, long time ago, there were expensive Jinsinanmu were stolen. This tree species is distinctive. It takes eighty years to this tree to grow into a shape and after 100 years of growth, it can be used to build houses. Unfortunately, we can’t see them now. We can see some bricks on the wall, the words on bricks were written in Ming Dynasty, which described where these bricks came from, who took charge of them. The Emperor can check the detailed information of the project, whether it was qualified or not, if not, the government can affix the responsibility on somebody. In addition, we can obtain historical information from this, like it proves that it was built at that time. Everyone knows that in ancient China, transportation was not convenient, so how did they transport those heavy building materials to Xian tomb? On the basis of some historical documents, according to the relevant literature records, we know that they had adopted a “land boat to transport”. Firstly, they made a wooden boat to hold stones, bricks and materials, then they dig many wells on the road. Next, they put well water on the road when winter came, so it would be frozen and slippery. Finally, they put the wooden boat on the ice, and went boating to Xian tomb. So we really have to admire the intelligence of their nameless common people.
The front is a series of stone sculptures, which are animals and humans, each pair of stone animals represent a different meaning. These two pillars are the symbol, are a sign that is equivalent to the position point specific location of buildings. The first couple is lions. The lion is the king of beasts. In China, lion is supposed to drive away evils, and to protect our house. The second couple is Xiezhi. This animal is imagined by people, it doesn’t exist in the real world. It represents equity and justice. It was said that if a bad person goes across from it, he would be eaten by Xiezhi, only the good person can go across it. The next are camels and elephants. They represent the peace and the wide land of our country. Because camel is from the north of China, elephant is from south. The north and the south symbolize a vast land area. You can see two couples of Qilin. It represents kindness and justice. In fact, the male Qilin is called Qi, the female Lin named Lin. This Qilin’s head was weathering to ashes, how pity it is. That is the horse, horse is indispensable in a war. And emperor usually sat at the horse’s back to fight a battle. When the emperor went across, the horse must go down its knees and when emperor went by, it could go up. Actually, this is a series of actions, which showed the supreme position of an emperor. Here are the Army Commander and Civil Officials. Firstly, please look at the two couples of Army Commander, they look the same, but not, we should notice their differences. We can see their swords; you can find the first one’s sword is longer than second one’s. The longer the sword, the lower the official position, vice versa. Please see civil officials, you must see their hats; higher hats mean lower position, and lower hats mean higher position.
This is Lingxing gate, also called Dragon-phoenix Gate, as the support of stone sculptures. The gate is exquisitely designed. It’s a six-pillar-three-opening-four-arch archway. On each base stands a roaring ancient animal. The gate is equivalent to Heaven Gate, shows when emperor stride over the gate, his soul would get to the heaven. Generally speaking, this style gate only can be built in imperial palaces and temples, and represents the highest level of gate. Common people think it is the boundary line of the world and the heaven.
Please look at the front bridge, this is the highest bridge in Xian tomb called “Bridge to the heaven”. Because emperor is the son of heaven, when he died, he might come back to the heaven. This expresses Chinese traditional culture, and a sort of view of life and death.
