Tomb of Chen Jufu, the Imperial Son-in-Law

Tomb of Chen Jufu, the Imperial Son-in-Law

The Tomb of Chen Jufu, the Imperial Son-in-Law, is a cultural tourism attraction.

Tomb of Chen Jufu, the Imperial Son-in-Law

In Taiping Town, Dianjiang County, there are two imperial son-in-law tombs. One is the tomb of Luo Jian, the Han Dynasty imperial son-in-law, which has an inscribed stele beneath Taiping Temple in the southern part of the town; the other is the joint tomb of Chen Jufu, the Song Dynasty imperial son-in-law, and Princess Xinyi, located at Tudi Dam in the southern part of the county. The joint tomb of Chen Jufu and Princess Xinyi is commonly referred to as the Imperial Son-in-Law Tomb. This tomb still has both its stele and structure intact, along with a detailed record in the "Chen Family Genealogy" by the descendants of the imperial son-in-law.

On the 9th day of the 12th month in the 4th year of the Guangxu reign (1821), a tall stone stele for the joint tomb of the imperial son-in-law and princess was jointly funded and erected by the descendants of Chen Jufu from the three branches—Zifang, Ziying, and Zihua. It stands in front of the Imperial Son-in-Law Tomb. At that time, the tomb area also featured large stone sculptures such as a memorial archway and a roaring lion, but unfortunately, these have long been destroyed. What can still be seen today is a sandstone tomb stele measuring 1.6 meters in height and 0.77 meters in width. The right half of the stele contains a 162-character preface. The supplementary tomb pillars and stele tops are still preserved. The stele is made of local sandstone, which is susceptible to weathering and erosion. After just over a hundred years, some of the inscriptions have become difficult to discern.

In this remote corner of southwestern China, the existence of such an Imperial Son-in-Law Tomb undoubtedly provides important historical evidence for studying the resistance of the Southern Song military and civilians against the Yuan Dynasty. At the time, cultural heritage management departments at various levels—including those of Sichuan Province, Fuling Region, and later Chongqing Municipality—sent personnel to conduct on-site investigations at the Imperial Son-in-Law Tomb in Tudi Dam, Taiping, and made rubbings of the inscriptions. The People’s Government of Dianjiang County subsequently designated the tomb as a county-level cultural relic protection site and erected a stele to mark it.