Category: Society/Culture >> Historical Topics
Problem Description:
What strange things happened to Zhu Yijun, the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty during his lifetime? Why did a hot-blooded young man degenerate into a cowardly king of a country? Did he really have a civilian brother? Is Zhang Juzheng the enlightened chief minister written in official history? What kind of entanglement does he have with Zhu Yijun? If you are familiar with the history of Ming Dynasty and Akeno history, can you please answer my questions? I would also like people who know the secret of Dingling to share a few words about Dingling and Zhu Yijun. Can you tell me which version you know? I have loved books about adventure and mystery since I was a child~~ It’s a pity that this one has never been solved. I hope someone can help me answer my questions.
Analysis:
Dingling is the tomb of the thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Wanli, and his two queens. Emperor Wanli ascended the throne when he was only 10 years old and reigned for 48 years, making him the longest reigning emperor in the Ming Dynasty. At the beginning of his reign, he implemented reform measures and the economy prospered; in the middle and later stages, he neglected government affairs and ignored the government all year round, causing the government to become increasingly corrupt. The construction of Dingling Tomb began long before Emperor Wanli's lifetime, and it took six years to complete and cost eight million taels of silver. Emperor Wanli was only 28 years old when the mausoleum was built, and it was not officially opened until 1620. The mausoleum remained idle for 30 years. Today, 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 tomb and feel the legendary stories of a generation of emperors.
In the mid-1950s, an archaeological project tried to unlock all the secrets of the Ming Tombs, but in the end only the underground palace of one tomb was successfully opened. This is the first and only one in China that has been opened. The imperial tomb opened by archaeologists - Dingling.
□ Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, personally selected the site for the mausoleum and named it Tianshou Mountain. Since then, a total of 13 Ming Dynasty emperors, including Zhu Di, have built mausoleums here. The entire mausoleum area was actually larger than the area of ??Beijing in the Ming Dynasty at that time...
The Ming Tombs were built in AD In the Ming Dynasty from the 15th to the 17th century, its founder was Zhu Di, the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Di personally presided over the selection of the mausoleum site and named it Tianshou Mountain. From then on, it became the royal cemetery of the Ming Dynasty. Including Zhu Di, 13 Ming Dynasty emperors built mausoleums here. By the time of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the total area of ??the entire mausoleum area exceeded 120 square kilometers, which was larger than the area of ??Beijing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty at that time.
The overall layout of the Ming Tombs is like a big tree, each tomb is like a branch, and the trunk of the big tree is the Shinto leading to the tomb. Shinto is the only way to enter the entire Ming Tombs. There are eighteen pairs of huge stone statues lined up on both sides of the Shinto. These statues of civil servants and military ministers indicate that the emperor is still the master of the empire after his death. According to the mausoleum system of ancient Chinese imperial tombs, the Yin Zhai is modeled after the Yang Zhai, and the ground buildings of the Ming Tombs are all modeled after the imperial palaces in the Forbidden City. There is a tall city wall on the periphery, and the palaces within the city wall are also strictly distributed along a longitudinal central axis. At the back of each tomb in the Ming Tombs, there is a bright tower. There is the emperor's tombstone under the Ming Tower, and behind the Ming Tower is the emperor's tomb.
□In the mid-1950s, an archaeological plan to excavate ancient imperial tombs formally proposed by historians was approved by the Chinese Communist Party. A secret archaeological operation began in the spring of 1956...
The archaeological excavation of the Ming Tombs began in the mid-1950s. The first person to propose this plan was the famous Chinese historian and contemporary Wu Han serves as deputy mayor of Beijing. This is the first archaeological plan in China's history officially proposed by a historian to excavate ancient imperial tombs.
In the excavation plan, Changling was the preferred target. Among the entire Ming Tombs, Changling is the largest and the most complete. However, the investigation of Changling did not go smoothly. In the end, the archaeological team decided to find another tomb for trial excavation. After various investigations, the tomb of the 13th Ming Dynasty Emperor Zhu Yijun (Emperor Wanli), Dingling, came into the sight of the archaeological team.
In May 1956, trial excavation work officially began. The archaeological team dug the first trench at the corresponding location where bricks fell off in Dingling Baocheng.
As soon as the trench was dug to a depth of more than 1 meter, a stone strip built into the wall was found on the inner wall of Baocheng. After wiping away the soil on the stone strip, three words engraved on the stone strip were revealed: " Tunnel Door". More than ten days later, archaeologists discovered a coupon gate at the bottom of the city wall. At the same time, they discovered two brick walls on both sides of the trench. A tunnel was formed between the two walls, extending into the depths of the city. The archaeological team determined that This is the tunnel leading to the underground palace. In order to reduce the workload of excavation, 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 has passed, and no new discoveries have been made in the second trench. The brick wall of the tunnel that once appeared in the first trench has also strangely disappeared.
Only in September did the excavation work take a new turn. One day, deep in the second trench, a migrant worker participating in the excavation unexpectedly discovered a small stone tablet with inscriptions on it, which read: "This stone reaches 16 feet from the front of the diamond wall and is 3 feet and 5 feet deep. ". People in the Ming Dynasty called the tomb wall of the underground palace the "King Kong Wall". This stone tablet clearly reminded the specific location of the underground palace. The archaeological team dug a third trench in the direction leading to the center of Baoding. By May of the following year, the archaeological team penetrated the thick soil and found the outer wall of the tomb - the King Kong Wall. On the King Kong Wall, archaeologists discovered a mysterious trapezoidal opening. It should be the entrance where Emperor Wanli was buried.
□ It is recorded in ancient Chinese books that in order to protect their tombs from being robbed, many emperors installed complex hidden weapons in their tombs. Once anyone entered, they would be killed instantly. Doubts and worries spread among the archaeological diggers...