The construction of mausoleum is not accidental, but inevitable. Everyone has a story. Actually, every building also has a story behind it. These stories bring some vitality and a sense of reality for the architecture. At the same time, they can help still buildings with noble soul. Obvious, Xian tomb is not an exception, it was the outcome of a major event “Ritual Dispute” which occurred in the Mid-Ming Dynasty. The construction of Xian tomb was related to the social, politics thoughts. In 1521(16th year of emperor Zhengde of the Ming Dynasty), Emperor Wuzong died, as he had no son, empress Dowager Cishou and senior Grand secretary Yang Tinghe decided to follow the ancestral doctrine of “passing the throne down to brother”. So they fabricated Emperor Wuzong’s will to let the host of tomb’s eldest son Zhu Houcong, namely Jiajing emperor to inherit the throne. Jiajing was the younger male cousin of emperor Wuzong. According to feudal rites, Jiajing should be adopted by Emperor Xiaozong who was emperor Wuzong’s father. But Jiajing refused to do so. Imitating Zhu Yuanzhang who endorsed his ancestor as the emperor, Jiajing also endorsed his deceased father as an emperor. His move was strongly objected by his ministers. Minister of Rites Mao Cheng and Grand secretary Yang Tinghe called a meeting of more than 60 officials to appeal to the emperor to voice their objection. But a small number of officials headed by Zhangcong flattered Emperor Jiajing and tried to find ritual evidence to support him. The two sides had a severe quarrel. In 1524(third year of emperor Jiajing’s reign), Jiajing notified the Ministry of Rites of the endorsement of emperor ship of his deceased father. The oppositions called a gathering of more than 200 officials, and they kneeled at the Zuoshun Gate from morning to night to protest against the Emperor’s decision. The emperor ordered them to retreat several times. But these officials refused to leave. Jiajing burst into anger. He had the imperial bodyguards arrest and whipped the officials. Seventeen of the officials were whipped to death. All of these officials were driven out of the court and received the penalty of imprisonment, wage out, demotion and exiling. This dispute lasted for three years, which was stopped by military force. Later, Jiajing established his ritual system according to his own will. This event was called “ritual dispute”. The construction of Xian tomb was the evidence of this event.
Please look there, you can see a relic, which is the office for directorate for imperial temples. But now you can only see the hall of office rate. It was also destroyed in the war. In Ming Dynasty, this wooden structure house was made for the people who lived and guarded the tomb and cleaned the mausoleum, planted trees and so on. Now please see front, this is also the Dragon-shaped sacred way. As we have said, the New and old Red Gate are in the dragon’s tail, and this way is the dragon’s neck. Look from a distance, it is breathtaking and vivid.
This is the last bridge of Xian tomb. It is the most valued bridge of Xian tomb, which was made by white marble. This column head which like a peach is twenty-four solar Terms of column, there are twenty-four lines on it and they represent twenty-four solar terms. You can understand that Chinese culture is really extensive and profound.
That is the Inner Memorial Pong. It’s is a circular type, 33m in diameter, 4 meters deep, and it can not only hide the wind to gather gas together, but also a fire-fighting pool. Don’t look down on this small pond. It keeps the water level the same all the time. It’s very miraculous. Meanwhile, it reflects Chinese traditional culture Feng Shui and the theory of YIN and YANG and five elements.
Do you know why this city named “Zhong xiang”? It was said that name was given by Emperor Jiajing. At that time, some ministers in order to suck up to emperor, they often told emperor Jiajing that his hometown was a beautiful and quiet town, and often happened many propitious sign. When Jiajing heard this, he burst with joy, so gave the name “Zhongxiang”, means the good place with many auspicious things.
That is the exquisite glazed ceramic flower screen. Although it experienced five hundred years of wind and rain baptism, it is still glamorous and bright, and more beautiful than before. Sometimes ruins could not affect the value of buildings. On the contrary, it can add charm to the cultural relics. On the wall, the flower is Qionghua, In general, the main of flowers are petal, but Qionghua is different. Its leaves are major, petal set off by contrast. This means less flowers and rich leaves, and the country will be strong and prosperous. You can see the deletion of the wall, in fact, there was a vase there. But the vase and flowers were lost in war.
There was a wooden structure gate called Lin’en Gate. It was burned in the war, only left substrate. Please see this stone carving, it is very special. According to Chinese traditional customs, this dragon and phoenix stone must put the dragon up， and phoenix down. Because dragon represents male, phoenix represents female. In ancient China, people think man was more important than woman. But Xian tomb is always special, look it, you can see phoenix’s head is higher than the dragon’s. This is to improve the position of Jiajing’s mother, which is to show his filial piety.
The both sides are also the wooden structure house, destroyed in the war. That is the burner, local people like burning incense and making a vow to the god to pray for safeness and well-being.
This is the Lin’en Hall, it was built to sacrifice, namely offer sacrifice to ancestors. The pillars of this Hall were Nanmu, unfortunately, those precious Nanmu were stolen. Things always have two sides. Sometimes, you see buildings destroyed seriously, but if you see in another side, you can imagine that how glorious it was. Please see a row of dragon head in our right hand. They are also the son of dragon king namely “Chi shou”, it is good at spouting water, like our faucet at home.
