Ming Yongling Tomb

Ming Yongling Tomb

Ming Yongling Tomb is a cultural tourism attraction.

Ming Yongling Tomb is located at the southern foot of Yangcui Ridge. It is the mausoleum of the eleventh emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Shizong Zhu Houcong, along with his empresses and concubines.

The construction of Yongling began in the fifteenth year of Emperor Shizong’s reign. It was the “mausoleum for his eventual resting place” built during his reign. However, the selection of the tomb site had actually taken place in the seventh year of the Jiajing era (1528), when Empress Chen passed away. At that time, Emperor Shizong ordered his ministers Zhang Cong and Luo Yongqing from the Ministry of War to select a burial site for Empress Chen. At the same time, he also secretly chose a site for his own tomb.

Luo Yongqing was renowned during the Jiajing era for his expertise in feng shui. After arriving at Tianshou Mountain, he assessed the mountain's shape externally and examined the earth’s veins internally, selecting two auspicious sites for Emperor Shizong: Ziziling and Shiba Daoling. Subsequently, Emperor Shizong led his ministers and officials from the Bureau of Astronomy to inspect the two selected sites. After the inspection, they concluded that Shiba Daoling had the best feng shui and decided to build the tomb there. However, still feeling uncertain, they sent people to Jiangxi to invite descendants of the famous feng shui masters Yang Junsong, Zeng Wendi, and Liao Sanchuan for a second opinion. In the end, Shiba Daoling was confirmed as the site for the imperial tomb. Emperor Shizong found the name “Shiba Daoling” inelegant and issued an edict to rename it “Yangcui Ridge.” On the 22nd day of the fourth month in the 15th year of the Jiajing era (1536), at the hour of Shen, the grand construction project commenced. Emperor Shizong personally presided over the ceremony to offer sacrifices at Changling. Guo Xun, Marquis of Wuding, and Li Shi, one of the key ministers, were appointed to oversee the construction. On the same day, repair work also began on seven other tombs, as well as projects such as reinforcing the stone statues and stone platforms along the Sacred Way of Changling.

During the construction process, Emperor Shizong intended to follow the scale of Changling but hesitated to state this directly. Instead, he hypocritically told his ministers: “The design of the imperial tomb should roughly follow the standards of Changling, but must be significantly reduced in scale. Plain silk garments and earthenware coffins are what I always have in mind.” The ministers understood his meaning and presented him with a design only slightly smaller than Changling, which was quickly approved.

After approximately 7 to 11 years of construction, Yongling was largely completed. Compared to the first seven imperial tombs, Yongling indeed had unique features.

First, it was grand in scale. In ancient times, the size of an imperial mausoleum depended on the dimensions of its halls, the Ming Tower, and the Treasure City. According to the records of the *Collected Statutes of the Great Ming*, the diameter of Yongling’s Treasure City was 81 zhang, the Hall of Eternity (Ling’en Dian) had seven bays with double eaves, and the side halls each had nine bays. Its scale was second only to Changling but surpassed those of the six other tombs: Xian, Jing, Yu, Mao, Tai, and Kang. The Ling’en Gate had five bays, matching that of Changling, and only Dingling shared the same design afterward. Additionally, outside the square courtyard and Treasure City of Yongling, there was an outer rampart not present in the first seven tombs. This outer rampart was described as “majestic, with meticulously crafted and tightly fitted stonework, surpassing even the planning finesse of Changling.” Inside the outer rampart, there were five-bay structures for the Divine Kitchen on the left and the Divine Storehouse on the right. There was also an east-west street built in imitation of the deep palace corridors. *Illustrated Accounts of Imperial Tombs* recorded the origin of this outer rampart: “Once Yongling was completed, its magnificence was unparalleled among the seven tombs. The emperor, standing on Yangcui Ridge, asked the Ministry of Works: ‘Is my tomb to end here?’ The minister hastily replied: ‘There is still the surrounding wall to be built.’ Thus, the surrounding wall was constructed with thick, solid stones, making it grand and sturdy. Even the Xiaoling Tomb did not have such a feature, though Dingling later followed suit.” Of course, this account is based on hearsay. According to Volume 187 of the *Veritable Records of Emperor Shizong*, the original design of Yongling’s tomb, drafted by Xia Yan and others under the emperor’s instructions, integrated the burial arrangements for imperial consorts with the overall tomb structure. More precisely, Emperor Shizong intended to bury his consorts within his own tomb complex (though not in the same main burial chamber), so Xia Yan and others designed the outer rampart to accommodate the consorts’ burials, planned to be placed “outside the Treasure Hill City, in front of the Ming Tower,” i.e., on either side of the front walls of the Ming Tower. Later, although the consorts’ tombs were not ultimately built within the outer rampart as originally proposed, the rampart itself was constructed as planned.

The brick-and-stone structure of Yongling’s Ming Tower, the uniquely shaped Sacred Name Stele, the distinctive design of the Treasure City’s platform, and the patterned city crenellations built with speckled stones, as well as the dragon-and-phoenix “playing with a pearl” motif on the imperial pathway stones of the Ling’en Hall and Ling’en Gate, were all unprecedented in previous imperial tombs. These features were later emulated by Dingling.

Due to the high-quality materials and grand scale of Yongling, the *Changping Prefecture Annals* from the Longqing era of the Ming Dynasty described it as having “strictly layered gates, profound halls, towering towers and walls, and lush pines and cypresses, resembling a celestial palace. Its design follows Changling’s standards, but it surpasses it in grandeur, beauty, and craftsmanship.” The construction of Yongling consumed a massive amount of state treasury funds. According to the *Veritable Records of Emperor Shizong*, 40,000 troops from the three major military camps were involved in the construction. Coupled with the commencement of new palaces and the Sacred Relic Pavilion within the tomb area in the 16th year of Jiajing (1537), as well as projects inside and outside the imperial palace, monthly expenditures exceeded 300,000 taels of silver. However, the Ministry of Works’ treasury held only one million taels, making funding extremely difficult. As a result, Emperor Shizong had to adopt his ministers’ suggestion to use funds from special silver levies to support the construction.