All the underground palaces in the Ming Tombs are buried deep in the most secret locations of the tombs. Bai Wanyu is the most experienced archaeological expert in the archaeological team and the actual commander of the scene. Bai Wanyu was also worried that an accident would happen when he opened the diamond wall.
In order to ensure safety, the archaeological team decided to remove the top few layers of bricks in the trapezoidal opening first, and a gap was quickly opened in the diamond wall. After careful observation, the archaeological team decided to send one person into the underground palace first. Bai Lao decided to send archaeological expert Pang Zhongwei down. Pang Zhongwei recalled: "I was also scared at the time. A hemp rope was tied around my waist, and then I went down with a flashlight on my back. After I went down, I bent over and bowed, and I was very focused and very nervous. ." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief after he came out. After that, several more people jumped in.
With the help of flashlights and lanterns, they found the door of the underground palace.
The next day, the archaeological team decided to completely open the King Kong Wall. All the wall bricks were quickly removed, and the underground palace door carved from a single piece of white marble was completely exposed to the archaeological team.
This is a stone palace entirely built with huge stones. There are three main halls distributed along a longitudinal central axis: the front hall, the middle hall and the back hall. The archaeological team first entered the front hall of the underground palace. The floor of the front hall is covered with strips of rotten wooden boards, which were used as pads during burials to prevent the coffin from crushing the ground. The archaeological team walked through the front hall and entered the middle hall. The seats placed in the middle hall were all carved from white stone, with dragon patterns carved on the seats. In front of the seat are vessels used for sacrifice, a large porcelain jar filled with yellow wax, which is the ten thousand year lamp in folklore.
Modeled after the six east and west palaces in the Forbidden City, there are two side halls on the left and right of the Dingling Underground Palace. The side hall is connected to the main hall through a narrow corridor. This should be the tomb reserved for concubines to be buried with them, but the empty coffin bed shows that it has not been really used.
The archaeologists continued to move forward and finally found the apse hidden in the deepest part of the underground palace, which corresponds to the imperial palace in the Forbidden City. The apse is equivalent to the palace where the emperor lived during his lifetime. Before the excavation of Dingling, people already knew that Dingling was the joint tomb of Emperor Wanli and his two queens. The discovery of three coffins in the underground palace confirmed the literature records.
□ Emperor Wanli lived at the end of the Ming Dynasty from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 17th century. He was the longest reigning emperor in the Ming Dynasty, but his long imperial career was full of tragedy. In this tomb, buried with the deceased is a sad love story...
In 1572, Wanli, who was only 10 years old, inherited the throne. Wanli's mother hoped that he would become a promising monarch, so Wanli had to spend a lot of time studying traditional Confucian classics, and his life was boring and boring.
When he had enough ability to handle government affairs independently, he was restrained by ministers at every turn. In the depressing palace life, only the clever Concubine Zheng brought the only joy to Wanli. Wanli wanted to pass the throne to the son of Concubine Zheng, but was opposed by the ministers. Wanli was unable to change, so he adopted an incredible way to fight. Wanli reigned for 48 years, of which 30 years he lived in seclusion in the Forbidden City. In the last 20 years, he refused to meet with almost all ministers, and the country's government affairs were paralyzed.
The construction of Dingling took 6 years and cost more than 8 million taels of silver. When Dingling was about to be completed, Wanli came here to inspect it in person for the last time, and then returned to Beijing silently.
In 1620, Wanli and one of his queens died of illness and were buried in Dingling at the same time. Another queen who died of illness early in life was also moved and buried together. Concubine Zheng died 10 years later. She was regarded by the ministers as a woman who had brought disaster to the country, and she was ultimately unable to obtain the right to be buried in Dingling Tomb. Wanli finally failed to be buried with his most beloved woman.
□ The cultural relics unearthed in Dingling not only remind people of Wanli's life, but also strongly feel the amazing achievements of the developed social economy and handicrafts of the Ming Dynasty.
The coffins of Emperor Wanli and his two empresses have decayed to varying degrees. After careful preparation, the archaeologists opened Wanli's coffin. This is the first and so far the only emperor's coffin in China that has been opened by archaeologists.
After opening the coffin, people saw that it was uneven and covered with a gold quilt, which was also partly rotten and collapsed. The archaeologists began to clean the cultural relics in the coffin layer by layer. They continued cleaning up to the 11th floor before they found Wanli's body. The body had completely decomposed, leaving only a dry skeleton.
More than 3,000 cultural relics were unearthed in the underground palace. Except for a small number of sacrificial ritual vessels, most of them were daily necessities used by Emperor Wanli and his two queens during their lifetime.
Among the funerary objects were a crown called a mian, as well as some armor, waist knives and bows and arrows specially used for the emperor. The gold crown found in the coffin required 150 gold threads as thin as hair and a very complicated process to make, which shows that the craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty had mastered the superb precious metal production technology. Four dragon and phoenix crowns worn by the queen were also found in Dingling, woven with gold, jade, pearls and gems. One of them was inlaid with 3,500 pearls and 195 gems of various colors.
The most unearthed items in Dingling are silk fabrics. The whole piece of silk fabric was still colorful when it was unearthed. The unearthed Gongfu was woven using traditional Chinese tapestry craftsmanship. It is said that even the most skilled weaver would need 10 years to weave this Gongfu. The robe worn by the queen among the funerary objects uses complex embroidery techniques. A total of 4 kinds of expensive silk threads and 11 different embroidery methods were used to complete the entire robe.
In 2003, the entire Ming Tombs, including Dingling Tombs, were included in the World Heritage List by UNESCO. The former royal cemeteries eventually became the most common heritage for all mankind.