Western Qīng Tombs 清西陵
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond
Since its relatively recent opening to public the site has seen much destructive ‘restoration’ and new roads driven across its green site. Nevertheless, for now this is the most overgrown, least visited, and most atmospheric of all the tomb complexes.
It was the Yōngzhèng emperor who first ordered his tomb to be constructed here rather than with his immediate forefathers at the Eastern Qīng Tombs, breaking with the Míng tradition that sons were always buried near their fathers. Yōngzhèng’s son, the Qiánlóng emperor, decided to be buried near his admired grandfather Kāngxī at the Eastern Tombs and ordained that burials should afterwards alternate between the two sites. This rule was not followed consistently, however. The Dàoguāng emperor, having buried his first empress at the Eastern Tombs, then discovered there was a leak in her tomb, whereupon he had her moved to the Western Tombs and had himself buried here in the Mù Líng. The next two emperors were then buried at the Eastern Tombs, after which the last to complete his reign on the throne, the Guāngxù emperor, was buried here in the Western Tombs. Qiánlóng’s rule was broken one more time with the final addition of the ashes of Guāngxù’s successor, Pǔyí, the last of his line, in 1995.
The emperors buried here are:
Yōngzhèng 1723–35 Tài Líng open
Jiāqìng 1796–1820 Chāng Líng open
Dàoguāng 1821–50 Mù Líng
Guāngxù 1874–1908 Chóng Líng open
The Xuāntǒng emperor (Pǔyí) and two companions have been added to a collection of four emperors, four empresses, four princes, two princesses, and 57 concubines.
The ticket includes access to the four tombs listed above, the Chāng Xī Líng tomb of Guāngxù’s empress, with the extraordinary sonic effects of its Huí Yīn Bì — ‘return sounds wall’ or echo wall, the Chóng Fēi Líng and Tài Fēi Líng concubine tombs, the Duān Wáng Líng of young princes, the Yǒngfú Sì, and the Dà Hóng Mén main gate and Dà Bēi Lóu stelae pavilion passed on the approach to the Tài Líng.
Dà Bēi Lóu 大碑楼
gps 39º21’17” N, 115º20’42” E
Perhaps the Qiánlóng emperor, who left records of his opinions everywhere else, felt that it would be either too soon or too unfilial to write an assessment of his father’s reign, so the two massive stelae inside this large stelae pavilion are still blank. Four large huábiǎo stand one at each corner, following which the approach to the Tài Líng has lions, elephants, horses, and standing military and civil officials. Like the Jǐng Líng, the spirit way has a kink in it.
Attendants say the walk to the tomb is five huálǐ, ‘Chinese miles’, or about 2 1/2km, but it’s a pleasant, quiet stroll of under 2km.
It can also be reached by car, going a little further east and swinging north, but attracting, inevitably, another parking fee.
Tài Líng 泰陵
gps 39º21’59” N, 115º20’44” E
The Tài Líng, the first and most spectacular tomb at the site, sets the tone for the rest. The separate enclosure on the right where the sacrificial animals were slaughtered is now full of fúwùyuán and hung with their washing. The tomb complex is approached over a dry watercourse crossed by three low bridges, some or all of the three halls containing exhibitions or waxworks. At the rear the climb to the soul tower, and through that the climb to the circular walkway around the mound, often, unlike the Míng tombs, bricked over and providing views across a sea of leafiness to other soul towers poking up from among orderly agriculture.
The Tài Líng was begun in 1730 but not completed until two years after the Yōngzhèng emperor’s death, and contains the bodies of the emperor, one empress, and a concubine.
At this point you are roughly in the middle of the site, with the subsidiary Tài tombs to the north and northeast, and beyond those the Duān Wáng Líng and Chóng Líng tombs. The Chāng Líng and its subsidiaries are immediately to the southwest, and the Dàoguāng emperor’s Mù Líng much further beyond.
Tài Fēi Líng 太妃陵
gps 39º22’26” N, 115º21’05” E
The Yōngzhèng emperor’s concubines are less than a 1km walk to the northeast via a path leading from the east side of the forecourt, or by returning south, east, and north again by road.
The path crosses a single rather dilapidated marble arch bridge, and passes through fields of maize lapping the entrance.
