Why no one dares to dig the Ming Tomb and what is the reason
In the fourteenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1381), Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, sent Li Xin, the governor of the Chinese army, to start building his own mausoleum. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu (1382), Zhu Yuanzhang's original wife Queen Ma died, and the underground palace had been basically completed at that time, so Zhu Yuanzhang first ordered someone to bury Queen Ma in the underground palace, and at the same time named the mausoleum Xiaoling, expressing Zhu Yuanzhang's determination to advocate filial piety to rule the world.
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang died and was buried in the underground palace of Xiaoling by his successor grandson Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen, but the overall building of Xiaoling was not completed at that time, and it was not completed until the eleventh year of Zhu Di Yongle (1413) of Ming Chengzu.
The construction process took 32 years for three generations of emperors. After the completion of the filial piety mausoleum, the momentum is magnificent, majestic and magnificent, it is the largest one in the imperial mausoleum of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
What is particularly amazing is that although the Ming Tomb has gone through the baptism of the years and has a history of more than 600 years, it is still well preserved and has not been stolen and excavated.
This is extremely rare among other Qing imperial tombs that were built later than the Ming Dynasty. Why can the Ming Tomb be so well preserved and not stolen for more than 600 years?
Below we will ** Ming filial piety mausoleum has been well preserved for more than 600 years.
The geographical location of the Ming Tomb is the primary reason why it was spared theft. This mausoleum located at the southern foot of the Purple Mountain in Nanjing is under the Mount Everest in Dulongfu, and the main body of its underground palace is built according to the unique mountain structure of Dulongfu.
Dulongfu is a stone mountain with an extremely solid mountain structure, and the designer deliberately used the overall stone mountain structure of Dulongfu to design when it was built. During the construction process, the craftsmen hollowed out the stone mountain horizontally and then built the underground palace downward.
Although this kind of tomb design, known as the horizontal cave in ancient times, required a lot of manpower and material resources without modern equipment, and the amount of work was very huge, once the construction was completed, it was strong enough to resist any external intrusion.
In order to enter such a dungeon, thieves must use explosives from above.
Ancient tomb robbers usually carried out their illegal activities in secret, as blasting with explosives produced a loud noise, which was extremely dangerous for them.
Although the Ming Tomb is now well preserved, through the surface detection of modern scientific instruments, we can know that the underground palace area of the Ming Tomb is about 4,000 square meters, which obviously requires a large tomb robbery team to complete.
However, the Purple Mountain Dulongfu, where the Ming Tomb is located, is very close to the city of Nanjing, and if explosives are used to blast and attract a large number of tomb robbers, it will definitely attract the attention of the people in Nanjing, which will undoubtedly hinder their tomb robbing.
Compared with the Qing Dongling Tomb, which is located in Malanyu, Zunhua, Hebei Province, and has a remote geographical location, the geographical location of the Ming Xiaoling Tomb is obviously more advantageous. The Dulongfu where the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is located belongs to the Purple Mountain in Nanjing, and the Purple Mountain is also known as "Zhongshan Longpan, the stone tiger, the emperor's house", and was praised by Zhuge Liang.
The Purple Mountain is located in the Xuanwu District of Nanjing, as the main urban area of Nanjing, once there is any movement, the whole city of Nanjing will know. Therefore, the horizontal cave structure built by the mountain of the Ming Tomb, with the hardness and firmness of the mountain, makes it impossible for tomb robbers to enter the underground palace through conventional means, and must use explosives to blast it.
However, this method will cause a huge noise, and the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is located in the Xuanwu District, and the slightest movement will attract the attention of the city of Nanjing, which undoubtedly dispels the idea of most tomb robbers.
Overall, the geographical location of the Ming Tomb provides an important security guarantee for the protection of the mausoleum.
The anti-theft measures of the Ming Tomb are a must, and the design of the horizontal hole through the mountain makes it extremely strong. If the entrance to the tomb cannot be found, explosives blasting is the only option.
However, the traditional way of robbing tombs in ancient China was mainly by determining the location of the tomb and digging the robbery hole to enter the underground palace of the tomb. However, due to the stone mountain structure of Dulongfu, it is almost impossible to dig a robbery hole, and digging a hole on the top of the mountain has become a quick and easy way.
However, digging a hole at the top of the mountain requires digging through a huge stone mountain, which is too large for ordinary tomb robbers and tomb robbers to undertake. Only a military tomb robber like Sun Dianying, a great Donglin thief who excavated the Qing Tomb, can be able to complete this arduous task.
The location of the entrance to the Ming Xiao Mausoleum Road is quite special, it is not in the front of the horizontal cave, but to one side. Modern archaeologists have not discovered the exact location of the entrance through surface exploration, but they have confirmed that it is an unconventional design.
Such a unique entrance design made finding it a challenge. In addition, there are a large number of pebbles hidden in the sealed mound above the treasure top of the Ming Tomb, which can both drain water and prevent theft.
During the rainy season, pebbles can accelerate the infiltration of rainwater into the drainage system of Baoding; Once the grave robbers open the tunnels, the pebbles roll down from all directions, refilling the cave and burying the robbers.
This is the quicksand anti-theft method in ancient tombs.
