Why did the underground imperial tombs submerge underwater? In the 1960s, the mainland discovered the first underwater imperial tomb in the Xujiao area of Jiangsu, and according to the research and analysis of archaeologists, this imperial tomb is one of the three tombs of the early Ming Dynasty, the ming ancestral tomb, which is the location of the tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestors. The Ming Dynasty has always advocated thick burial, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who came from a poor background, is also very superstitious about feng shui, so why is the Ming Ancestral Tomb flooded, and what is the story behind it?
The discovery of the Ming Ancestral Tombs
In 1963, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River suffered a once-in-a-century drought in the summer, and Hongze Lake in Xuyi County, Jiangsu Province, was also affected by the drought, causing its water level to drop to a historical low, but because of the decline in water level, local fishermen in the fishing work, but unexpectedly found a very strange building in the west bank of Hongze Lake, this discovery directly exploded in the local area, and the nearby people were also talking about it.
Mysterious buildings that were accidentally exposed
According to an elderly local man, the ancestors have always had gods in the pond of Hongze Lake, and this mysterious building may be the residence of the gods, such a magical saying is also quickly passed on to ten, ten hundred, for a time also attracted the surrounding areas to boil, and later attracted a lot of outsiders to visit. This incident also alarmed the city's cultural relics bureau in the end, and then they sent experts to the site for a detailed investigation.
After the experts removed the debris around the pond, the prototype of this mysterious building was also displayed in front of everyone, and the nine arches and beams floating on the water were in front of everyone, and the experts were surprised to find that the materials used in these buildings were all white jade. The value of Han white jade is very precious, and the price of any ornament made of Han white jade is very expensive, and in ancient times, such a thing is even more encounterable and unattainable.
The site of the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum
And in ancient times, almost all of the building materials that can be used as han white jade are relatives of the emperor, and the buildings found in the past that use han white jade are also imperial tombs, according to which experts speculate that the mysterious building should be a corner of an imperial tomb, and who is the identity of the tomb owner, and experts have conducted more in-depth research after sampling on the spot. They found that the materials and shapes used in these buildings were almost all the specifications and designs of the Ming Dynasty royal mausoleums, according to which experts initially analyzed that the Suzuki should belong to the Ming Dynasty mausoleum.
Stone carvings in front of the steps
After consulting the relevant history books, experts found that the location of this mausoleum and the location of the Ming ancestral tomb recorded in it are almost the same, according to the ming dynasty historical records, the Ming ancestral mausoleum was built in the early Ming Dynasty, by the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the crown prince Zhu Biao to supervise the construction, and the entire Ming ancestral mausoleum presents a north-south direction, which has built a total of three layers of walls, the outer layer is the soil layer, the middle is the brick city, the interior is the imperial city, and on both sides of the mausoleum's Shinto, there are a total of 21 pairs of stone statues, they are arranged from south to north, 850 meters long, Its scale is very spectacular, and after some investigation and comparison, experts have also determined that this mausoleum is the famous Ming Ancestral Mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty.
MingZu Mausoleum Outer City Building
The Ming Ancestral Tomb is the ancestral tomb of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the crown tomb of his grandfather, great-grandfather and grandfather, and the actual burial place of Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather Zhu Chuyi. The emperors of successive Chinese dynasties have attached great importance to the construction of ancestral tombs, and they believe that the reason why they can sit on the emperor's throne and the prosperity of the country is because of the protection of ancestral tombs, and the location of ancestral tombs is generally also the location of their dragon veins, and Zhu Yuanzhang is naturally no exception, and he also attaches great importance to ancestral tombs, so the scale of its construction and the length of time used are extremely large.
Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang
After the discovery of the Mingzu Tomb, the expert team also quickly excavated it, but most of the Mingzu Tomb as a whole is under the silt, although they have tried all kinds of ways to clean up, but the water is full of many stones of different sizes, and these stones are wrapped in silt extremely tightly, and the usual excavation tools can not play a role at all. In desperation, the expert team had to temporarily abandon the excavation of the Ming Ancestral Tomb and instead repair and improve it. Although it is not possible to see the full picture of the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum, it is very obvious that this extremely large Ming Ancestral Mausoleum must have been on land at the beginning of its construction, so why did it end up at the bottom of Hongze Lake?
