The Han Zhao Emperor Liu Fuling died in 74 BC, only twenty-one years old at the age of twenty-one, and reigned for only thirteen years, which made many people who liked him in later generations feel sorry. Regarding the cause of death of Liu Fuling, the Emperor of Han Zhao, most of the records in the history books have only four words: "died of illness", so some people doubted this.
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After Liu Fuling's death, many historians believe that Huo Guang had the trust of Emperor Zhao. Su Rui even said that Liu Fuling's short-lived and premature death was Huo Guang's fault. Therefore, many people in later generations used conspiracy theories to explain the cause of Liu Fuling's death, analyzing that Liu Fuling died violently was killed by him, and the murderer was most likely Huo Guang. For example, in the TV series "Song in the Clouds of The Love affair of the Great Han", Liu Fuling was poisoned by Liu Qing, the emperor of Han Xuan, and Huo Guang was also one of the people who killed him. In addition, some people believe that Huo Guang killed Liu Fuling because Liu Fuling was not the son of Emperor Wu of Han.
It is rumored that Liu Fuling was born fourteen months pregnant, which is not in line with scientific common sense. Therefore, they speculated that before the death of Emperor Wu of Han, huo Guang's task also included finding out this matter, and secretly killing Liu Fuling after Huo Guang found out the truth about his birth, so in history, Huo Guang immediately supported Liu He, the eldest son of Emperor Wu, as emperor after Liu Fuling's death. However, this view is too far-fetched, and more people believe that Huo Guang killed Liu Fuling for power. Although there are different reasons for believing that Liu Fuling is the person he killed, the analysis of Liu Fuling's death from the existing historical data should have nothing to do with others.
On the one hand, it is recorded that Liu Fuling had been ill for a long time before his death, and he had found many doctors but still had no cure, so his illness and death were not sudden; In addition, when Liu Fuling was alive, Liu Fuling had always been in the civil community, and Huo Guang was Liu Fuling's assistant minister because of his trust and ability to power the opposition, so neither of them had the opportunity or reason to kill Liu Fuling.
The Han Zhao Emperor Liu Fuling died of illness in 74 BC and was buried in Pingling (now located in Qindu District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province). Pingling, named because it is located on the edge of the plains at the beginning of the Han Dynasty, was listed as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units in 2001, and is now also a key cultural relics protection unit in Shaanxi Province.
Because Emperor Han Zhao died suddenly that year, his mausoleum had not yet been built, so it is said that after his death, a total of 30,000 ox carts were used to pull sand from the Weihe River beach, which was built into the Pingling Tomb.
Liu Fuling's Pingling tomb is located about 12 miles northeast of the Mao Mausoleum of Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty, with an altitude of more than 500 meters. The boxy cemetery, with a side length of 380 meters, has a gate opposite the tomb in the middle of each of the four walls, of which the west and north gates have been destroyed.
Pingling is a double mausoleum, with an imperial tomb and a rear mausoleum. The Zhao Emperor's Mausoleum is roughly located in the center of Pingling, while the mausoleum of Empress Shangguan, who was later buried with Liu Fuling, is 664 meters northwest of it. The imperial tombs and the houling tombs were built in a similar shape, connected by a 5-meter-wide road in the middle. Because of the abundant construction time of the Tomb of Empress Shangguan, it may also be that Empress Shangguan is Huo Guang's granddaughter, and the scale is relatively larger than the Mausoleum of Emperor Zhao, with a side length of 420 meters.
To the northeast of the cemetery is the Pingling Mausoleum, which was home to many houses, and to the southeast is the site of the "Wandering Temple". The architectural ruins in the northwest corner have been speculated by archaeologists to have been inhabited by tomb keepers. On the east side of Pingling is the funerary tombs of Emperor Zhao of Han and Empress Shangguan, and only 23 of the original 57 funerary tombs now exist, and the main burials are Dou Bao, Xiahou Sheng, Zhu Yun and others.
Although the construction of Pingling was very hasty, there are still many burial items. In addition to the general gold and silver jade, archaeologists have also unearthed a large number of camel skeletons from the Pingling No. 2 pit, which have been preserved for more than 2,000 years.