Although there may be multiple anti-theft mechanisms inside the Ming Tomb, the ingenious design of these mechanisms has deterred many tomb robbers. Although the funerary jewelry is abundant, many people choose to give it up due to the dangers and risks.
Of course, for some highly skilled tomb robbers, these mechanisms may not be enough. Therefore, for a long time after the completion of the Ming Tomb, the Ming Dynasty sent heavy troops to protect it, and set up a military institution of Xiaolingwei to prevent any possible theft.
The guardian of the Ming Tomb, the Xiaoling Guard, is composed of five institutes, with a total of about 5,600 soldiers. Among them, 500 people are directly stationed in the mausoleum area for close defense.
This kind of defense is enough to deter any tomb robber. However, this is only part of the guardian power of Xiaolingwei. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, although the filial piety of the tomb disappeared, this also revealed another reason why the Ming tomb was not stolen - political reasons.
After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty took strict protection measures for the Ming Dynasty Imperial Tombs out of political needs, strictly prohibiting official and private illegal excavations.
The imperial tombs of the Ming Dynasty, especially the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum, carry the high respect of the Han people for Zhu Yuanzhang, and also reflect the importance of the Qing rulers in winning the hearts of the Han people.
The imperial mausoleums of the Ming Dynasty were properly protected in the Qing Dynasty, especially the Ming Filial Piety Mausoleum of the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, which was the key protection object of the Qing Dynasty. Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty visited the Ming Tomb five times to worship, and each time he made a big salute, and personally inscribed the inscription of "Zhilong Tang and Song Dynasty".
Similarly, his grandson, Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, also attached great importance to it, and made six southern tours, each time he would go to the Ming Tomb to pay a big salute. The Qing Dynasty rulers' protection of the Ming Tomb made it completely preserved during the Qing Dynasty and ensured its safety.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied Nanjing, and part of the Ming Tomb was destroyed by war. However, Hong Xiuquan soon ordered the restoration of the Ming Tomb.
Because Zhu Yuanzhang had an irreplaceable position in the hearts of the Han people at that time, therefore, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan immediately ordered the protection and restoration of the Ming Tomb.
He also personally led people to pay tribute to Zhu Yuanzhang at the Ming Tomb of filial piety, and chanted the slogan put forward by Zhu Yuanzhang that year: "Expelling Hulu, restoring China, establishing Chen Ji, and relieving the people".
Although during the occupation of Nanjing by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan took protective measures to unite the Han people and expel the Manchu regime, so that the Ming Xiaoling Tomb was not excavated by officials or people during the war.
Later, the Taiping Rebellion failed, and the Qing Dynasty still took protective measures for the Ming Tomb, and claimed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had destroyed part of the ground buildings of the Ming Tomb. Zeng Guofan, the governor of Liangjiang at that time, specially asked the Empress Dowager Cixi for appropriation to renovate and maintain the Ming Tomb as a whole.
All these show the political needs adopted by the Qing ** in order to appease the hearts of the Han people.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, ** attached great importance to the protection of the Ming Tomb. On February 15, 1912, Mr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of the country, led the Nanjing Provisional Nationals to the Ming Tomb to pay respects and personally recited the memorial text.
According to the slogan put forward by Zhu Yuanzhang when he expelled the Mengyuan regime, Mr. Sun Yat-sen revised and changed it"Expelled the Tartars, restored China, established **, equalized land rights"slogan.
However, Nanjing soon fell under the rule of Wang Jingwei's Japanese puppet regime. The Japanese tried to carry out cultural aggression against China, so they respected Zhu Yuanzhang, the former political leader of the Han Chinese, and did not carry out large-scale destruction and excavation of the Ming Tomb.
In addition, Wang Jingwei's Japanese puppet regime has always adhered to Mr. Sun Yat-sen's instructions and properly protected the Ming Tomb. Therefore, even in the late Qing Dynasty and the war period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Ming Tomb was still properly protected.
The change of regime and the change of dynasties did not have much impact on the Ming Xiaoling.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Ming Tomb has been comprehensively protected and restored. In particular, in 1956, when the archaeological excavation of the Ming Ding Mausoleum, one of the Ming Tombs, was carried out, although there were some results, due to the lack of technology and experience, many unearthed cultural relics were quickly damaged under the sun, causing huge losses.
Therefore, in order to better protect cultural relics, New China issued a key cultural relics protection policy in 1961, and listed the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum as the first batch of key cultural relics protection units.
Since then, the Ming Tomb has been carefully protected and restored. In 2003, the Ming Tomb was selected into the World Heritage List, and more attention was paid to the protection of the Ming Tomb and its surrounding tombs.
Today, the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum is equipped with high-tech equipment, and all-weather monitoring and early warning by connecting big data makes it more like a national treasure for us Chinese, and the possibility of theft is almost non-existent.
Due to the unique geographical location, strict anti-theft measures and political factors of the change of dynasties in history, this mausoleum is still well preserved after more than 600 years of ups and downs.
More than 600 years have passed, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and his wife Empress Ma are still sleeping quietly under the Dulong Fu of the Purple Mountain, no one bothered them in the past, and no one will disturb them in the future.