There was also a gate which destroyed in war, called Gate of Burial Chamber. That is the stone Altar-piece, a symbolic credence. It is impossible that people come to burn incense every hour, so a symbolic censer was built to show the strong incense.
Does anyone know why this way is so steep? Because it force us to bend down when we across this road, and let us show respect to the emperor. So every building in Xian tomb has its own meaning. It’s not only a magnificent mausoleum, but also a treasury of Chinese culture and wisdom.
This road is also the old cultural relics. Although it experienced five hundred years of wind and rain baptism, it expresses primitive simplicity. So enormous stones make us commemorate common people’s hard work and creativity.
This also a Qionghua Glazed Screen Walls. But this wall was rebuilt in 2006. This wall is equivalent to screen, avoiding people can see the tomb directly when they get in this yard. Because this is a disrespectful behavior. The tomb is behind this Glazed screen wall, but there are two tombs in Xian tomb, now we can see a circle tomb, it is empty, the real tomb is behind it. Now please go up from here to see the real tomb.
Here is Square city and Memorial Tower. Its function is to protect this stele. Please see this stele, it’s a 4.69 meter-tall offerings stele of “tomb of Emperor Ruizong Xian of the Ming Dynasty”. This stele was destroyed in war, but these words fortunately preserved. Due to these words, we can have a strong evidence that Xian tomb is emperor’s mausoleum, so it could be a very successful evidence when we applied to be listed in the World Culture Heritage.
Now we can stand here to overlook the whole view of Xian tomb. Xian tomb is a typical Ming dynasty royal mausoleum, China’s traditional Feng Shui theory of geomancy was used in tomb’s layout. The surrounding mountains and water systems were considered to be the main parts of the tomb layout. Based on the principle of tombs need to be combined well with mountains and rivers, “embracing the Yang and standing against the Yin”, and “embracing the water and backed by the mountain”. The mountains on the left and right were used to support the mausoleum. A natural and highly harmonious environment was thus created in the mausoleum area. In the layout buildings, the designer made full use of the terraces in the mountain and pine forest to arrange overall planning. These architectural arrangements were designed in a good level-by level order, reminding people of feudal rites, as if being built by nature, the buildings immersed aimed the mountains and rivers, are a masterpiece combining architectural art and environmental aesthetics. We have a panoramic view, feeling the magnificent atmosphere. Look from a distance, we also can see clearly the vivid dragon-shaped sacred way. Now please follow me to see the most important character of Xian tomb, the double underground palaces of one mausoleum.
Everyone knows that the host of Xian tomb mausoleum was not a real emperor when he alive, he was endorsed by his son Jiajing emperor. After Zhu Youyuan endorsed as an emperor, the original tomb of him was later rebuilt according to the format of an emperor. In 1524 (third moth of three year of emperor Jiajing’s reign), the mausoleum was renamed “Xian tomb”. In 1527, Xian tomb began to reconstruct. In 1538, Jiajing’s mother died, as his mother said that she wanted to bury with his father when she was alive. Therefore, Jiajing planned to move Xian tomb to Beijing to bury his parents together. But the plan to move Xian tomb to Beijing has been objected by court officials. Jiajing was hesitant in carrying out the plan. After coming back from the trip to Dayu mountain of Beijing, he decided to move his mother’s coffin to Xian tomb. In the next year, he visited Xian tomb and ordered the construction of a new underground palace and a high brick-stone terrace, called Jade-terrace, to connect the old and the new precious citadels. An unprecedented and unique layout was thus formed in Ming Dynasty. If you see it from the sky, it looks like sports equipment “dumbbell”. It is a unique character of Xian tomb.
Now, you may be surprised and admire for the greatness of Xian tomb. Maybe you understand why Xian tomb can be listed to the World Heritage Cultural successfully.
Till now, our visit of Xian tomb is going to be over. We can say that this is a successful and enjoyable experience. Thank you again for coming. I wish you a pleasant journey. Have a nice day! Bye!
