Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter Feng Yuan
Not far from the southeast of Shaoxing, an ancient city, in Fusheng Town, Yuecheng District, at the northern foot of Huiji Mountain, there is a basin surrounded by mountains, which has opened up a large area of tea gardens and an idyllic landscape in the hills of the south of the Yangtze River.
Eight or nine hundred years ago, it was one of the most sacred and supreme areas in the Southern Song Dynasty. At most, seven emperors were buried here, but later generations used to call it Song Liuling.
The picture shows the archaeological site of No.2 Mausoleum of Song Liuling. Photo courtesy of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Helpless “saving the palace”
In 1131 AD, in the first year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty, Queen Mother Meng, the original wife of Song Zhezong and aunt of Song Gaozong, died of illness in Shaoxing. The Empress Dowager was ill-fated, but she escaped the tragic ending of the “Change of Jingkang” in which the Empress Dowager Hui and Qin emperors and a large number of empresses and royal families were captured north by the Jin people. Her status became more and more distinguished, and she kept her word in the process of supporting Song Gaozong Zhao to build the Southern Song Dynasty, and was deeply respected by the princes and ministers.
It stands to reason that Queen Mother Meng should return to the Imperial Mausoleum of the Northern Song Dynasty located in Gongyi, Henan Province today for burial. At that time, however, the central plains had changed hands and the imperial tombs were destroyed. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the monarch and ministers thought of an expedient measure, and determined the matter behind her by the way of the Queen Mother’s edict: “Choose a place to save the funeral, and after military peace, return it to the Garden Mausoleum”, and the place of “choose a place to save the funeral” was in Shaoxing, the area of today’s Song Liuling.
“In the burial system after the emperor in the Song Dynasty, there was originally a’ palace’ link.” Associate researcher Li Huida, the leader of the archaeological team of Song Liuling Site of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that the Empress of the Song Dynasty did not build a mausoleum in advance before her death, but after her death, she had to strictly follow the etiquette of “the son of heaven was buried in July”. During the half year that the coffin was not buried, it was necessary to gather it into a cube with layers of wood, cover it with a roof, and then whitewash it. This kind of structure is actually similar to the burial system of “Huangchang Tichou” in the tombs of emperors in Han Dynasty.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, the emperor’s “saving palace” was temporary. After the remains are buried in coffins, they will “cover the saving palace”, cover the saving palace, stop in Bianjing, “open the saving palace” before the funeral, tear down the saving palace, send the coffin to Gongyi and bury it in the newly-built mausoleum. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the “Canggong” became a permanent building. The emperor’s body was first placed in the “saving palace” in Lin ‘an, then he went to Shaoxing and was buried in the “saving palace” in Ling District. However, the “saving palace” in Shaoxing is not made of wood, but a stone burial chamber, which is called “stone storage”.
“Later generations divided the Song Dynasty into the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, but the Southern Song people themselves didn’t think so. They only knew that they were Song people. Of course, the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty also hope to bury the first emperors in Gongyi. ” Li Huida said that there were two attempts in the Southern Song Dynasty. In 139, the Song and Jin reached the first peace agreement, and the Jin agreed to take the Yellow River as the boundary and return the land of Henan and Shaanxi and the coffin of Song Huizong. Zhao Gou then sent someone to Gongyi to investigate the site of the tomb for his father. In 1234, Song and Meng joined forces to destroy gold, and then Song Lizong sent people to repair Gongyi Imperial Mausoleum.
However, these two attempts failed, until the Southern Song Dynasty perished, and six emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty and Song Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty were still buried in Shaoxing. However, the political subtext of “temporarily buried here, later restored to the Central Plains and moved back to Henan” has remained unchanged for more than 150 years.
In order to match this subtext, compared with the Northern Song Dynasty, the funeral system of the Southern Song Dynasty emperors also revealed various “unfinished” signals. Li Huida said that in the Northern Song Dynasty, the “Five Ambassadors of Shanling” escorted the coffin of the first emperor to be buried, and led by the former prime minister of the first emperor; In the Southern Song Dynasty, the number of “Shanling ambassadors” was reduced from five to two, and the general ambassador was changed from prime minister to deputy minister. The underground palace of the Imperial Mausoleum in the Northern Song Dynasty needs to be dug nine feet deep, while the saving palace of the Imperial Mausoleum in the Southern Song Dynasty only needs to be dug nine feet deep. This is due to the objective difficulty of the high groundwater level in the south of the Yangtze River, and it is also convenient to move the burial afterwards.
Clearly, seven emperors’ tombs were buried, but they were called “Six Tombs of the Song Dynasty” by later generations, which also reflected several times of helplessness-Song Huizong, who was good at painting but died after subjugation, was gorgeously ignored.
Guoyin Chengzuo
Hangzhou West Lake Museum General Museum Southern Song Dynasty official kiln area, built on the site of the Southern Song Dynasty suburban Tanxia official kiln in the museum area. At that time, this official kiln was once a busy scene, and the produced royal porcelain was sent to the imperial palace not far away for the royal use.