Overlooking the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum
The underwater mystery of the Ming Ancestral Tombs
In fact, the emperors in the history of the mainland are very cautious about the location of the mausoleum, and the location of the mausoleum is decided after a very careful and meticulous investigation. According to the relevant historical records, after the Qing Yongzheng Emperor took the throne, he first began to use the current Qing Dongling Tomb as the location of the mausoleum, but in the process of construction, it was accidentally found that the local soil contained a large amount of sand and stone, which was very easy to seep water, which was a great hidden danger for the safety of the underground palace, so Yongzheng also immediately gave up this position, which led to the later QingXi Mausoleum. There are many examples of temporary adjustment of the location of the mausoleum in history, so why did Zhu Yuanzhang choose to build this ancestral mausoleum near the relatively dangerous Hongze Lake, in order to solve this mystery, experts also immediately conducted a detailed investigation of Hongze Lake.
Magical underwater imperial tomb
They found that although Hongze Lake is one of the four major freshwater lakes on the mainland, but its existence time is actually not long, when the Ming Ancestral Tomb was built, Hongze Lake was only a general term for many ponds on both sides of the Huai River at that time, and in the annual rainy season, the rising water of the Huai River will pour into the Hongze Lake area, and after the water level fades, the water level of Hongze Lake will drop, so hongze Lake at that time was only a seasonal pond, and its role was only to temporarily regulate the flood, so when Zhu Yuanzhang was building the ancestral tombs, Hongze Lake poses no threat to the imperial tomb at all. So why Hongze Lake will eventually flood the Ming Ancestral Tombs, in fact, there are two main reasons.
Hongze Lake
First of all, the location of the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum is different from that of the general imperial tomb, which is not on the side of the high mountain Dafu, but in the hilly land known as "Nine Gangs and Eighteen Depressions", and the low-lying terrain has become one of the reasons for its submergation. From the perspective of feng shui kan public opinion, the location of the Ming ancestral mausoleum at that time was not very ideal, according to the definition of ancient kan public opinion, whether a place is a feng shui treasure land or not, first of all, it depends on the three oddities and four responses.
The so-called three odd refers to mountains, water and shores, the so-called four should be divided into front and back left and right, and there should be sand protection on the left and right of the building, the so-called "sand" refers to the hills and stones, in addition, there must be Luocheng, Luocheng is composed of mountains or water, to be surrounded by mountains, with mountains as Luocheng, thus forming the left green dragon, the right white tiger, the former Suzaku, the later Xuanwu four postures, but if there is no mountain around, a horse Pingchuan, it should be used to become a dragon by water, surrounded by Zeguo, but in the area around the Ming Ancestral Tombs, in addition to a piece of water, There is hardly anything else to be desired. Then why didn't Zhu Yuanzhang order other locations to be placed in the ancestral tomb?
Guhongze Lake area
In the book "Sihong Hezhi" there is such a record, Zhu Yuanzhang ancestral residence in Jurong County, Jiangsu Province, Zhu Jia Lane, in the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather Zhu Chuyi in order to escape the heavy taxes of the official government, so he took a family and took refuge with his family to Sizhou, Xuyi area, 30 miles north of the ancient Sizhou city, there is a place called Yang Jiadun, at that time there was a puddle next to the pier, Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather Zhu Chuyi often lay here in the sun.
The book "Sihong Hezhi"
One day, a master and an apprentice and two Taoist monks passed by the pier, and the master told the disciple, "Buried under this pier, the descendants can be emperors", and Zhu Chuyi heard this and told Zhu Yuanzhang's father Zhu Shizhen, and then Zhu Shizhen buried his father in the Yangjia'ao area, and later Zhu Shizhen's wife became pregnant and gave birth to Zhu Yuanzhang after moving to Anhui. After Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne as emperor, he crowned his grandfather as Emperor Yu, and in order to prevent the destruction of the dragon vein and cut off the feng shui, Zhu Yuanzhang did not relocate his grandfather's burial place, but built the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum based on the Yangjia'ao area.
Statue of Zhu Yuanzhang
At the same time, in order to solve the problem of poor feng shui in the area, when the tomb was built, Zhu Yuanzhang also ordered people to carry out large-scale artificial geographical transformation of the place, by filling in the depression and piling up the soil into a mountain to repair the deficiencies, and at the same time artificially rectifying the necessary landscape of feng shui elements such as sand, water, near case, and MingTang, which has formed the current standard "feng shui treasure land" pattern. However, what Zhu Yuanzhang did not expect was that the Ming Ancestral Tombs he painstakingly built could not escape the fate of being flooded in the end, and its low-lying terrain was also the main reason why the Ancestral Tombs were buried by water.
