Qianling Mausoleum

Qianling mausoleum is a unique tomb in the world where two emperors of two dynasties and a couple of emperors are buried together. It buries Li Zhi, the third emperor of Tang Dynasty, and Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The Qianling mausoleum is magnificent. What is particularly striking about the Qianling mausoleum is that on both sides of the Shinto outside the Zhuque gate, there are two groups of stone figures with the same size as real people. They are arranged in front of the mausoleum in a neat and respectful manner. They stand side by side with their hands arched forward. They are modest, as if they were lining up to welcome the arrival of the emperor. The world-famous wordless stele of Empress Wu also stands on the east side of Sima road outside the Zhuque gate. This wordless stele, carefully designed and set up by Empress Wu Zetian, is remarkable for its exquisite carving art among the stone carvings in the whole Qianling mausoleum.

Qianling Mausoleum

Qianling mausoleum, located on Liangshan, 6km north of Qianxian County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, is the joint Tomb of Li Zhi and Wu Zetian of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty, covering an area of 40 square kilometers.

The Qianling mausoleum was built in the first year of guangzhai (684) and the second year of Shenlong (706). The mausoleum was built on the basis of mountains. The mausoleum area imitated the capital Chang'an city construction system. In addition to the main tomb, there are 17 small tombs with other royal members and meritorious officials.

Qianling mausoleum is the best preserved mausoleum among the eighteen mausoleums of the Tang Dynasty, and it is also the only mausoleum not stolen. On March 4, 1961, the Qianling mausoleum was announced by the State Council as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

geographical position

Qianling mausoleum is one of the eighteen mausoleums of Tang Dynasty in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province. It is located on Liangshan Mountain, 6 kilometers north of Qianxian County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province.

Liangshan is a cone-shaped limestone mountain with three peaks. The north peak is the highest with an altitude of 1047.9 meters. Ganhe River surrounds the East and desert water surrounds the West. Xuangong palace of Qianling is located on the north peak. In the south of Liang Dynasty, the two peaks are relatively low, facing each other from east to west, with Sima Dao in the middle. Therefore, the two peaks are named "Rufeng".

Historical evolution

In the first year of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty (683), Wu Zetian appointed Wei Daijia, the Minister of the Ministry of official, to be in charge of the Qianling mausoleum project. In August of the next year, Li Zhi was buried, and then the Qianling mausoleum project continued. In May, 706, Emperor Zhongzong of the Tang Dynasty, Li Xian ordered Wu Zetian to be buried in the tomb. A year earlier, Tang Zhongzong also pardoned the royal families who were persecuted to death because of political problems during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, and buried them again, including Princess Li Xianhui of Yongtai, Prince Li chongrun of Yide and Prince Li Xian of Zhanghuai. In addition, in the second year of Shenlong (706), additional tombs were built for Li Sujie, King Xu, Li Shangjin, King Ze, and Li Xiayu, Princess Yiyang.

According to Tang Huiyao, in 798, 378 houses were built when the Qianling mausoleum was repaired.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the rebellion of Huangchao happened. Huangchao used 400000 troops to dig Qianling mausoleum. However, a ditch more than 40 meters deep was dug out, and the entrance of the tomb was not found. So he had to give up. Up to now, there is still a deep ditch on the west side of the main peak of Liangshan, which is called "Huangchao ditch".

During the Five Dynasties, Wen Tao, the governor of Chongzhou in the Later Liang Dynasty, organized the army to excavate all the imperial tombs of the Tang Dynasty But the wind and rain of the Qianling mausoleum can't happen. " The Qianling mausoleum was spared because of its strong construction.

In the early years of the Republic of China, warlords engaged in scuffle, and it was common to excavate ancient tombs. Under the guise of protecting the Qianling mausoleum, sun Lianzhong, a general of the Kuomintang, led his subordinates to garrison the Qianling mausoleum, and used real guns and artillery exercises to cover a division's troops to rob the Qianling mausoleum. The soldiers bombed many places with explosives, but they couldn't find the entrance to the tomb.

In 1958, several local farmers blasted the stone and accidentally blasted out the entrance of the tomb. In February 1960, a "Qianling excavation committee" was set up in Shaanxi Province. After preliminary excavation, it was confirmed that the site of the explosion was an underground tomb. The excavation of the underground tomb of Qianling began on April 3. On May 12, all the stone masonry of the tomb road was disclosed. The excavation is the same as the record in Yan Shansi's biography of the old book of the Tang Dynasty that "the gate of the xuanque of the Qianling mausoleum is closed with stone, and the gap of the stone is fixed with cast iron".

Zhou Enlai, premier of the State Council, gave the "Qianling excavation plan" an instruction that "we can't finish the good work, this matter can be left for later generations to complete". After that, the State Council issued a notice again asking "don't dig before the national imperial mausoleum", and the excavation of Qianling stopped.

Many experts believe that the Qianling mausoleum is the only one of the eighteen mausoleums of the Tang Dynasty that has not been excavated because of its complete path and no new cave.

Mausoleum pattern

Main Mausoleum

The Qianling mausoleum was built in the heyday of the Tang Dynasty. The mausoleum was full of national strength, grand in scale and magnificent in architecture. In the early Tang Dynasty, Taizong Li Shimin initiated the burial system of "mausoleum based on mountains". The mausoleum was composed of buildings and sculptures, which were arranged on the mountains with the potential of "dragon pan and Phoenix Zhu".

