Shaanxi Xi'an Jiangcun Great Tomb There is no authentic tomb under the mouth of the phoenix, which was originally in Jiangcun

The tomb of Emperor Wen of Han was found in Shaanxi. The picture shows the excavation site of Gangchon Tomb No. 1 (taken on May 15, 2019, drone photo). Xinhua News Agency

Seals unearthed from a pit outside the Emura Tomb (taken on May 7, 2020). Xinhua News Agency

The tomb of Emperor Wen of Han was found in Shaanxi. The picture shows a group of pottery figurines excavated from the outer pit of Empress Bo's Southern Tomb (taken on May 7, 2020). Xinhua News Agency

On the morning of December 14, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an online meeting in Beijing to focus on three important archaeological discoveries and research results in Gansu, Henan and Shaanxi. At the meeting, it was announced that the great tomb of Bailuyuan Jiangcun in Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han.

The reporter learned that the online conference on the progress of the major project of "Archaeology China" focused on important archaeological discoveries in the Han and Tang Dynasties. Among them, the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, the third emperor of the Han Dynasty, is undoubtedly the most concerned project. Until the identity of the owner of the tomb was confirmed, the tomb in Bailuyuan, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, was called the "Jiangcun Tomb". Through meticulous excavation and careful analysis, the archaeologists judged that the "Jiangcun Tomb" was the tomb of Emperor Wen of Han. The other two projects are the ruins of Zhengpingfang in Luoyang City, Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the latest research results from the tombs of the Tuguhun royal family in the Tang Dynasty found in Wuwei, Gansu.

Jiangcun Tomb is located in Baqiao District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. In 2016, the outer pit of the Jiangcun Tomb was disturbed, in order to confirm the preservation status of the tomb and the distribution of the surrounding cultural relics, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, archaeologists conducted systematic archaeological investigation and exploration of the Jiangcun Tomb and its nearby Empress Dou Mausoleum, The Southern Tomb of Empress Bo and the "Phoenix Mouth" site that is said to be the Tomb of Emperor Wen of Han, and carried out archaeological excavations of the hidden pit outside the mausoleum, and now basically confirmed that the Jiangcun Tomb is the tomb of Liu Heng, the emperor of the early Han Dynasty of the Western Han Dynasty.

Jiangcun Tomb is located at the western end of Bailuyuan in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, about 800 meters northeast is the Mausoleum of Empress Dou, about 2000 meters southwest of the Southern Tomb of Empress Bo, and about 2100 meters north is the "Phoenix Mouth" location where the former state security unit Baling is located. Archaeological exploration confirmed that there were no Han Dynasty tombs at the "Phoenix Mouth" site, which was excluded as the possibility of a baling tomb. Jiangcun tomb plane is "Ya" shape, the surface of the land is not sealed, the burial chamber side length of about 72 meters, more than 30 meters deep, more than 110 outer hidden pits were found around the tomb, the outer pit has pebble paved cemetery facilities (tentatively named "Stone Boundary"), the side length is about 390 meters, the four sides of the stone fence are directly in front of the door site, it is speculated that it may be an independent imperial mausoleum (Empress Dou's mausoleum also has an independent mausoleum). The remains of the cemetery wall found outside the Jiangcun Tomb and the Mausoleum of Empress Dou are speculated to be in the same mausoleum, which is about 1200 meters long from east to west and about 863 meters wide from north to south. Archaeology has excavated 8 outer pits of Jiangcun Tomb, and unearthed more than 1,500 pieces of pottery figurines, copper seals, copper carriages and horses, iron tools, pottery, etc., and the copper seals have "Chefu", "Instrument House", "Riding Thousand People in China", "Fuyin", "Cangyin", "ZhongsikongYin", etc., indicating that the outer Tibetan pits around jiangcun tombs should be built to imitate the actual official office and the government treasury. The shape and scale of the Jiangcun Tomb are in line with the highest level tomb specifications of the Western Han Dynasty, coupled with the distribution of the Tomb of Empress Dou and the Tomb of Empress Bo around it, experts confirm that the Tomb of Jiangcun is the Tomb of emperor Wen of Han.

This archaeological work has determined the exact location of the tombs of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty and solved the problem of the names of the eleven imperial tombs of the Western Han Dynasty. The structural layout of the Double Mausoleum, the Imperial Tomb Center, and the Outer Hidden Pit shows obvious differences with the Ancestral Tomb of Han Gao and the Mausoleum of Emperor Hui of Han, which lays the foundation of the imperial tomb system in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, and is of great significance to the in-depth study of the imperial tomb system in ancient China.

Archaeologists use four-step cross-confirmation to uncover the mystery of Emperor Wen's "Baling Tombs" step by step.

The first step is to confirm that the size of the Gangchon Tomb is a royal mausoleum.

In the second step, according to the excavated cultural relics such as the Zhongsikong Seal, the identity of the owner of the tomb is confirmed.

In the third step, the tomb of Jiangcun and the mausoleum of Empress Dou were enclosed, which once again confirmed that the identity of the owner of the tomb should be "emperor level".

In the fourth step, the empty "fake" tomb under the mouth of the phoenix reverse confirms that the location of the real tomb is actually the Jiangcun Tomb. At this point, the names of the eleventh emperor's mausoleum of the Western Han Dynasty were all determined.

■ Trivia Han Wendi:

Emperor Wen of Han (203 BC – 157 BC) was the third emperor of the Western Han Dynasty. According to historical records, Liu Heng was a very frugal emperor.

In the "Records of History", it is recorded that "all the tombs are made of pottery, and must not be decorated with gold, silver, copper and tin, and do not rule the graves, but want to be a province, and do not bother the people."

The "Chronicle of History" also records that during the reign of Emperor Wen of Han for twenty-three years, the palace, gardens, dogs and horses, clothing, cars, etc., did not increase. But anything that is inconvenient to the people is abolished in order to facilitate the people. If these records are true, then Emperor Wen of Han is definitely one of the most frugal emperors.

However, Emperor Wen of Han was frugal to himself and very kind to the people, and he constantly ordered the people to reduce their taxes and give benefits to the people. Under the rule of Emperor Wen of Han, the Western Han Dynasty continued to grow in strength and the treasury was abundant, opening up the first rule of China's feudal society - the rule of Wenjing.