Of the three coffins of the Wanli Dingling Tomb, the one on the right side was the most seriously damaged. The outer rafters had decayed and collapsed, and many cracks had appeared in the coffin. This is the Zi Palace of Empress Xiaojing. The poor woman died ten years earlier than the Wanli Emperor and was buried in Pinggangdi on the left side of the East Well, and the coffin decayed faster. In addition, her grandson Zhu Youxiao later moved his coffin out of the coffin and moved it to Dingling, so the damage was particularly serious.
The first to clean up the coffin was a decision made by Xia Nai. Because once the underground palace is opened, the constant temperature inside will not exist, and the external air currents will merge with the air in the palace, which will cause great damage to the corpses and cultural relics. Therefore, Xia Nai decided that some people would clean up the coffin of Empress Xiaojing, and the rest of the personnel would quickly rescue the decaying and deteriorating funerary goods in the wooden box.
In order to ensure the smooth cleaning of the body and utensils, Xia Nai simply moved to the wooden house of the construction site and ate and lived with the excavators in order to give specific guidance.
The Wanli Emperor had built the Shou Palace for himself at all costs before his death, and he would certainly try his best to find a panacea to preserve the remains, and it was estimated that the body inside the coffin might not have decayed. Xia Nai instructed to nail a large wooden trough that could hold the corpse with a wooden plank and to prepare for the disposal of the corpse wax.
The cold, damp, pitch-black basilica hall has only a small generator to power the lighting. Excavators surrounded Empress Xiaojing's coffin in dim light, taking pictures, drawing, measuring, numbering... Everything was done, and then the rafters were removed.
Since it had already collapsed and decayed, it did not take much effort, and the rafters made of Xiang Nan were quickly dismantled, and a mouth of intact coffin was exposed.
In the history books of the Ming Dynasty, there are many records that do not conform to historical facts. Some say that Empress Xiaojing was an elderly woman who had disappeared her youth when she met Wanli; After that, he was blind again, so he could not continue to be favored by the emperor.
Another story says that the Wanli Emperor was seriously ill and was about to be overwhelmed, and one day he woke up to find Concubine Gong's arm resting under his head, and the tear marks on his face were not dry, while the noble concubine Zheng Shi was gone, and so on.
At that time, these stories of catching wind and shadows were not only passed on by word of mouth, but also published in jujube pears and printed into books. Regarding the age of Wang and Wanli when they met, it was clarified during the excavation of Dingling. Because there is an epitaph on the west side of the Xiaojing rafter board, it is hooped with iron hoops. When she was buried after her death, she was only an imperial concubine, with no imperial treasures, only epitaphs; At the time of the burial, she had a treasure, but the original epitaph was also moved with the coffin, which clearly recorded her date of birth.
According to this calculation, she and Wanli were just sixteen years old when they met, and Wanli was eighteen years old. In the sentence "Buried on July 17, 1940", the five digital fonts of "forty", "seven", and "seventeen" are not the same as those of Zhiwen, and it is obvious that after the courtiers made the Zhiwen, they carved the stone, vacated the date, and then added it when they were buried.
Based on the "History of Ming" and the epitaph, there are also discrepancies in the chronology. For example, the epitaph seals Concubine Gong in June of the tenth year of the Wanli calendar, but the History of Ming is recorded in April; He died in thirty-nine years, and the History of Ming contains forty years. The excavation of the epitaph corrects the errors in the History of ming.
Opening the coffin of Empress Xiaojing, the first thing the excavators saw was a bed of tiled brocade quilts, which were goose yellow, woven with miscellaneous flowers, and scarlet scriptures on the brocade. Due to the long age, the handwriting is not clear, and only the remaining "Nam No Ami..." in the middle can still be faintly recognized.
When the quilt was lifted, there was no corpse, but it was stuffed with brocade, gold, silver, jade and other funerary items. It seems that it is not a coffin for corpses, but a treasure warehouse, and all kinds of wonderful works of art and priceless treasures make up a colorful world.
Under the brocade quilt in the coffin of Empress Xiaojing, there are two sets of exquisite and bright costumes. The tunic is a yellow satin jacket with a placket and woven gold thread, and the sleeves are both wide and long. The bottom of the yellow satin skirt, the trousers worn are made of yellow satin, and the left side of the waistband is open, which is quite modern; The waist is tightly wrapped in yellow ribbons, like today's jacket clothing. These are the two most glorious and precious and best-preserved treasures of the nearly 200 horses and costumes unearthed from Dingling.
Its preciousness lies in the fact that the whole is made with the process of embroidery. The clothes are delicately embroidered with 100 children, symbolizing the many blessings and many descendants, taking its meaning of "yi male hundred sons" to show that the descendants of the royal family will prosper forever.
The front of the clothes and the sleeves are embroidered with gold thread with nine dragons with different postures, and with the eight treasure patterns and mountain stones, woods, and flowers as the background, they are skillfully integrated with the various activities of Baizi, forming a style painting of people, animals and nature, breathing and sharing the same destiny.
The 100 children have different looks, dressed in different costumes, and play a variety of different games, all of which are vivid and interesting. A total of 40 sets of pictures form a colorful children's playground.
The excavators lifted the hundred-year-old robe and the two quilts, and the bones of the woman who had endured all her life finally appeared. She lay serenely, her head full of gold, jade, precious stones, and hairpins, and her face lay slightly to the south; The left arm is drooping, and the hand is placed at the waist; Bend your right arm upwards and put your hand near your head; Slightly curved upper part of the vertebrae, straightening of the lower limbs; The muscles had rotted, leaving only a remnant of the skeleton.
It seems that this miserable woman did not get happiness before she died, and she also failed to get the care of Wanli after death. From her gesture, people still feel a sad fate that is not willing to be humiliated but helpless.
The excavators wanted to remove her bones and put them in a wooden trough. But once it is moved, the entire bone is scattered, and only the joints of the lower limbs are connected by ligaments.
Everyone had to take it out one by one. Her head had long since decayed due to its muscles, and only a flat, round white and gray skeleton rested on the diamond-shaped brocade pillow surface.
The eye sockets are like a bottomless black hole, eerie, the nasal bones are rotten, and only two breathing holes are embedded in the center of the skeleton. Open mouth, teeth exposed.
It seems to reveal a faint bitter smile in the viciousness, and the cry out in the silence seems to tell its own misfortune and desolation, and it is like lamenting the suffering and sang of life, funny and ridiculous.
She was covered with paper money and copper coins. This is for her soul life underground. Her flesh in life failed to use money, failed to get love and happiness, and wondered if the underground soul could get everything that could not be obtained in the world.