The “Exhibition of Archaeological Achievements of Song Liuling-National Phonetics” is being held here. The content of the exhibition is also closely related to the Supreme in the Imperial City, but it tells the story behind them.
The picture shows the exhibition site. Xinhua News Agency reporter Duan Jingjing photo
In the name of the exhibition, the meaning of “Chengzuo” can be seen at a glance. At that time, the title of Song Gaozong was “Shaoxing”, and the name of Yuezhou was “Shaoxing Mansion”, all of which carried the wish of “Shaoxing Zhongxing”. People in China have always emphasized caution and pursuit of the future, and the funeral of the first emperor is the top priority of the monarch and ministers in the new dynasty, which not only shows filial piety and loyalty, but also relates to the fate of the country.
And “Guoyin” needs some explanation. It represents an extinct art of geomancy, named “Five-tone surname Li”. Nowadays, people’s impressions are far less interesting than those of dinosaur fossils that have been extinct for a long time.
“Five-tone surname Li” was quite popular in the Tang and Song Dynasties. It was first used for building houses and later used for building tombs. It corresponded the owner’s surname to the five-tone of Gongshang Jiao’s feather, and then the five-tone corresponded to the five elements of Jin Mu’s fire, water and earth, so as to determine the orientation of the mausoleum. As we all know, the emperor of the Song Dynasty was surnamed Zhao, and Zhao belonged to Jiaoyin, so the tombs of the Song Dynasty were higher in the southeast and lower in the northwest.
This is quite different from the general public impression that the traditional cemetery is best to face the mountains and water, and the north is high and the south is low. Whether the north-south direction should be determined by the meridian of the sun or by the magnetic lines of force of the earth, there would be an argument at that time, because the Song people had already discovered the declination, and the compass did not refer to true north and south.
It was not until Professor Su Bai, a leading archaeologist and the first director of the Department of Archaeology of Peking University, studied the Baisha Song Tomb in Xuchang, Henan Province that the “Juexue” of “five-tone surname Li” was excavated and used by today’s people. At that time, Su Bai studied the New Book of Geography of the Song Dynasty collected by Peking University Library, and gave new value to “Juexue”-instead of looking at Feng Shui, he wanted to use it as a key to study the burial patterns of Song people.
To do a good job in the archaeology of Song Liuling, it is also necessary to find out the “five-tone surname Li”. Li Huida said that at that time, in order to find out this “Juexue”, we not only had to study the New Book of Geography, Baisha Song Tomb and other documents, but also bought an old compass online and observed it repeatedly in the mausoleum area.
A total of 159 unearthed relics (sets) were exhibited in the exhibition, including official porcelain, tile components, stone remains, etc. Among them, porcelain covers Longquan Kiln, Jizhou Kiln, Jingdezhen Kiln, Jianyao Kiln and other important kilns in southern China at that time. They include incense burners, Feng-er bottles, Guan-er bottles, jar-type stoves, flower pots, bowls, plates, lamps and other utensils, involving sacrificial rites, study rooms, daily use and other kinds.
Among them, Longquan kiln porcelain is an important representative of court porcelain in the Southern Song Dynasty because of its large quantity and high quality. Through these unearthed artifacts, the audience can not only get a glimpse of the firing technology of the highest quality ceramics in the Song Dynasty, but also feel the endless sacrificial activities and daily life in the cemetery as if they were on the spot, and get in touch with a real royal cemetery.
The picture shows celadon unearthed from the site of Song Liuling. Xinhua News Agency reporter Feng Yuan photo
Ten years of exploration
In 176, Yuan army occupied Lin ‘an, and Song Gongdi was reduced to Yuan. In 278, Yang Lianzhen led the public to dig and destroy the Song Liuling and plundered all the funerary objects. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the restoration of the Sixth Mausoleum of the Song Dynasty, but it could not change the declining fate of the Imperial Mausoleum of the Southern Song Dynasty. At present, there are few ground buildings in Ling District, Nanling District has been reclaimed as a tea garden, and there was a school in Beiling District.
In 1961, Song Liuling became a key cultural relics protection unit in Shaoxing County. In 1989, it became a provincial key cultural relics protection unit. In 2013, it became a national key cultural relics protection unit. In 2021, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Protection and Utilization of Great Sites”, among which Song Liuling was listed.
From 2012 to now, with the overall planning and strong support of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage, Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has carried out systematic archaeological investigation, exploration and excavation in the site of Song Liuling, with the participation of Shaoxing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Peking University.
“In addition to the disappearance of the ground remains, there is also a lack of reliable literature about Song Liuling.” Li Huida said that there were two “Hui Ji Zhi” in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the magistrate of Hui Ji at that time also served as the Ling Tai Ling, but there were not many useful records of the Song Liuling. They mainly rely on the historical books of the Song Dynasty, such as Collection of Manuscripts in Song Dynasty, Book of Rites in Zhongxing, Record of Years Since the Establishment of Yan, especially the Record of Si Ling written by Zhou Bida, the right prime minister who was the envoy of Shan Ling when Song Gaozong was at the funeral.
