In ancient China, after the death of the emperor, a beautiful funeral was held, and they moved into the luxurious mausoleum that had been prepared for them long ago, and there were countless rare treasures to accompany the burial, but in order to prevent outlaws from destroying their own imperial tombs, the imperial court usually arranged some people to guard the mausoleum for them, so as not to be spied on by the outlaws.
The emperors of the Qing Dynasty would also build huge imperial tombs, especially qianlong, who was very happy and meritorious, and built their own mausoleums particularly luxuriously, according to the rules and regulations of the Qing Dynasty, they would arrange for the tomb keepers to guard the spirits, and pass them on from generation to generation.
But this tomb keeper is not something anyone can afford, they must all be the purest blood of the Manchurian Manchus, and there are even folk rumors that they are distant relatives of the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. When people think of the tomb keepers, they often think that they are just maintaining the cleanliness and safety of the burial chambers around the mausoleum.
In fact, their responsibilities go far beyond that. When the emperor led hundreds of civil and military officials to worship every year, the tomb keepers had to greet them and prepare items for sacrifice, so their tasks were also very tedious, and they could be regarded as civil servants in the Qing Dynasty.
The imperial court of the Qing Dynasty did not treat them badly, and would give them Feng Lu every year, and would also give a certain amount of land for these people to survive. So this is also the reason why the tomb keepers have been passed down from generation to generation.
However, with the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the change of power, in today's new China, there are still some people who insist on guarding the mausoleum. At this time, the cemeteries of these princes and nobles were no longer personal places, but were opened by the state as a scenic spot.
The strength and number of tomb keepers are limited, so in the years of war and chaos at the end of the Qing Dynasty, they could not stop the wheel of history. During the Beiyang years, the warlord Sun Dianying's troops lacked money and food, so they targeted the tomb of Cixi, who had died.
Sun's army blasted open the gate of the tomb with cannons, swept away the rare treasures that Cixi had put in from all over the country, and even opened Cixi's coffin and stole the night pearl she contained in her mouth.
These were things that the tomb keepers could not stop, even if it was the Beijing nobleman Puyi, who had abdicated, had no choice but to hear it, he heard that his ancestral grave had been planed, and he could only sue to the Beiyang government, hoping to give him the master, but at this time, Sun Dianying had already led the troops south, and there was nothing that could be done in Beijing without real power.
There were many mausoleums in the Qing Dynasty, resulting in the formation of a village composed of the descendants of the tomb keepers in the place of the Three Tombs outside guanwai, and the people who guard the tombs today are officially composed of people in these villages.
They are basically Manchus, listening to the lessons of their ancestors, and although the state has relevant personnel to clean the cemetery, they will still spontaneously clean the mausoleum and offer tribute.
The current shouling descendants are actually quite hard, they have been serving the royal family in the past, at least they can get paid, but now they can't get any remuneration at all. The only thing they insist on is a will and a legacy.
The inheritance of the tomb keepers can not cover up the truth of the qing dynasty, the Qing Dynasty has preserved a lot of mausoleums, throwing away the relationship between the ages, which is inseparable from their corrupt government, even if the people can't eat, and insist on building a large number of civil engineering, in the heyday of the tomb keepers, there are more than three thousand people, the living people can't manage things, but more concerned about the dead, can such a dynasty not perish?