The majestic Ming Ancestral Mausoleum
The Yellow River Seizure Incident
Another important reason for the flooding of the Ming Ancestral Tombs was caused by the frequent floods after the Yellow River at that time, and the policy of storing Huai and brushing yellow implemented by the Ming and Qing dynasties later. In fact, according to the existing ancient records, the Huai River is a very old river, and like the Yellow River of the Yangtze River, it flows directly into the sea, but now the Huai River has become a tributary of the Yangtze River, and the reason for this is the Yellow River seizure of Huai during the Southern Song Dynasty.
As early as 1127, Du Chong, the then Southern Song Dynasty General of Tokyo, in order to be able to resist the Jin soldiers from going south to break the pass, so he forcibly dug open the Yellow River levee, which directly led to the Yellow River being forced to change course, and the Yellow River water also rushed south, flowing into the Jianghuai area below Hongze Lake at that time, directly seizing the channel of the Huai River into the sea, forcing the Huai River to be forced to go south, and it was only during the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty that the Yellow River re-entered the sea from Shandong, and this change process spanned more than 700 years, this event is also known as the Yellow River Seizure Incident.
The Southern Song Dynasty general Du Chong
Due to the occurrence of the Yellow River seizure incident, the sediment in the Yellow River began to accumulate continuously, and by the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River had been seizing Huaihuai for more than 300 years, and the entire channel of the Huai River was also raised by the accumulation of silt of the Yellow River. Due to the accumulation of silt and the disorder of the river, frequent flooding events occurred in the middle and lower reaches of the Huai River, which not only threatened the Ming Ancestral Tombs, but also seriously damaged the surrounding people and agricultural land.
Rushing down the Yellow River
In order to prevent the occurrence of floods, during the Ming Dynasty, the then Prime Minister's River Ministry Shangshu Pan Jitao put forward the water control strategy of storing Huaihuai and brushing yellow, in general, there are two main ways to control the river, the so-called blockage is to build a river embankment on both sides of the river, the so-called dredging is to divide several rivers in the middle and lower reaches of the river, in order to sort out the flood, but in the actual operation process, these two conventional methods have not played a very obvious role, and Pan Jitao's "storage huai brush yellow" proposed by Pan Jitao. The water control strategy belongs to the third and more alternative method.
Gongbu Shangshu Pan Ji Tam
This method is mainly aimed at the problem of too much sediment in the Yellow River, in simple terms, it is to save the Water of the Huai River by building a dike, and then through the flushing of the Water of the Huai River, the sediment that sinks to the bottom of the Yellow River will be taken away, and the sediment at the bottom of the river will be less, the river will naturally fall, and the people around the Yellow River will be safe. This idea is good, but it is very unsatisfactory to implement, although through the construction of levees, a large amount of Huai River water has been accumulated, but these amounts of water are still difficult to wash away the sediment of the Yellow River that has been silted up for hundreds of years.
Raging floods
What is more serious is that due to the inability of Huaishui to brush yellow, and the passage from the mouth of the Qinghe River into the sea is blocked, resulting in the water overflow of the Huai River, and with the increase of the water level of the Huai River, the water level of the surrounding Hongze Lake is also too high, and the original several small ponds have gradually converged into a large lake, and soon the lake is gradually approaching the Ming Ancestral Mausoleum, and eventually causing this magnificent imperial tomb to be swallowed by the lake.
People affected by the disaster along the coast
In fact, during the Ming Dynasty, in order to defend the existence of the ancestral tombs, the Ming Dynasty government also carried out various protective measures, experts in the detection of the Ming ancestral tombs, in its east of more than two hundred meters, found that there is a section of green bricks surfaced, and this part of the green bricks is only a small part of it, there are more green bricks still left tens of meters deep in the bottom of the water, in the eyes of experts, these green bricks are not the walls of the Ming ancestral tombs, but a waterproof embankment, in the tomb outside the construction of waterproof embankments, Such a thing is absolutely unique in the tomb architecture of the past. After sampling and testing the underwater green bricks, experts deduced that the waterproof embankment should have been built during the Chongzhen period.
