After the death of the Qing Dynasty for 108 years, why are there still tomb keepers in the Qing Tombs, who give them wages? Who are they
In 1912, less than 4 years after succeeding to the throne, Puyi, who was only 6 years old, inevitably became the past in the torrent of the times, and together with him became the sunset and dusk, along with the feudal system that lasted for thousands of years, as well as the decaying and embarrassing Yangyang Qing Dynasty, and then even if he struggled in the dream of restoration, puyi was buried as a commoner in the Hualong Royal Cemetery.
Puyi failed to enjoy the honor of the emperors of previous dynasties, whether it is the QingXi Tomb or the Qing Eastern Mausoleum, he has not been able to get on the side, although the Hualong Royal Cemetery is called "royal", but in fact, it has little to do with the real royal family. However, even if the last emperor is so embarrassed, the Qing Dynasty has been destroyed for 108 years, but the Qing Dongling is still carefully cared for by the tomb keepers, which makes people wonder: why are they so loyal? Where do their salaries come from?
First, the faithful nature of the tomb keepers
The Qing Dynasty's Qing Dongling Tomb was founded in 1661, from the beginning of the Shunzhi Emperor Ai Xinjue luo Fulin to the year of Puyi's succession, which lasted for 247 years and buried 161 people, including 5 emperors, 15 empresses, 136 concubines, 3 brothers, and 2 princesses. Along with the construction of the mausoleum, the mausoleum system of the Qing Dynasty was born.
There must be a large number of gold and silver jewelry in the royal mausoleum, in order to avoid being stolen and robbed and destroyed, in addition to the mausoleum itself there will be some organ design, or a false legend that hides people's ears, successive emperors will send people to garrison to guard, and the building needs to be repaired and maintained, which gave birth to a special institution about the mausoleum in the imperial dynasty - Taining Association, from the beginning of the Yongzheng Emperor's construction of the Tailing Shop.
The Qing Dynasty's mausoleum system and the Taining Association would strictly control the choice of the tomb keepers, what kind of people can become tomb keepers?
The answer is the three flags that are rooted in red. That is, the three banners of Zhenghuang, Inlaid Yellow, and Zhenglan, they are the three banners directly under the direct command of the emperor, some of the military as the guards of the mausoleum for patrol protection, some of the palace eunuchs as the caretakers of the mausoleum to carry out work such as sacrifice and sweeping, and some are professional mausoleum builders, of course, the occupational division may not be so clear, but this part of the personnel will eventually be given the lowest seven official positions, for many people, it can be regarded as a good errand.
So how will they inherit this profession? Of course, it is still "father and son" and "generations". Starting from the first group of tomb keepers, they will build a village in the nearby area to take care of the mausoleum, except that the people who serve them are all people who have entered the earth, they are actually not too different from those in the palace, there is a strict system and army guarding, but relatively speaking, it is still relatively free, the emperor will not always worry about a mausoleum, and even avoid it, so they do not have to suffer from the transformation of the palace.
So in fact, the tomb keepers were not loyal at the beginning, this is just a position, and a task that must be completed, but because of the "generations" system, and this position is idle, and it is a "fat difference", so many tomb keepers will be willing to let their descendants inherit. But this inheritance slowly developed into a sense of faith that many tomb keepers have today.
2. Sources of remuneration for the tomb keepers
Since the tomb keepers of the Qing Dynasty arranged the system and divided the institutions, it was of course up to the imperial court to pay the salaries, give them official positions or issue them with fenglu, which was also a natural result to avoid self-theft.
After the end of the Qing Dynasty's rule, in 1912, Yuan Shikai did not exterminate the officials and royalty of the Qing Dynasty, and even at that time Puyi was still living in the palace, and his life was still extremely luxurious, this was because he hoped to make Puyi abdicate as soon as possible, so he gave a series of preferential treatment, which included the construction and maintenance of the imperial tomb, of course, the salary of the tomb keeper was paid by the Beiyang government on Yuan Shikai's side.
However, during the period of warlord chaos and regime change, no one still had the heart to take care of the salary problem of the tomb keepers, so the tomb keepers began to flee because they could not get the salary, and when they fled, they did not forget to take away some of the things in the mausoleum, so the Qing Dongling at that time was plundered, and in 1928, the rogue warlord Sun Dianying even used the name of the exercise to blast the "underground palace" of the tomb of the Qianlong Emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, so that a large number of treasures were lost and scattered.
After the founding of New China, the scattered tomb keepers lived in the villages where the first generation of tomb keepers lived, and now more than a hundred years later, they have developed again and become a cultural phenomenon, and their salaries may be the legacy of their ancestors, or they may be given in addition to the status of the tomb keepers, of course, it is more likely that they are issued by the state - as a need for cultural relics protection.
At this time, the tomb keepers no longer regarded the tomb keeper as a profession or task, and they had an attachment and belief that was vague for many people. From a career development to a belief that has been passed down for a hundred years, the history and ideas of the Qing Dynasty Tomb Keepers in the past hundred years are worthy of our study and admiration.