Dingling Museum

Dingling Museum

Located at the foot of Dayu mountain, 40 kilometers north of Beijing, Dingling museum is a site museum. It was built in the 12th-18th year of Wanli (1584-1590 A.D.), covering an area of 80000 square meters. It is the joint Tomb of Emperor Zhu Yijun, empress Xiaoduan and empress Xiaojing.

Development history

In 1956, with the approval of the State Council, the excavation of Dingling began. In 1957, the underground palace was opened, and nearly 3000 cultural relics were unearthed. On September 30, 1959, a museum was built at the original site of Dingling. Comrade Guo Moruo inscribed the name of the museum as "Dingling Museum", which was officially opened to the public on October 1, 1959. Dingling is the most famous imperial mausoleum in China. It is the treasure of the splendid culture of the Chinese nation. It has become a world-famous tourist attraction.

Dingling is the joint Tomb of Wanli emperor, the 13th emperor of Ming Dynasty, and two empresses. Wanli emperor was only 10 years old when he was on the throne. He has been in power for 48 years and is the longest emperor in Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of the administration, the reform measures were carried out, and the economy was prosperous; at the middle and late stage, the government was lazy in the government, and did not regard the government all the year round, which led to the increasing corruption of the government. The Dingling mausoleum was built as early as before the death of Emperor Wanli. It took six years to complete and cost eight million taels of silver. When the mausoleum was built, Emperor Wanli was only 28 years old. It was not officially opened until 1620. The mausoleum was idle for 30 years. Nowadays, Dingling has become one of the most famous tourist spots in Beijing, attracting millions of tourists every year. People are deeply impressed by this ancient Chinese imperial mausoleum and feel the legend of a generation of emperors.

In the mid-1950s, an archaeological project tried to unravel all the secrets of the Ming Tombs, but in the end, only the underground palace of one mausoleum was successfully opened, which was the first imperial mausoleum opened by archaeologists in China - Dingling mausoleum.

Zhu Di, the emperor of Yongle in Ming Dynasty, personally selected the site of the mausoleum and named it Tianshou mountain. Since then, a total of 13 Ming emperors, including Zhu Di, have built mausoleums here. The whole mausoleum area is even larger than the area of Beijing city of Ming Dynasty at that time The general layout of the Ming Tombs is like a big tree. Each mausoleum is like a branch. The trunk of the tree is the Shinto leading to the mausoleum. Shinto is the only way to enter the whole Ming Tombs. There are 18 pairs of huge stone statues on both sides of Shinto. These statues of civil servants and military ministers show that the emperor is still the master of the empire after his death. According to the mausoleum system of ancient Chinese Imperial Mausoleums, the yinzhai is modeled after the Yangzhai, and the ground buildings of the Ming Tombs are all modeled after the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City. The outer walls are tall, and the palaces within the walls are strictly distributed along a longitudinal central axis. At the back of each Tomb of the Ming Tombs, there is a Ming tower. There is the emperor's tombstone under the minglou, and the emperor's tomb is behind the minglou. In the mid-1950s, an archaeological plan officially proposed by historians to excavate ancient imperial tombs was approved by the Chinese government. A secret archaeological operation began in the spring of 1956

The excavation of the Ming Tombs began in the mid-1950s. Wu Han, a famous Chinese historian and then vice mayor of Beijing, first proposed the plan. This is the first archaeological plan formally proposed by historians to excavate ancient imperial tombs in Chinese history.

In the excavation plan, Changling is the preferred target. Among the Ming Tombs, Changling is the largest and the best preserved. However, the investigation of Changling is not going well. Finally, the archaeological team decided to find another tomb for trial excavation. After many investigations, the tomb of the 13th Ming Emperor Zhu Yijun (Emperor Wanli), Dingling, came into the view of the archaeological team.

In May 1956, the trial excavation began. The archaeological team excavated the first trench at the corresponding place where the bricks fell off in Baocheng, Dingling. Just after the trench was dug to a depth of more than 1 meter, a stone bar built in the wall was found on the inner wall of Baocheng. After wiping off the soil on the stone bar, three characters carved on the stone bar were revealed: "tunnel door". More than ten days later, archaeologists found a ticket gate under the city wall, and two brick walls on both sides of the trench. A tunnel was formed between the two walls and extended to the depth of the city. The archaeological team judged that this was the tunnel leading to the underground palace. In order to reduce the excavation workload, the archaeological team did not continue the excavation of the first trench, but dug a second trench on the extension line of the first trench. But more than a month later, no new discovery has been found in the second trench, and the brick wall of the tunnel that once appeared in the first trench has also disappeared strangely. Only in September did the excavation work take a new turn. One day, in the depth of the second trench, a migrant worker who participated in the excavation unexpectedly found a small stone tablet with inscriptions on it, which said: "this stone is 16 Zhang in front of the diamond wall, and its depth is 3 Zhang and 5 feet.". In Ming Dynasty, the tomb wall of the underground palace was called "King Kong wall". This stone tablet clearly indicates the specific location of the underground palace. The archaeological team excavated a third trench in the direction leading to the center of Baoding. In May of the next year, the archaeological team penetrated through the thick soil and found the outer wall of the tomb, the diamond wall. On the wall of King Kong, archaeologists found a mysterious trapezoidal opening. It should be the entrance of Emperor Wanli when he was buried.