Underwater Imperial Tomb Ruins
And this series of events shows that the Ming Ancestral Tomb has actually been deeply affected by floods, but after all, this is the location of the Zhu family dragon vein, which cannot be easily moved, so the later Ming Emperors did not dare to relocate the Ming Ancestral Tomb, but in order to prevent the destruction of the Dragon Vein, they obviously built many defensive measures, but after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Ancestral Tomb naturally lost more maintenance measures, thus becoming more dilapidated.
In the nineteenth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty, along with the simultaneous rise of the water level of the Yellow River and the Huai River, the water level of Hongze Lake also ushered in a sharp increase, and the Ming Ancestral Tomb was also annihilated in this lake, and at that time, along with the Ming Ancestral Tomb, it was submerged, and the ancient Sizhou City, which flourished for a time, was also submerged. There has always been a legend in the Xuyi area of Jiangsu that there is a thousand-year-old city in Hongze Lake, and this city is the famous ancient Sizhou City.
Ruins of the ancient city of Sizhou
The ancient city of Sizhou, which once prospered for a while
Sizhou City was founded in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, destroyed in the Sui Dynasty period in the war, in the Tang Dynasty to be rebuilt, the ancient Sizhou City geographical location is very superior, it is located in the lower reaches of the Huai River, the mouth of the Bian River area, for the Central Plains region of the throat, the north-south traffic rush, its political, economic and military position in the past are extremely important, and later due to the increasing prosperity of the Cause of Caoyun, when the government built a new city on the other side of the Bian River on the side of the Sizhou City, the development of the new city is more rapid, and its scale gradually exceeds the old city. During the Ming Dynasty, the city wall between the two cities was demolished and merged into one city, and later in order to prevent flooding, the Ming court demolished all the tucheng buildings in the Tang and Song dynasties and replaced them with bricks and stones.
Transportation hub entrance
In the Song Dynasty, the ancient Sizhou City has been extremely developed, history once called it "galloping horses suddenly", and because of the beautiful scenery of this place, many literati and imperial court dignitaries also came to visit, and left a large number of famous poems in the place, and during the Ming Dynasty, Sizhou City was more ships, merchants and ants, and the reason for its prosperity, in addition to economic factors, there is also an important political background, because the ming ancestral mausoleum was built on its north side. The various annual sacrifices also made Sizhou City a temporary palace of the Zhu Ming Dynasty at that time, and once reached an unprecedented prosperity.
The prosperous city of Gusizhou
In addition, the ancient Sizhou City is also a famous Buddhist holy place in the history of the mainland, and the "Sangha Pagoda", one of the five famous temples in the mainland, was built in sizhou city. The Sangha was a native of the Western Regions in the early Tang Dynasty, and during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, he preached Buddhism at the Great Sacred Monastery in Sizhou and became famous, and later Emperor Gaozong summoned him to Chang'an and was named a national teacher. It is said that when the sangha died, there was a peculiar smell throughout Chang'an City, according to which Emperor Zhongzong of Tang was puzzled, and later it was pointed out that perhaps the sangha master wanted to return to Sizhou.
Emperor Gaozong of Tang
So Emperor Zhongzong of Tang obeyed his wishes and ordered his whole body to be buried in the city of Sizhou, and later, Emperor Zhongzong personally led the Wenwu Hundred Officials to send the sangha out of Chang'an, and the funeral procession lasted for hundreds of miles. In order to welcome the Sangha, the people of Sizhou specially opened a city gate in the South Gate and West Gate area, and paved the ground with fragrant flowers, this gate was later also called "Xianghua Gate", and in order to welcome the Sangha, Sizhou City built a 13-level pagoda, and named "Sangha Pagoda", the whole tower is three hundred feet high, the tip of the tower is inlaid with crystal balls, the tower body is covered with copper tiles, in the tower enshrines the true body of the Sangha, which is also revered as "Sizhou Great Sage", but what people did not expect is that This ancient civilization with a history of more than a thousand years was destroyed by a terrible flood during the Qing Dynasty.
Restore the ancient Sizhou City
The mystery of the flooding of the ancient sizhou city
Regarding the reasons for the flooding of the ancient Surabaya City, there are many good stories in the folklore, the most famous of which is the story of the jellyfish lady Shen Sizhou. According to folklore, at the bottom of Hongze Lake there is a water monster that has been cultivating for many years, known by the locals as "Jellyfish Niangniang", often making waves, and later the local people built a "Jellyfish Niangniang Temple" around the lake, so that it can enjoy sacrifices from time to time, and the two sides are safe and sound.