In 2012, the former Shaoxing County Cultural Development Center commissioned our institute to carry out archaeological investigation, hoping to find out the tombs of various tombs. “Li Huida said frankly that at that time, everyone thought that two years could be fruitful, but I didn’t think it would be ten years.
The first step of investigation will be from 2012 to 2015. In 2016, with the approval of Zhejiang Cultural Relics Bureau, archaeologists started exploration in Lingqu. In 2018, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the excavation officially started. The archaeological license is valid for one year, and now Li Huida has received five licenses of Song Liuling.
In the past 10 years, archaeologists have successively carried out key exploration of 350,000 square meters, excavated and revealed the building bases of No.1 and No.2 cemeteries, found three tombs of Emperor and Houling (not excavated), and obtained many important achievements.
For example, a large number of pine trees were planted in the mausoleum area of Song Liuling, forming the landscape of “Songtao in Song Ling”, which is said to have been planted by predecessors to mark the location of tombs. However, archaeological work found that these pine trees were probably only planted on the ruins of the ground buildings, and the ruins were used as soil seals by predecessors. And there is no earth sealing on the saving palace of Liuling, only the Guild Temple. It is connected with the sacrificial hall to form a “convex” shape. This building was recorded in the Southern Song Dynasty’s records of the Imperial Mausoleum, but it is still based on archaeological findings to grasp the actual evidence.
This is quite different from people’s general impression of the Imperial Mausoleum: since the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, most of the mausoleums in the past dynasties had tall enclosures, including the Mausoleum of the Northern Song Dynasty. “Mausoleum” is meant to be a hill, and imperial tombs are called “Mausoleum” to show majesty. The Imperial Mausoleum of the Southern Song Dynasty only built a house on the grave, but it also conformed to the original meaning of “saving the palace”.
Three-dimensional restoration map of No.1 cemetery in Songling. Photo courtesy of Zhejiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Show Song Yun
Although there was no soil sealing, the Zan Palace was far less magnificent than the underground palace, but the ground buildings of the Sixth Mausoleum of the Song Dynasty at that time still represented the highest level of palace buildings in the Song Dynasty. At present, archaeologists have basically restored the overall layout of No.1 Cemetery and the architectural structures of the Gate Hall, Enjoy Hall and Guitou Hall of Cemetery No.1. At the same time, they have preliminarily proposed the restoration schemes of the main buildings of No.2 Cemetery, such as the central hall, the left and right side halls, the east and west corridors and the gate hall.
Through long-term investigation and exploration, archaeologists have preliminarily grasped the burial situation of underground relics in the cemetery sites, and delineated the distribution range of most cemetery relics. Combined with these works, archaeologists have produced a three-dimensional restoration scene of the overall cemetery structure layout of the Southern Song Dynasty Imperial Mausoleum, in order to show the audience more concretely and comprehensively the outstanding skills of the highest-standard palace architecture in the Southern Song Dynasty.
Li Huida said that it was necessary to complete the complex highest-level palace building and build a cemetery in seven months, which fully reflected the economic level and architectural skills of the Southern Song Dynasty, and also reflected the political dispatching ability of the Southern Song Dynasty court from the central government to the local government at that time. “We found the largest and most complete Southern Song Dynasty palace platform known at present in No.2 Mausoleum.”
The location of No.1 Cemetery has been said to be Yongsi Mausoleum in Song Gaozong. Li Huida is cautious about this. He told reporters that not only the Yongsi Mausoleum, but also the six Mausoleums of Huizong Yongyou Mausoleum, Xiaozong Yongfu Mausoleum, Guangzong Yongchongling Mausoleum, Lizong Yongmu Mausoleum and Du Zongyong Shaoling, as well as the seven rear mausoleums of Queen Mother Meng, have no accurate location. There are different opinions in literature and scholars. However, as long as one of them can be identified, the puzzle of the distribution of the tombs can be solved, but it still needs solid archaeological discoveries.
The coffin of the empress of the Southern Song Dynasty was transported from Lin ‘an to Shaoxing for burial through the East Zhejiang Canal in China’s Grand Canal. According to the record of Song Gaozong’s burial route in Silinglu by Zhou Bida, the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, the exhibition “Guoyin Chengzuo” also drew a map of “From Imperial City to Imperial Mausoleum”. Li Huida said that Lin ‘an Imperial City and Shaoxing Imperial Mausoleum are the two most important immovable historical relics and cultural landmarks of Song Dynasty handed down from the Southern Song Dynasty to later generations. This curation also focuses on the East Zhejiang Canal as a link, and strives to show the political, economic and cultural ties between Hangzhou and Shaoxing during the more than 150 years of the Southern Song Dynasty.
“We hope that by displaying the archaeological achievements of the Imperial Mausoleum in the Southern Song Dynasty, we can arouse the public’s deeper understanding of Song Yun.” Li Huida said.
Editor: Luo Siyu