Here are 21 of Yōngzhèng’s concubines, buried in a green-roofed complex constructed 1730–37, completed in the second year of the Qiánlóng reign. Qīng rules denied concubines not only imperial yellow roof tiles but also most of the other trappings of major tombs. Instead the rear compound contains three rows of tumuli, the status of their occupants reflected in their sizes, numbers, and positions. Yōngzhèng had just one first-rank huáng guì fēi (皇贵妃) and no second-rank guì fēi (贵妃), perhaps to keep the peace with the top-rank concubine.
Qīng consort ranks began at the top with the Empress (huánghòu, 皇后), descending through one Imperial Noble Consort (huáng guì fēi, 皇贵妃), two Noble Consorts (guì fēi, 贵妃), four Consorts (fēi, 妃), six Imperial Concubines (fēipín, 妃嫔), and unlimited numbers of lower grades with names such as Honourable Ladies, Ever-Presents, Those Who Comply, etc. Each grade had different duties, costumes, servants, food, and a different sort of burial, as seen here.
The single dilapidated hall with rotten pillars is surrounded by cypresses and partly boarded up. There’s a small exhibition on the lives of the concubines, who were typically daughters of Manchu noble families not related to the emperor or empress, and who entered service aged between 13 and 16 during a triennial intake.
By the time you arrive the Tài Dōng Líng for the Yōngzhèng empress, about 2km to the northwest at 39º22’43”N, 115º20’46”E, may also be open. The Duān Wáng Líng is about 3km northeast of the Tài Fēi Líng, reached by returning a short way south then turning east instead of west, north at the entrance to a village, and following that road in an arc to the northeast.
Duān Wáng Líng 端王陵
gps 39º23’38” N, 115º22’45” E
Through a small green-roofed gatehouse, a single hall contains an exhibition about the education of imperial princes who might possibly succeed to the throne (each Qīng emperor could choose which of his sons it might be, coming under pressure from groups of supporters of each and from the Confucian bureaucracy). Low earth mounds at the rear cover princes who didn’t reach adulthood, including the first son of Yōngzhèng, for whom the complex is named. A near-identical complex immediately to the west is not open.
Chóng Líng 崇陵
gps 39º23’38” N, 115º22’45” E
From the forecourt of the Duān Wáng Líng the road leads southeast to a T-junction, where a sharp left turn leads northwest straight to the tomb, about 2km altogether. Alternatively, a path up the east side winds through a village and swings northeast to reach the tomb in about 1km.
In the far northeastern corner of the site, this tomb for the Guāngxù emperor and his empress was finished three years after the 1912 abdication of his successor, using Qīng family money, although the ‘Articles Relating to the Favourable Treatment of the Ta Ch’ing Emperor after his Abdication’ guaranteed that the Republic would complete construction of the tomb. It’s on a more modest scale than those of earlier emperors but built with more modern methods and materials, including supposedly ‘copper beams and iron columns’, and its stone carvings are unique. The pillars of the main hall are dragon-wrapped, and there’s an exhibition of black-and-white photographs showing the construction of the tomb and the Guāngxù emperor’s funeral, including the loading of his vast coffin onto a train to bring it down here. Although the tomb’s luxuries are visibly scaled down, the tomb chamber, first excavated in 1980, has eight vast and beautifully carved stone doors and contains two coffins.
The Guāngxù emperor was Cíxǐ’s nephew and manoeuvred onto the throne in violation of the Qīng house law of succession, since he was of the same generation as the previous emperor (Tóngzhì), his cousin. He became emperor when only four, and, languishing under house arrest after Cíxǐ squashed his modernising ‘self-strengthening movement’, died under suspicious circumstances aged only 38, one day before his aunt. It had long been suspected that he was poisoned, and in 2008 the Western Qing Tombs administration licensed an examination of hair supposedly taken from the tomb at an earlier date. This, it was claimed, revealed that the emperor had ingested a large amount of arsenic several times the fatal dose.
The tomb is said to be modelled on the Tóngzhì emperor’s Huì Líng at the Eastern Tombs, but that’s not open to the public. Despite its relatively recent date, the tomb is not noticeably in better condition than the rest.
The Guāngxù emperor’s concubines, two of whom had significant roles to play during the decline of the Qīng, are buried in a complex immediately to the east and clearly visible.
You may see itinerant bee-keepers en route.
