Tomb of Yan Ermei (Gu Gu)

Tomb of Yan Ermei (Gu Gu)

The Tomb of Yan Ermei (Gu Gu) is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu Province.

Yan Ermei (1603–1679), also known as Gu Gu, was a native of Pei County in Xuzhou, a poet, and an anti-Qing national hero.

After Wu Sangui led the Qing troops into the Shanhai Pass, large-scale反抗 against the Qing was about to erupt. Yan Ermei raised a volunteer army of 7,000 fighters in Huai'an, training them day and night in martial arts. Wan Shouqi from Xuzhou also initiated an uprising in Songjiang, but soon both volunteer armies failed.

At that time, the Hongguang regime of the Ming Dynasty was established in Nanjing, and Shi Kefa was overseeing military affairs in Yangzhou. Yan Ermei went south to join Shi Kefa, serving as his aide, and advised him to ally with the Yuyuan Army along the Lu-Yu border to cross the river and reclaim Shandong, but Shi Kefa did not listen; Yan Ermei then urged Shi to campaign westward to recover Henan, which was also rejected; and when he further advised holding Xuzhou to plan advances into Hebei, he was turned down again. Yan Ermei became very disappointed.

Shi Kefa chose to defend Yangzhou to the death, but the city soon fell. After many hardships, Yan Ermei returned north and joined the Yuyuan peasant army in Shandong. The Yuyuan Army referred collectively to several anti-Qing armed groups operating in the Caozhou forest area of southwestern Shandong. Later, Yan Ermei shaved his head and became a monk, calling himself "Monk Daodong," using the Shaolin Temple of Songshan Mountain in Henan as a contact point. He traveled around actively organizing fights against the Qing.

After the defeat of the Yuyuan Army, Yan Ermei was arrested in Pei County and imprisoned in Jinan. When interrogated by Shandong's GovGeneral Shen Wenkui, he “stared straight upward without bowing.” Shen ridiculed him, saying, “Are you trying to be another Wen Tianxiang?”

Yan Ermei retorted, “What’s wrong with Wen Tianxiang?!” and passionately recited, “Loyalty and filial piety are everyday virtues; sacrificing oneself is just as trivial.”

As he was escorted to prison, Yan wore shackles, a tattered hat, and old clothes, riding on a donkey with composed dignity, chanting heroic verses. Many bystanders wept along the way. In prison, the Qing court repeatedly tried to persuade him to surrender, but he remained unmoved.

Later, rescued by friends including Gu Mei, Yan escaped from Jinan prison and returned home. Before he could even disperse his family, Manchu troops arrived, and his wife hanged herself. Yan fled with his young son. Eventually, he entrusted the child to others, and wandered alone across provinces such as Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, and Jiangsu, enduring great hardships, as expressed in his lines: “The pure wind fills the land yet cannot tolerate me; when will the bright moon shine on me again?” and “A lone donkey flees three thousand miles, homeless in all four seas for twelve years.”

On his deathbed, Yan Ermei instructed his family to bury him in a square tomb as was common in the Ming Dynasty, to distinguish it from the round graves of the Qing people, demonstrating his refusal to submit even in death.

The tombs of Liu Bang and Empress Lü were rectangular and covered in a dou-shaped mound. But other imperial tombs of the Han Dynasty were square. Tombs of the Tang Dynasty were also square. By the Song or Ming Dynasties, imperial tombs had become round, symbolizing comparison with “Heaven.” Heaven is round—would it not be better for the tomb of the “Son of Heaven” to be round too? Though the Qing rulers were Manchus, they implemented a policy of intermarriage between Manchus and Hans, and their funeral customs were Sinicized as well—their tombs also became round. Yan Ermei refused to build a round tomb to show he would never submit to the Qing. Perhaps building a square tomb mirrored the Han Dynasty tradition, symbolizing his return to the Han (ethnicity) in death.

Yan Ermei’s tomb is located at Xinghuadui, Liuheya Village, twenty li west of Pei County. There are nine square tombs here. To the east of the tombs of Yan Ermei’s parents lies his own tomb, and to the west is the tomb of his son, Yan Qianli. This arrangement is called “holding a child while embracing a grandchild.”

Yan Ermei married four wives and one concubine during his life. After his anti-Qing fight failed and he was captured, his wife Madam Zhang and concubine Madam Fan jumped off a building—known in the Yan family as martyred women—and are also buried in the Yan family cemetery.

Descendants of Yan Ermei continued to build square tombs after their passing, maintaining this practice for centuries until today.

During the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, county magistrate Ma Guangxun erected a tombstone for Yan Ermei inscribed with “Tomb of Mr. Yan Gu Gu, Late Ming Dynasty’s Filial and Incorruptible Scholar,” and designated 300 mu of land as the burial ground. During the Anti-Japanese War, Feng Zigu, magistrate of Pei County under the Kuomintang, reallocated 81 mu of land for the tomb and planted over 7,000 cypress trees, all of which were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. In 1984, the government of Pei County restored the tomb, which is now a key cultural relic protection unit of Jiangsu Province.

Zhuzhai Town: a township under the jurisdiction of Pei County. Established as Zhuzhai Township in 1951, changed to a commune in 1958, and reverted to a township in 1983. Located in the western part of the county, on the eastern bank of the Dashariver, it is 10 km from the county seat. It covers an area of 42 square kilometers with a population of 34,000. Roads such as Pei-Yuan and Longhe traverse the town, and canals such as Fengpei and Longkou intersect, connecting directly to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. The township administers 18 village committees: Zhuzhai, Zhangliuzhuang, Zhanglou, Wanglou, Zhují, Caicun, Xinghua, Meicun, Cai Xiaolou, Yan Paifang, Yan Zhuang, Zhugang, Zhenlou, Caokeng, Shaomiao, Yanmiao, Tianshiumiao. Agriculture is mainly focused on animal husbandry. Town enterprises specialize in construction... More details about Zhuzhai Town++

Further reading:

· Fifth Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units of Jiangsu Province