Tomb of Qiu Jun

Tomb of Qiu Jun

The Tomb of Qiu Jun is a cultural relic protection unit of Hainan Province.

Tomb of Qiu Jun

In the eighth year of the Hongzhi reign during the Ming Dynasty (1495), Qiu Jun passed away in his official residence in the capital at the age of 75. The following year, the imperial court held a funeral for him, and his burial site was chosen at the source of the Wulong Pool in Shuitou Village, Qiongshan. It is said that Qiu Jun himself had specially entrusted someone to return to his hometown to select the site before his death. Three years before his passing, Qiu Jun asked a feng shui master to search for a burial ground, and the person entrusted with this important task was Xu Bao from Anhui. Upon arriving in Qiongzhou, Xu Bao directly sought out Qiu Jun’s student, the renowned poet Wang Zuo, and together they selected a final resting place for Qiu Jun in his hometown.

The Tomb of Qiu Jun was built in the eighth year of the Hongzhi reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty (1495), taking nearly four months of labor to complete. The tomb complex covers an area of 0.25 hectares. The main tomb is constructed of granite, with a round dome standing approximately 6 meters high, oriented 5° east of due south. The original tomb foundation consisted of six levels, with the tomb path featuring 16 steps. In front of the tomb stands a stele that is 4.4 meters tall, with a base 2 meters wide, the body of the stele 1 meter wide, and carved at the top are two dragons dancing in opposite directions. The middle of the stele is inscribed with: “The Imperial Ming Tomb of the Grand Master of Splendid Light, Pillar of the State, Junior Guardian, concurrently Senior Guardian of the Heir Apparent, Minister of Revenue, Grand Secretary of the Wuying Hall, posthumously honored as Left Pillar of the State and Grand Tutor, with the posthumous title ‘Wenzhuang,’ Qiu Gong, and his wife Lady Wu, posthumously granted the first-rank title.” The left and right edges are adorned with patterns such as green pines, cranes, and auspicious clouds. Two meters in front of the stele is a stone altar, with a stone incense burner in front of the altar and two pairs of stone candlesticks. Sixteen meters in front of the tomb is a stone memorial archway, 5 meters tall, with the inscription “Imperial Decree to a Distinguished Scholar-Official” carved in the center on the front. Behind the archway stand two ancient-style stone statues of tomb guards. Four meters in front of the statues is a marble stele, 2 meters tall and 1 meter wide. The north face of the stele is inscribed with “Edict of Heavenly Majesty,” while the south face bears the text of the Ming emperor’s sacrificial decree. The entire tomb complex is elliptical in shape, enclosed by railings on the left, right, and rear sides, stretching approximately 140 meters, with lush sloping land surrounding the outer perimeter. In front of the tomb complex lies a pond, originally about 0.36 hectares in size, which was later expanded by villagers of Shuitou to 0.8 hectares. The pond has an inexhaustible spring, remains full year-round, and is cool in summer and warm in winter. In front of the pond lies a square patch of grass, around 900 square meters in size, with one pair each of stone horses, stone sheep, and stone lions. It was once said, “Those who pass by the tomb of Wenzhuang cannot help but feel solemn.”

The tomb garden faces vast fertile fields and is backed by a lush green hill, exuding an air of simplicity, elegance, solemnity, and dignity. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, national leaders such as Zhu De and Guo Moruo visited the Tomb of Qiu Jun. In 1962, the People's Government of Guangdong Province designated the Tomb of Qiu Jun as a key cultural relic protection unit of the province. In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, the tomb was vandalized. When the tomb chamber was pried open, items such as a coffin, skeletal remains, a python robe, ceremonial tablets, a jade belt, a crown top, and hairpins were discovered. On Qingming Festival in 1979, the Qiu clan across the island carried out simple restoration work on the tomb. In 1986, the Hainan Administrative Region and the Haikou Municipal People's Government allocated 300,000 yuan to begin restoration work on the main tomb, the tomb stele, the tomb complex, the tomb path, and the memorial archway.

Source: Party History Research Office of the Hainan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China

Qiu Jun (1421–1495), courtesy name Zhongshen, also known as Shen’an or Qiongshan, with the alias Qiongtai. A native of Xiati Village, Qiongshan, he was a high-ranking official in the Ming Dynasty cabinet, as well as a thinker and economist. His grandfather, Qiu Pu, was kind-hearted and fond of “helping others and benefiting all things,” earning a lifetime reputation for good deeds. His father, Qiu Fu, died young. Qiu Jun was intelligent from childhood, able to memorize what he read and “write down thousands of words a day.” By the age of 6, he could compose poetry, and his poem “Five Finger Mountain,” written at the age of 7, became widely celebrated. At 17, he took the imperial examinations and “produced writings that stood out among his peers, completing thousands of words in moments.”

In the ninth year of the Zhengtong reign of the Ming Dynasty (1444), Qiu Jun ranked first in the provincial examinations... More detailed information about Qiu Jun ++