We went to Zuo Zongtang's tomb on a spring rainy morning to visit. Starting from Yuelu Mountain, crossing the Xiangjiang Bridge, the car plunged headlong into the rural road. The wet cement pavement looked a little muddy, the ruts were long, and a quarter of an hour later we saw the four characters of Zuo Zongtang's tomb on the road sign. The car crawled on a hill in the town of Vaulting Horse, and Zuo Zongtang's tomb was on the side of the mountain road. The black iron gate of the left tomb is next to the road, which is quite cramped, and we push open the iron door of the cemetery and carefully climb a steep stone staircase before we can see the left tomb.
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Zuo Zongtang's recovery of Xinjiang in 1878 was a major event in China's modern history. The successful recovery of Xinjiang also achieved Zuo Zongtang's life achievements. On both sides of Zuo Zongtang's cemetery, there are Huabiao pillars, which read: Qinchuan Longdao Sailiu Changqing, Hanye TangGui Xi'an Yonggu. The content of this joint speech very focused on Zuo Zongtang's great achievements.
Zuo Zongtang's tomb is on the edge of a winding mountain road
Zuo Zongtang (1812-1885), also spelled Jigao, was born in Zuojiayuan, Dongxiang, Xiangyin, Hunan, in present-day Xinguang Village, Jinlong Township, Xiangyin County, Yueyang City, Hunan Province. Zuo Zongtang made meritorious contributions to the west and returned to Beijing to serve as the minister of military aircraft. Soon after the French invasion, Zuo Zongtang, who was in his seventies, came to Fuzhou with an illness and took the minister of Chincha to supervise the military affairs of Fujian. On September 5, 1885, Zuo Zongtang handed over the errand of the Minister of Chincha and died at the Camp of the Huanghuaguan in Fuzhou. Dying last words: "So far, I have not greatly stretched out the tart, Zhang Guowei, the will of the people, the hatred of life, can not be blind." Zuo Zongtang died, and the whole country was shocked. In the winter of the following year, Zuo Zongtang was buried in the present-day Jumping Horse Township of Changsha County, Hunan Province.
Zuo Zongtang's tomb
The tomb keeper, Huang Zhiqing, is an emaciated old man. He said that Zuo Zongtang's tomb was originally as large as one hundred acres, but now it is only more than ten acres. Huang Zhiqing and his ancestors are witnesses to the changes in Zuo Zongtang's tomb. Zuo Zongtang was buried at this time in 1886, and Huang Zhiqing's great-grandfather Huang Youchun came to Zuo Zongtang's tomb and became a tenant in the cemetery. Zuo Zongtang's children admired the cropper and put him in charge of managing the cemetery and planting the fields in the cemetery. Since then, the Huang family has guarded Zuo Zongtang's cemetery for generations, and Huang Zhiqing is already the fourth generation.
Tomb keeper Huang Zhiqing
One day in June 1971, more than a dozen strong men from a nearby village quietly came to Zuo Zongtang's tomb. This gang felt that Zuo Zongtang was a high-ranking official of the Qing Dynasty, and there must be rich funerary goods after his death, and they decided to rob the tomb with the purpose of making a fortune. These dozen people, holding more than a hundred pounds of explosives, placed them on the periphery of the tomb on the left side of the tomb, and detonated them with more than a dozen detonators. A loud rumble was heard, and the whole mountain trembled. The door of the burial chamber was blown open, and the tomb robbers eagerly broke in, only to find the inside of the tomb empty. They pried open the lid of Zuo Zongtang's coffin, only to see that Zuo Zongtang's remains were still white and pure, lifelike, as if in a deep sleep.
The grave robbers found nothing and left in despair. As soon as the front foot of the saboteurs left, Huang Zhiqing, a teenager who was busy outside, returned home. Zuo Zongtang's tomb was destroyed, and the saddest nature was the Huang family, who had been guarding the tomb for generations. The mother of the Huang family cried and said to the teenager Huang Zhiqing, Zuo Daren is a great hero, others destroyed his grave, you repair the grave for him. Huang Zhiqing obeyed his mother's instructions, invited a companion, and that night had the courage to re-enter Zuo Zongtang, and carefully sorted out Zuo Zongtang's tomb room, so that the ancestors could be buried in the soil.
Around 1975, a road was built through the left tomb, making Zuo Zongtang's cemetery much smaller. Not only that, the archway of Zuo Zongtang Cemetery, the stone man stone horse, and the tomb road stone were also requisitioned. Soon after, the local construction of the White Bamboo Bridge lacked stone materials, and materials were taken from Zuo Zongtang Cemetery... In this way, more than eighty years after Zuo Zongtang's death, he sponsored people a road and a bridge. Huang Zhiqing led us to the bottom of the White Bamboo Bridge, and we can still see the stone of the left tomb at the ridge of the bridge.
The water of the Xiang River flows from the foot of the left tomb
After the reform and opening up, Zuo Zongtang's tomb was strongly protected. In 1985, on the occasion of the centenary of Zuo Zongtang's death, Hunan rebuilt Zuo Zongtang's tomb and solemnly held a ceremony to commemorate the centenary. Soon, Zuo Zongtang's tomb was listed as a key cultural relics protection unit in Hunan Province.
Oil painting: Zuo Zongtang recovers Xinjiang
Today, most of the tomb robbers who blew up Zuo Zongtang's tomb and opened Zuo Zongtang's coffin have become ancient. One of the participants was often later criticized by relatives and friends. One day, while drinking with people, he talked to people about the past of blowing up the tomb of the left tomb, and his heart was full of regret. When he was drunk, this person actually got up and grabbed the kitchen knife on the board and chopped off one of his fingers... When we heard this story in Zuo Zongtang's cemetery, we were inexplicably moved. Obviously, today's vaulting town people understand Zuo Zongtang's exploits and think that Qingshan has the honor of burying a generation of famous courtiers.