Emperor Jingling of the Tang Dynasty in Pucheng, Shaanxi
Jingling is the joint burial tomb of the twelfth emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xianzong Li Chun, Empress Yi'an Guo, and Empress Xiaoming Zheng, and it is also one of the eighteen Tang Emperor Tombs in Guanzhong, Shaanxi. On the night of the 27th day of the first month of the fifteenth year of Yuanhe of the Tang Dynasty (February 14, 820), the eunuch Chen Hongzhi and Wang Shoucheng sneaked into the He and Hall in the Daming Palace of Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, and killed Li Chun, falsely claiming that the emperor 'accidentally took the dan stone and died of poison', and falsely passed the edict, and supported the incompetent crown prince Li Heng to succeed, who was known as Emperor Muzong. After Li Heng ascended the throne, he appointed the former prime minister Linghu Chu as the tomb envoy and Liu Gongchuo as the deputy tomb envoy to be responsible for the construction of Li Chun's tomb. On the 19th day of May (July 3), Li Chun was buried in Jingling, and his posthumous name was the 'Holy Emperor of Divine Chapter'. His temple name was 'Xianzong'. Decades later, his two concubines during his lifetime, Guo (posthumously named Empress Yi'an) and Zheng (posthumously named Empress Xiaoming), were successively buried in the Jingling Mausoleum. Jingling was built on the main peak of Jinzhi Mountain, facing north and south, with a sealed area of 20 kilometers. The underground palace 'Xuangong' was excavated from the south of the mountain into the belly of the mountain. The layout of the mausoleum is similar to that of Chang'an, the capital city. There were originally two layers of city walls, with city gates on all four sides of the inner city, and large stone instruments such as stone lions were placed in front of the gates. Corner towers were built. The inner city has buildings such as sleeping halls, palaces, guards, and altars. The city walls are now in ruins. Although Jingling was built during the middle and late Tang Dynasty when the Tang Dynasty was gradually declining, the management and maintenance of the mausoleum area still generally followed the existing system and practices. This provides important information for the study of the form of the Tang Dynasty imperial mausoleum. It is a key cultural relic protection unit in China.