The Qianling mausoleum developed and improved the shape of Zhaoling Mausoleum. The mausoleum was built in the pattern of Chang'an City, the capital of Tang Dynasty. It was divided into Imperial City, palace city and Waiguo City, with a north-south axis of 4.9 kilometers. According to the literature, the Qianling mausoleum "Zhou 80 Li" has two original walls, with four gates in the inner city: Qinglong gate in the East, Zhuque gate in the south, Baihu gate in the West and Xuanwu Gate in the north. According to archaeologists' investigation, the inner city of the cemetery is about square, with 1450 meters of North and south walls, 1582 meters of East wall and 1438 meters of west wall, covering a total area of 2.3 million square meters. There are many splendid buildings in the city, such as Xiandian, Pianfang, cloister, que Lou, di Renjie and so on.

underground palace

According to the investigation of the underground palace of Qianling by the experts of Xi'an Cultural Protection Center, combined with the excavated accompanying tombs of Qianling and relevant documents, the experts speculated that the Qianling tomb chamber was composed of the tomb passage, the cave, the patio, the corridor and the front, the middle and the back three chambers, or had ear chambers. In the middle room, there was a coffin bed to place the emperor's "Zi Palace", namely the coffin. The bottom of the "Zi Palace" was covered with moisture-proof and antiseptic materials, and was covered with treasures. The "Seven Star board" was added on it. On the board, there were mats, mattresses, clothes and "six jades" such as Lu, Zhang, Bi, Hu and Huang. A stone bed was set in the back room of the underground palace, on which were placed clothes, swords, qianweishi and the things the deceased liked before he died. There is a "treasure account" in the front room. There is a god seat in the account, and jade "Baoshou", "shice" and "AICE" are placed around the account. In addition, a large number of precious funerary objects were placed in the ear chambers on both sides of the cave and in the front and back of the stone gate of the corridor.

Cultural relics

On the monument of Shengji

Shushengji stele is located on the west side of Sima Road, opposite to Wuzi stele. It is written by Wu Zetian and his son Li Xian Shudan, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang Dynasty. It is a stele for praising the merits of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty. It is 8.65 meters away from Xique in the north. The stele of shushengji records Gao Zongwen's martial arts, which sets a precedent for setting up a stele of merit and virtue in front of the emperor's mausoleum. Before the Qianling mausoleum, there were no tombstones or epitaphs in the mausoleums of emperors. The Qianling mausoleum broke through this practice, so the memorial tablet has special historical value.

The tablet is square, 7.53 meters high, 1.86 meters wide on each side, and weighs about 89.6 tons. The top of the stele is a veranda style building with four Dharma protectors carved on the eaves. In the middle of the eaves, there are five sections of stele, which are made of five complete bluestone mortise and tenon. The lower part is the pedestal of the tablet, which is also connected by mortise and tenon. The tablet is carved with * and sea pomegranate stripe. The whole stele is composed of seven parts: the top, the body and the base. The head of the stele symbolizes the sun, the base symbolizes the moon, and the middle five sections symbolize the five elements of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. The ancients believed that everything was composed of seven parts: sun, moon, gold, wood, water, fire and earth. Therefore, Shusheng Ji stele is also known as "Qijie stele". Qijie means "Qiyao", so the establishment of Qijie stele means that Emperor Gaozong's cultural and military skills shine all over the world like the sun, the moon, the stars and the stars

. The full text of shushengji stele is engraved on the positive side of the stele. Except for the first and the fourth, the other three steles are engraved with characters on the front and the East and west sides. The inscription is in parallel style, with 46 lines and more than 5600 words in regular script. Due to the erosion of thousands of years of wind and rain and man-made destruction, there are only 1600 words left. According to the records, after the inscriptions were finished, the grooves of each character were filled with gold filings, which sparkled from a distance, so it was also called "gold stele". At the beginning, there was a stele Pavilion. The base of the stele pavilion was square, 18.80 meters from north to South and 18.85 meters from east to west. Now the stele pavilion has long disappeared.

Wordless stele

On the east side of Sima road outside the Zhuque gate stands the world-famous wordless stele, which is made from a complete boulder. It is 7.53 meters high, 2.1 meters wide, 1.49 meters thick, with a total weight of 98.8 tons, giving people a dignified, thick and integrated aesthetic feeling. There is no title on the forehead of the tablet. There is a dragon in the middle of the forehead, four on the left and four on the left. There are nine dragon in total, so it is also called "Jiulong tablet". On both sides of the monument, there are pictures of dragons rising, each with a line carved into a lifelike flying dragon. On the outside of the pedestal, there is also a line engraved picture of lions and horses (or the picture of lions and horses fighting each other), which is 2.14 meters long and 0.66 meters wide. The horse bends its hooves and bows its head, while the lion raises its head and glares. There are also many flower patterns on the stele, with fine and smooth lines.

Wuzi stele is located in the north of dongque, the south of wengzhong, and the west of shushengji stele. It is majestic, magnificent and exquisitely carved.

After the song and Jin Dynasties, there began to be inscriptions on the steles by tourists, which made the wordless steles become wordless steles. In the yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, many characters were gradually engraved on the stele, which not only naturally formed the "stele" to evaluate Wu Zetian in content, but also had five styles of Calligraphy: Zhen, Cao, Li, Zhuan and Xing

Chinese PinYin : Qian Ling