Travel to Beijing (3) The Ming Tombs DingLing 北京之旅 (3) 明十三陵 - 定陵

Following the last post, after visiting the Great Wall, We went to the Ming Tombs DingLing!

緊接上一回的行程，在參觀完萬里長城後，我們直接就去了明十三陵 - 定陵。

The Ming Tombs were the collection of mausoleums built by the emperors of the Ming Dynasty. The construction started from 1409 and spent 230 years to finish, which is the resting place of 13 emperors. It is now one of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, and was evaluated as the imperial cemetery complex conserved intact with the most emperors buried in the world. Today, three tombs out of thirteen are opened to public. DingLing is one of them.

明十三陵就是中國明朝十三個皇帝的陵墓，這個位於北京的明十三陵，由1409年永樂帝起，直到明末的崇禎帝，一共花了230多年建設，至今是世界最完整的皇陵墓群之一。現時明十三陵只有三個開放給公眾參觀，明定陵正是其中之一。

DingLing is the joint burial tomb of the 13th Ming emperor Zhu Yijun, Wangli and his two wives. The tomb was built from 1584 to 1590. In the six years time, 8 million silver, equivalent to 800 million US dollars now. When the tomb finished building, Wangli was only 28 years old. 30 years later he finally had the chance to enjoy the tomb. The tomb was re-excavated in 1955 and is the only tomb with the underground palace excavated. Now the underground palace is opened to public, 明定陵埋葬的是明神宗萬曆皇帝及孝端顯皇后和孝端太后，這個陵於1584年至1590年間建設，建築費一共是800萬兩銀，相等於今天的8億美金，陵墓建成時萬曆帝都只有28歲，30年後他才有機會用到。明定陵在1955年被重新發掘，也是現時十三陵唯一一座發掘了地下宮殿的，而這個地下官殿就成為了遊客參觀的一部份。

The area of the tomb is around 180,000 square meters. It is similar to a small district! We passed though the gate to the tomb!

這個花了8億美元的陵墓，面積一共是18萬平方米，已經和一個小區差不多了！要進入定陵博物館，我們要先進入這個大門。

Passing through the gate, there was a big garden, and we could see the underground palace.

穿過大門後，是一個很大的花園，陵殿就在眼前了。

We walked down the stairs in the underground palace and first saw a large coffin bed. It is believed to be the burial place of some concubines. I was not sure. You might see some rubbish on the coffin bed. Actually they were not rubbish. They were RMB, Chinese money! It’s the Chinese tradition. They believe that by this action, the ancestors would bring them luck.

我們沿樓梯走進地下宮殿，一共走了六層才到。進入地下宮殿，先見到一大塊棺床，相信當年是部份妃嬪埋葬之處，現在已空無一物。不要以為棺床上的是垃圾，其實都是人民幣，這是中國人的傳統，將金錢灑在與先人相關的地方上會得到好運，其實我很想走進去把錢全拿走......

We kept moving inside and saw the throne of Emperor Wangli. It’s actually a stone chair and I believed a sofa is much more comfortable. The big jar should be his bathtub.

沿途會見到萬曆帝當年的寶座，一張石椅，看來都比不上今天一張沙發舒服，那個大缸應該就是他的浴缸吧，我也不太肯定。

Entering the Rear Chamber, we saw more than twenty big red boxes. The three largest in the middle were the coffins of Emperor Wangli and his two empresses. However, the coffin is now empty. During the Cultural Revolution, the bones of the three ancestors as well as some cultural relics were carried out by the “Red Guards” for critcism and destruction. The reason was “overthrow the head of landlord class Wangli”. It’s really terrible that even the deads were criticised. The other red boxes contained burial objects and they are all now relics.

進入後室，會見到二十幾個紅色大箱，中間三個最大的就是萬曆帝及兩位皇后的棺木了。不過，現時棺木內是空的，因為早在文化大革命時，三位先人的屍骨及部份文物早被紅衛兵抬到墓外接受批斗破壞，原因是「打倒地主階級的頭子萬曆」，連死人都要批斗實在太可怕。而另外的紅色大箱放的則是三位的陪葬品，不過裡面的文物應該都早拿出來了。

The whole tomb is very big but due to the protection of cultural relics, only a small part is opened to public. In additional, there is a small exhibition showing cultural relics in the Ming Dynasty,

整個明定陵十分巨大，不過由於文物保護的關係，就只有這麼一部份開放給市民參觀。除此之外，還有一個小小的文物展覽，展示著明代時期的宮廷物品。

When I find that an emperor had been thinking of the aftermath of his death when he was still alive, I believe he had nothing to worry about in his life. Then he spent 8 million sliver to build his tomb. At the time, the annual income of China was only around 2-3 million slivers. We can see how much a dictatorship has a big impact on the society. I can’t imagine how many people were spent in building the tomb, and how many life were lost during the construction, just to build the tomb of a man. Of course, at that time, the whole country belonged to the emperor.

After the visit, I tried a very good dinner and will share with you in the next post!

一個皇帝，未死的時候已在想死後的事，證明他在生都已沒有什麼擔憂了，更花了足足800萬兩銀去建造他的陵墓，而當年中國一年的收入大概只有200-300萬兩銀，可見一個獨裁社會對社會的影響是多麼的大，我不敢想像建這個陵墓時到底花了多少人手，他們當中又有多少人死去，就只為了建造一個人的身後之所。無他，整個國家都是皇帝的，現實就是這個樣子了。

參觀過後，就嘗試了一道北京名菜，下次和大家分享！

!steemitworldmap 40.294294 lat 116.2256043 long d3scr

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Thanks for spending your time to read my articles. I like to share stories of Hong Kong. I wish you may support me and I will keep going!
謝謝你能抽空閱讀這篇文章，我平日喜歡分享香港的故事，希望大家多多支持，我會繼續努力！

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://aaronli.vornix.blog/travel-to-beijing-3-the-ming-tombs-dingling/

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