It is recorded in ancient Chinese books that many emperors, in order to protect their mausoleums from being excavated, set up complicated concealed weapons in their tombs. Once someone entered, they would die instantly. Doubts and worries spread among archaeologists

All the underground palaces in the Ming Tombs are deeply buried in the most secret position of the mausoleum. Bai Wanyu is the most experienced archaeologist in the archaeological team, and also the actual commander of the scene. When he opened the diamond wall, Bai Wanyu was also very worried about accidents.

In order to ensure safety, the archaeological team decided to remove the top layers of bricks from the trapezoidal opening, and the diamond wall was soon opened with a gap. After careful observation, the archaeological team decided to send a man into the underground palace first. Bai Lao decided to send archaeologist Pang Zhongwei down. "I was also afraid," Pang recalled. Tied a hemp rope to my waist, and then I went down with a flashlight on my back. After going down, he bent and bowed. He was very concentrated and nervous When he came out, everyone was relieved. Then a few people jumped in,

With the help of flashlights and lanterns, they found the gate of the underground palace.

The next day, the team decided to completely open the wall. All the bricks were quickly removed, and the gate of the underground palace carved with the whole piece of white marble was completely exposed in front of the archaeological team.

This is a stone palace made of huge stones. Along a longitudinal axis, there are three main halls: the front hall, the middle hall and the back hall. The archaeologists were the first to enter the front hall of the underground palace. The ground of the front hall was covered with strips of rotten wood boards, which were used to prevent the coffin from crushing the ground. The archaeologists went through the front hall and entered the middle hall. The seats in the middle hall were all carved with white stone, and the seats were carved with dragon patterns. In front of the chair is a sacrificial vessel, a large porcelain jar full of yellow wax, which is the Wannian lamp in folklore.

Imitating the six Eastern and Western palaces in the Forbidden City, there are two auxiliary halls on the left and right of Dingling underground palace. The side hall is connected with the main hall through a narrow corridor. This is supposed to be the burial room for the concubine, but the empty coffin bed shows that it has not been used.

The archaeologists went on and finally found the back hall hidden in the deepest part of the underground palace, which corresponds to the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City. The back hall is equivalent to the palace where the emperor lived. Before excavating Dingling, people already knew that Dingling was the tomb of Emperor Wanli and two empresses. The discovery of three coffins in the Underground Palace confirmed the records of literature. Emperor Wanli lived in the late Ming Dynasty from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 17th century. He was the longest emperor in the Ming Dynasty, but his long career was full of tragedy. In this tomb, there is also a sad love story buried with the dead

In 1572, Wanli, who was only 10 years old, succeeded to the throne. Wanli's mother wanted him to become a promising monarch, so Wanli had to spend a lot of time learning Confucian classics. His life was boring. When he had enough ability to deal with the government independently, he was restrained by the ministers everywhere. In the oppressive court life, only the clever Princess Zheng brought fun to Wanli. Wanli wanted to pass the throne to Zheng Guifei's son, but was opposed by the minister. Unable to change, Wanli took an incredible way to fight. During his 48 years in office, Wanli lived in seclusion in the back palace of the Forbidden City for 30 years. In the last 20 years, he almost refused to meet with all the ministers, which paralyzed the State Administration.

The construction of Dingling took six years and cost more than 8 million taels of silver. When Dingling was about to be completed, Wanli visited here for the last time in person, and then quietly returned to Beijing.

In 1620, Wanli and one of her queens died one after another and were buried in Dingling at the same time. Another empress who died in her early years was also moved to be buried together. Imperial concubine Zheng died 10 years later. She was regarded by the ministers as a woman who brought disaster to the country. In the end, she failed to get the right to be buried in Dingling. Wanli finally failed to be buried with her beloved woman.

The unearthed cultural relics in Dingling not only remind people of Wanli's life, but also give people a strong sense of the amazing achievements made by the developed social economy and handicrafts of Ming Dynasty.

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