Between 1785 and 1787 (the 50th to 52nd years of the Qianlong era in the Qing Dynasty), when the court renovated the Thirteen Ming Tombs, Yongling was also restored. At that time, although the Ling’en Gate and Ling’en Hall of Yongling had “completely deteriorated roof structures, beams, and brackets, with rotten purlins and pillars,” the large wooden frameworks remained largely intact due to the grand materials and fine craftsmanship used in the original construction. The ministers responsible for the restoration, Jin Jian (Minister of Works) and Cao Wenqi (Vice Minister of Revenue), initially intended to recommend restoring the structures to their original designs. However, considering the extensive scope of the Thirteen Tombs renovation and the fact that nanmu wood had been “almost completely depleted” by the Qianlong era, they faced the challenge that “restoring to the original style would make it even more difficult to source large timber for Changling and Yongling.” After deliberation, they proposed a plan to dismantle and downscale: “We propose dismantling the Hall of Worship and other structures at Yongling. All major wooden components will first be allocated to Changling as needed. For the Yongling Gate and Hall, the remaining wood from the side halls will be used to construct a five-bay Hall of Worship and a three-bay Gate, in accordance with the standards of other tombs.” They argued that “this approach would not only preserve the original scale of Changling, renewing its splendor, but also allow the Yongling Hall to be uniformly repaired and aligned with the other tombs, presenting a grand and unified appearance.” Although this proposal does not align with today’s heritage conservation principle of “restoring to the original,” it was the only feasible option at the time. Emperor Qianlong’s primary goal in ordering the restoration of the Thirteen Tombs was to ease relations between the Han and Manchu peoples to maintain Qing Dynasty rule, with political objectives taking precedence. As long as these goals were met, strict adherence to the original design was secondary. Moreover, this approach helped reduce renovation costs. Thus, when Jin Jian’s memorial was submitted to the court, Emperor Qianlong quickly approved it. Consequently, the Ling’en Gate and Ling’en Hall of Yongling were rebuilt at a reduced scale: the Ling’en Hall was downsized from seven bays wide (total width 50.65 meters) and five bays deep (total depth 27.72 meters) to five bays wide (total width 25.91 meters) and three bays deep (total depth 14.4 meters), with the roof changing from double-eaved to a single-eaved hip-and-gable style. The Ling’en Gate was reduced from five bays wide (total width 26.26 meters) and two bays deep (total depth 11.26 meters) to three bays wide (total width 12.3 meters) and three bays deep (total depth 8.7 meters), retaining the single-eaved hip-and-gable roof style.

During the Republican era, the reconstructed Ling’en Hall and Ling’en Gate from the Qianlong period successively collapsed. To this day, the stone plinths of the post-renovation gate and hall remain fully preserved on the platform. Fewer plinths from the Ming-era gate and hall survive, but those that do show a noticeably larger size compared to the post-renovation ones. Among them, the surviving Ming-era plinth of the double-eaved golden column in the Ling’en Hall has a drum-mirror diameter of 1.2 meters, just 2 centimeters smaller than that of Changling.

(1507–1566) Grandson of Emperor Xianzong Zhu Jianshen of the Ming Dynasty, adoptive nephew of Emperor Xiaozong Zhu Youchang, and adoptive younger brother of Emperor Wuzong Zhu Houzhao. His birth father was Prince Xingxian, who was enfeoffed in Anlu, Huguang, with his princely residence located to the left of Yangchun Platform (now the Second Municipal Middle School).

Zhu Houcong, the second son of Prince Xingxian Zhu Youyuan. He was born on the tenth day of the eighth month in the second year of the Zhengde era (1507) in the Fengxiang Palace of Prince Xing’s residence. In the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), following the ancestral edict of “eldest brother’s successor is the younger brother,” he left his hometown of Anlu (renamed Zhongxiang in the tenth year of Jiajing) and traveled to the capital to succeed his cousin—Emperor Wuzong Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao... More information about Zhu Houcong+

Shisanling Town: A township under the jurisdiction of Changping County. Established as Tailingyuan Township in 1956, renamed Shisanling Commune in 1958, and reorganized as Shisanling Township in 1982. Located in the northern part of the county, 1 kilometer from the county seat. Covers an area of 67.9 square kilometers with a population of 14,000. National Highways 108 and 110 pass through. Administers 16 village committees including Jian Tou, Shipailou, Nanxin Village, Xiānrén Dòng, Dàgōng Mén, Kānglíng Yuán, Wáng Zhuāng, Tàilíng Yuán, Hú Zhuāng, Xīshān Kǒu, Xiǎogōng Mén, Dàolíng Jiān, Wànniáng Fén, Déshèng Kǒu, Guǒ Zhuāng, and Chánglíng Yuán, and one neighborhood committee, Beixin Village. One of Beijing’s top ten fruit-producing townships, known for its flat peaches... More details about Shisanling Town++

Ming Thirteen Tombs Scenic Area

Ming Xianling Tomb

Ming Zhaoling Tomb – Thirteen Tombs - Zhaoling

Ming Siling Tomb

Ming Kangling Tomb

Ming Yuling Tomb

Ming Qingling Tomb

Ming Tailing Tomb

Ming Jingling Tomb

Ming Maoling Tomb

Ming Changling Tomb

Ming Dingling Tomb

Ming Deling Tomb