CCTV large-scale documentary
"Human Memory - China's World Heritage" series of special topics
"Royal Mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties"
"Reflects the highest level of funeral system in China's feudal society"
"Reflects the highest level of planning thinking and architectural art in China at that time"
"Explaining the world view and power view of feudal China that lasted for more than 500 years"
Premiered on cctv4 at 23:00 on February 26, 2024
The mystery of the location of the imperial tombs
The imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties spanned more than 540 years, leaving a lasting legacy Twenty-seven imperial tomb sites have been discovered. The Ming Ming Tomb is located in Zhongxiang, Hubei. The Eastern Qing Tombs are located in Zunhua, Tangshan. The Western Qing Tombs are located in Yi County, Baoding. The Ming Xiaoling Tombs and the Ming Tombs of the Ming Dynasty are located in Nanjing and Beijing respectively. The Qing Dynasty Tombs are located in Zunhua, Tangshan. Qing Fuling, Qing Zhao, and Qing Yongling, collectively known as the Three Tombs of Shengjing, are located in Liaoning.
The royal tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, as a whole community, have become the most complete and largest royal tomb community on the World Heritage List. There are 27 imperial mausoleums, including Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, Wanli, Huang Taiji, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Cixi, etc., a total of more than 400 royal members.
In ancient architecture, Feng Shui is a knowledge of building site selection. It is a comprehensive application of ecology, geography, meteorology and other disciplines. Specific to royal mausoleums, Feng Shui can be divided into dragons, caves, sand and water. When this When four abstract words act on the imperial mausoleum, the buildings are no longer isolated and silent, they begin to communicate with heaven and earth.
Dragon refers to mountains. The ancients called the mountains dragon veins because the mountains are endless and resemble dragons in the sky. Walking around the imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, you will feel such a visual landscape. The echoes between the imperial tombs and the mountains are everywhere. The mountains set off the imperial mausoleums, and the imperial mausoleums embellish the mountains. The mountains and the imperial mausoleums, I am among you, and you are among me.
The underground palace is the core of the imperial mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The coffins of the emperors are placed here. The place where the coffins are placed is the starting point for the construction of the imperial mausoleums. Mysteries are also hidden under the emperors' coffins.
This is the position where the coffin is parked. In the center of this position, there is a hole called Jinjing, also known as "hole". This is the starting point for the construction of the entire mausoleum, and it is also the core location of the entire mausoleum. The selection of acupoints is called Dingxue. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that it takes three years to search for a dragon and ten years to fix an acupoint. This shows how difficult it is to determine acupoints.
Grid measurement is a commonly used surveying method for ancient Chinese buildings. It helped ancient officials select mausoleum sites and build imperial tombs. These Chinese characters handwritten by ancient craftsmen are input into the current modeling software, and they all correspond to the three-dimensional coordinates one by one. The points on the grid and the grid survey are China’s precious architectural cultural heritage and an important memory legacy of the imperial mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Water flows and trees can be summed up in one word, that is ecology. Ecology corresponds to sand and water in Feng Shui. Sand refers to the surrounding barrier outside the dragon vein, which can be natural hills or artificial vegetation. Water refers to the surrounding water flow, which can be given by nature or artificially excavated.
In the Western Tombs of the Qing Dynasty, there are about 16,000 ancient pine trees that are more than 300 years old. The ancient pine forest is lush and green, stretching for 30 miles. It is a sand mountain barrier protecting the Western Tombs of the Qing Dynasty. It has been intertwined with the imperial mausoleums for hundreds of years, with alternating density and density. There is a cause. Among the imperial mausoleums, each individual cemetery has its own independent landscape system, forming a natural wonder of a large landscape surrounded by small landscapes. Good Feng Shui not only comes from the gift of God, but also cannot be separated from the protection of people. The stones of the Ming and Qing imperial mausoleums
made by
craftsmen are the most widely used materials in the Ming and Qing imperial mausoleums. The origin of these royal stones starts from a bottomless pond. There is a 60-meter-deep pond in Dashiwo Town, Fangshan, Beijing. The rocks above the water are durable, fine and smooth, and the rock layer soaked underwater is China's famous royal stone, white marble. Most of the white marble in the royal tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was produced here.
White marble has a hard texture, elegant color, and is easy to carve. It has a delicate Chinese line texture under the sun. Perhaps because of the combination of various advantages, it has the name of jade even though it is a rock, and it has the highest status in Chinese architecture. White marble can be found in the Heroes Monument, Tiananmen Square, Summer Palace, and the Forbidden City.
From several mining pictures from the 1950s, you can feel the difficulty of mining. The engineering team first drained the water in the pond to expose the huge white marble rock layer, and then cut it into a whole piece. Each cubic meter of mining was There is a lot of work behind it. And this is still an image material from the 1950s. Considering the lack of modern tools in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the amount of work behind it is even more conceivable.
The stele is a stone building that records the emperor's life merits. In ancient times when there were no lifting equipment, its installation used the principle of a balance. With the weight loss at the other end, the stele was slowly raised and installed on the base.
In 2010, a Qing Dynasty golden nanmu dragon-patterned top box was sold at an auction for 3.024 million yuan, attracting widespread attention. In Muling, golden nanmu is used in both form and craftsmanship. Approximately 1,500 cubic meters of wood are used in all three palaces, and the cost is astonishing. Unique and unique, simple on the outside and luxurious on the inside.