On weekdays, jellyfish Niangniang is in the water under the water to cultivate, but also happy to be clean, suddenly one day, jellyfish heard that one of the eight immortals Of Zhang Guo lao want to pass through the Hongze area, so she went to see him, and Zhang Guo had long heard that there were water demons in Hongze Lake, maiming living beings, so he wanted to go to the demon, and later saw the water monster meditate on cultivation, not doing evil, but also stopped, and then jellyfish Niangniang and Zhang Guo lao toured Xuyi County together, at the tenth time of the Dragon Boat Festival, the people slaughtered cattle and slaughtered pigs, celebrating the festival, The streets are full of sheep's heads and pig legs, but this move makes the jellyfish lady unhappy, it turns out that this jellyfish lady is a female buffalo who has become a fine.
Folklore jellyfish lady
In order to take revenge on the people, jellyfish is also a secret practice, using a bucket to fill the water of all over the world, wanting to send away Zhang Guolao, the human world will be submerged, but this move was discovered by Zhang Guolao's donkey, so the donkey also secretly drank the water, and finally there were only a few drops of water left in the bucket, so that the jellyfish lady was secretly surprised in her heart, but she also had to make a sound. At that time, the donkey thought that a few drops of water could not cause a catastrophe, and also accompanied Zhang Guolao to leave, but did not expect that these few drops of water were enough to xuyi city, and after Zhang guolao left, the jellyfish lady also poured out all the water, planning to talk about the submergence of Xuyi City, but what was not expected was that the sizhou city connected to a bridge in Xuyi city was low-lying, resulting in water flowing to Sizhou city, and Sizhou city also suffered a disaster.
Jellyfish Niangniang flooded Sizhou drama
Of course, these stories are just some legendary myths, and they can't be taken seriously, what is the reason why the ancient Sizhou City was submerged, in fact, this is very similar to the Ming Ancestral Tomb. On the one hand, the ancient Sizhou City was submerged because the water level of the HuaiShui River rose after the Yellow River seized Huaihuai, and the Sizhou City at that time was exactly at the intersection of the Huanghuai Water Transport, and its special geographical location contributed to its long history of prosperity, but also laid the groundwork for its future innocence.
The location of the ancient sizhou city
On the other hand, the reason is that the terrain of Gusizhou City is relatively low-lying. According to a later survey by the Water Conservancy Bureau of Sihong County, Jiangsu Province, The height of the walls of the ancient Sizhou City is about 10.7 meters, and the average altitude of Hongze Lake is between 10 and 11 meters, indicating that after more than 700 years of yellow river south flooding, the flood of Huanghuai not only flooded the entire Sizhou City, but also because of the accumulation of the Yellow River sediment in the Hongze Lake area, the entire Sizhou City was also completely buried, in fact, during the Ming Dynasty, out of the protection of the ancestral tombs, the Ming Court also built a large number of flood control embankments around the Sizhou City, but during the Qing Dynasty, there was no worry about the ancestral tombs, and the Qing government was also engaged in great efforts in order to maintain the lifeblood of caoyun "Saving Huai brushing yellow" and "reducing yellow to help Qing", hoping to use Hongze Lake to distribute the flood of the Yellow River, this move further raised the water level of Hongze Lake, and the destruction of Sizhou City and its surrounding Ming ancestral tombs has also become a foregone conclusion, from this point of view, the fate of Sizhou City and Ming ZuLing can really be described as a glory and a loss.
The only remaining remnants
Since 1993, scholars in Jiangsu Province have also explored the underwater Sizhou City, and according to the history books, gradually determine the ruins of the ancient Sizhou City, and in 1999, archaeologists have fully explored the location of the Sizhou City Wall, and in 2004 carried out the investigation and exploration of the ancient Sizhou City ruins, I believe that with the gradual exploration of experts, the appearance of this legendary Ancient Sizhou City will once again be displayed in front of everyone. At the same time, the underground tomb exploration of the Ming Ancestral Tomb is also unfolding, and when these two rare architectural treasures in the world are gradually discovered, the treasures and secrets that exist in them will surely amaze the world.