After Yingzheng ascended the throne, he began to build a mausoleum in Lishan. After the unification of China, the scale of the jianling project expanded, and the labor force in Lishan remained at more than 700,000 for a long time, which lasted for more than 30 years. In July 210 BC, Qin Shi Huang died in the sand dunes of the old land of the Zhao Kingdom. In September, Qin II buried Qin Shi Huang in Lishan. However, until the time of the Qin Dynasty, the cemetery had not yet been completed. The Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin is the largest mausoleum in Chinese history. The mausoleum system pioneered by Qin Shi Huang also had a profound impact on the architecture of the imperial mausoleums of successive dynasties.
Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor
The Mausoleum of the First Qin Shi Huang covers an area of 2,129,500 square meters, with a rectangle of north-south length and east-west narrowness, with four floors inside and outside, and three layers in the mausoleum area: outer city, inner city and sealing soil. Located in the southern part of the inner city, the mound is a flat-topped quadrangular tapered platform with three tiers of stepped earth. There are nine layers of palaces in the imperial tomb enclosure, one group of every three floors, alluding to the nine-five dignity of the first emperor, climbing the nine-story platform to overlook his empire. Under the mound is the underground palace where coffins and burial items are placed, which is the most important part of the cemetery architecture and has not yet been excavated by archaeology.
According to the "History of Qin Shi Huang Benji", the underground palace dug extremely deep, passing through the triple spring water, "under the copper and the rafters, the palace view hundred officials, the strange and strange people hidden in full", "mercury for the hundred rivers and seas, the machine phase instilled." The upper has astronomy and the lower has geography. Take mermaid paste as a candle, and the immortal will last a long time." According to archaeological tests, there is a strong mercury anomaly area within 12,000 square meters of the center of the tomb, which verifies the documentation of mercury. Cemetery passages have been found on the north, west, east, west, and north sides of the mound. A painted bronze car was found in the cave of the West Cemetery Road. On the north side of the mound there is the remains of a large complex of buildings, which experts speculate is the site of the sleeping hall. To its north there is a large area of architectural ruins, which should be the temple. Outside the east, west, south and east walls of the inner wall, there are the ruins of the gallery houses built along the wall. On the west side of the inner city, a food vessel inscribed with pottery such as "Lishan Food Official" was excavated, and it is speculated that this is the residence of the food official in the cemetery. There are remnants of a flood control embankment in front of the large ditch on the south side of the mausoleum.
Tomb of The First Emperor of Qin
When the sealing soil was closed and consolidated, trees were planted on the tomb, and the mountains were full of pines and cypresses. According to the records, when Xiang Yu led his army into the pass and came to Lishan Mountain, he only saw the Cangsong Cage Temple and the Gubaiying Pavilion. Xiang Yu personally supervised the division and asked Yingbu to command an army of 300,000 to excavate the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
Buried bronze carriage horse
However, Xiang Yu did not find the qin shi huang emperor mausoleum and the underground palace below, only stole a part of the figurine pit, Xiang Yu was angry, ordered the burning of the qin shi huang mausoleum, and finally caused the ground building of the qin shi huang mausoleum to disappear. This may be the earliest and most destructive disaster of the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin. After Xiang Yudong withdrew, thieves from the Kwantung clan poured into the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, and almost all the funerary pits and burial tombs found in the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang were destroyed by theft and fire. However, the fiefdom and underground palace of the Qin Shi Huang Emperor's mausoleum are still there.
There are more than 600 funerary tombs and funerary pits in the mausoleum of The First Emperor of Qin, and there is a "A" shaped funerary tomb in the northwest corner of the tomb mound, which some scholars believe may be the tomb of Gongzi Gao, the son of Qin Shi Huang. There is a number of funerary tombs in the eastern part of the inner city, which are independent of each other. There are also funerary tombs between the inner and outer cities. To the north of the inner city is the harem burial area, which contains more than a hundred funerary pits. The owner of the harem tomb is not in the coffin, and the passage is scattered with mutilated skeletons, some even with different heads, but there is no gold and silver treasure, suspected of being the work of Qin II.
Schematic diagram of the ruins of the inner and outer cities of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum
On the east side of the outer city of the cemetery there is a group of seventeen tombs, running in a north-south direction. Most of the tomb owners are dissimilar, their limbs are separated, their bones are messy, and even one head is inserted with a broken arrow. This is the burial tomb of the princes and princesses of Qin Shi Huang who were killed by Qin II.
Painted bronze cranes unearthed from rare animal pits
So far, more than 180 funerary pits of various types have been found in the underground inside and outside the cemetery. There are 16 graves in the inner city. On the west side of the outer city and the inner city, there are rare animal pits, stable pits, sitting figurine pits, and funeral pits; on the east side of the inner city, there are stone armor pits and hundred drama figurine pits. Outside the city, there are stable pits, animal pits and terracotta pits that simulate the burial of military formations. In the northwest outside the outer city, the ruins of a stone processing plant have also been found. These funerary pits are rich in cultural connotations and to a large extent reproduce the way of life of the emperor before his death.
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