On the ceilings, finials and door and window partitions of Muling, there are dragons carved from nanmu in different shapes. They all use a combination of high relief and openwork. The dragon's body is rolling and dancing in the clouds and mist, and the dragon's head is looking down with its mouth open and its cheeks open. , forming an exquisite scene of dragons gathering their beaks and the fragrance fragrant from their mouths. With exquisite craftsmanship and various shapes, each piece is an outstanding work of art.
The tombs of the Ming and Qing emperors, which spanned more than 540 years, have experienced several wars and geological disasters, but the structure is still intact. The Tangshan earthquake caused countless houses to collapse and buildings to be destroyed. The Qing Dynasty, located not far from Tangshan, Tangling has experienced hundreds of years of ups and downs and is still standing tall. Including the stone archway with a frame structure that is most susceptible to collapse, it was still intact during the earthquake, which is a miracle. This is also the architectural art of ancient craftsmen.
This is the royal exclusive pattern craftsmanship requirement. Royal color paintings not only have strict regulations on the detailed decorations, but also the order cannot be reversed, and there are detailed requirements for the gold-painted parts. This color painting, which is less than 3 square meters, took Kang Xiumin and his wife two days to complete. Looking at the imperial mausoleum covering an area of several hundred square kilometers, it can be said that wherever there are buildings, there are paintings, and behind every stroke, there is such needle-point work.
These materials, which have been brilliant for hundreds of years, have a nice name, Liuli. The reason why colored glaze shines brightly lies in the tedious process. Each of the initial clay models is made by the hands of craftsmen. The original clay body is first fired at high temperature for 18 hours, and then becomes a white body. After the white blank has been dried for several days, the metal glaze can be applied, and the glaze is the key to the glaze's ability to shine.
"Look at Cixi on the ground and Qianlong underground."
This is because Qianlong's underground palace can be said to be an artistic treasure house of stone carving culture. Different from other emperors' underground palaces, the walls are all original stone. Entering Qianlong's underground palace feels like entering A treasure trove of exquisite stone carving art. There is almost no white space on the stone walls, which are densely carved with Buddhist totems to protect the emperor from entering the paradise after death.
Looking at the history of the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the imperial mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties
Looking at all the imperial mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the internal situation of each individual imperial mausoleum is very different, some are simple and elegant, and some are magnificent. However, all imperial tombs follow the same layout format, starting with the stone archway as the main entrance, spreading along the Shinto, reaching the Dahongmen, passing the Longen Hall, and finally reaching the core point of the imperial tombs, the Fangcheng Minglou where the coffins are buried. All imperial tombs have the same regulations and are in order, without exception.
The Ming Xiaoling Tomb is the first mausoleum of the twenty-seven Ming and Qing imperial tombs. The owner buried here is Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming and Qing imperial tomb system. Compared with the previous imperial tombs built on the mountain during the Tang and Song Dynasties, Zhu Yuanzhang He pioneered the connection between the imperial mausoleum system and the palace during his lifetime, and created a new mausoleum system, with the front facing the back.
Long before moving the capital, Zhu Di also started a massive royal tomb project at the foot of Tianshou Mountain in Changping, more than 100 kilometers away from the Forbidden City in Beijing. This is the Ming Tombs in Beijing. With Zhu Di as the chief planner, the thirteen imperial tombs were built one by one during more than 200 years of the Ming Dynasty, making them the most complete group of royal tombs preserved in the world. Compared to the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs are farther north, over the mountains, to the outside of the Great Wall. When the emperor died and was buried in the Ming Tombs, it inspired future generations to protect their ancestors and protect the country.
After entering the country, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty at that time were well aware of the deep foundation of Han culture. To govern the land of China that had been almost dominated by Han culture for thousands of years, strong methods would not work, and cultural integration was the right path. The regulation of imperial mausoleums, as the form that best demonstrates royal etiquette, is naturally the first to bear the brunt. The subtle details contain significant historical information. This is the historical charm and legacy of the imperial tombs of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
It is the comprehensive inheritance of the Ming Dynasty imperial mausoleums from the Qing Dynasty imperial mausoleums, forming the overall pattern of the Ming and Qing imperial mausoleums' children and grandchildren accompanying their fathers and ancestors, highlighting the ethical concept of respecting the elders, achieving the continuous inheritance of the Ming and Qing imperial mausoleums, and becoming a rare thing in the world. Royal tomb group.
Strolling through Qingdong and Xiling is also browsing a history book of national integration. The most intuitive thing is the text. The Monument of Divine Merits and Virtues is a building that records the life of the emperor. As Shunzhi was the first emperor to enter the Qing Dynasty, Manchu was still the main text in his inscriptions. By the time Kangxi arrived, the Jingling inscriptions were erected side by side, with one inscribed in Manchu and the other in Chinese characters. The two writings had the same rules and were unique, intuitively reflecting the process of the integration of Manchu and Chinese cultures.
What best reflects the integration of cultures is the form of tombs. This is the form of most underground palaces in the imperial mausoleums of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. All burials are in the ground, and the tomb where the coffin is buried is called Fangcheng Minglou; but before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the tomb had another form. The ancestors of Aixinjueluo are buried in the Qingyong Tomb in Shenyang. Here you can see the cremation tombs used by the Manchus before they entered the customs. As a nomadic people who live in pursuit of water and grass, cremation is the main form of burial for the Manchus.