Chóng Fēi Líng 崇妃陵
gps 39º23’40” N, 115º22’56” E
The low-key spirit way has long disappeared under the plough, and the complex itself is in decay, its courtyard broken up and with cypresses growing within the enclosure. The green-roofed halls, in attractive dark wood, are shut. But in the enclosure behind are multiple tumuli on low plinths, one of which houses what’s left of the Zhēn Fēi (珍妃, the Precious Consort, but popularly known as the Pearl Concubine), and another her older sister the Jǐn Fēi (瑾妃 — jǐn is high quality jade), both concubines of the Guāngxù emperor.
Adopted, rather incredibly, as a proto-revolutionary by communist narrative, and thus rating a plaque here, the Pearl ended her brief life at the bottom of a well in the Forbidden City in August 1900, aged only 24. See Pride and a Fall.
Her sister went on to outlive the Guāngxù emperor and, following the 1913 death of the Empress Dowager Lóngyù, became the most important woman at court, as Dowager Consort Duānkāng. Tradition has it that a public scolding she gave to the mother of the boy emperor Pǔyí (the Xuāntǒng emperor) drove that lady to suicide, and she played a formative role in the emperor’s early life. The ‘last eunuch’, Sūn Yàotíng, served Duānkāng, and there’s a portrait of her in Jiǎ Yīnghuá’s highly unreliable biography of Sūn, The Last Eunuch of China (which also has the Pearl Concubine wrongly buried in a eunuch cemetery rather than here).
A short way back, the Yǒngfú Sì is a fairly heavily restored and conventional temple.
Chāng Líng 昌陵
gps 39º21’31” N, 115º19’24” E
The Chāng Líng, immediately southwest of the Tài Líng, is so uncannily similar to the Tài Líng from the outside that if you drive to it you may believe you’ve gone round in a loop and arrived back where you started. On foot head south from the marble bridges and take the first obvious right (west) path from the approach road, about 1km. By car a swing further south is required.
The tomb was built in 1796–1803 originally for the Qiánlóng emperor, but it was left for his son the Jiāqìng emperor after Qiánlóng changed his mind and was buried at the Eastern Tombs. Jiāqìng was the fifth Manchu emperor to reign from Běijīng, died in 1820 at Chéngdé (one of two emperors struck by lightning there, so tradition has it), and was buried here in 1821. The courtyard is overgrown; the main hall, which signs here like to call the Hall of Enormous Grace rather than the ‘Eminent Favour’ of other tomb sites, is gaudy and peeling. The climb up to the soul tower is slippery with moss.
To stress the rural nature of the site, on the spirit way to this tomb you may find nets stretched across the path, used to catch rabbits, which are then clubbed to death.
The Chāng Xī Líng for Jiāqìng’s empress is about 1.5km away down a track to the west, passing the north wall of a closed tomb for his concubines, the Chāng Fēi Líng.
Chāng Xī Líng 昌西陵
gps 39º21’31” N, 115º19’24” E
The scale of the tomb is considerably smaller than that of the emperor’s, and its interest lies at the rear. The modest, drum-shaped tomb mound, encased in brick topped with imperial yellow tiles, stands in front of the rear wall of the compound, which describes a perfect semi-circle at this point. This is where you can perform the sonic feats promised by the circular wall at the Temple of Heaven but made impossible by the Chinese themselves. Quite likely you’ll meet none at all at this tomb, so a whisper at one side of the enclosure can clearly be heard on the other side, and a single hand clap produces multiple echoes. Indeed, the reverberation effect is so great that speaking while standing almost anywhere in the enclosure is like being a sound technician testing equipment before a rock concert. It’s slightly eerie.
The Mù Líng is 3km southwest from the southwest corner of the forecourt of the Chāng Xī Líng.
Mù Líng 慕陵
gps 39º20’30”N, 115º17’50”E
The Dàoguāng emperor’s second tomb, after his first effort at the Eastern Tombs sprang a leak, was built in 1831–5, and he was buried here with three empresses in 1852, while one empress and 16 concubines lie in the Mù Dōng Líng just to the north (not open).
The tomb is on a smaller scale and lacks many of the elements common to grander tombs, such as a stelae pavilion or row of guardian animals on its spirit way. Its interior also remains largely unpainted, although the fragrant cedar of its beams is intricately carved with dragons and phoenixes. The tomb itself is a modest brick-walled drum shape with projecting water spouts.
See also:
▶ Qīng Xī Líng, about 130km SW of Běijīng, in Héběi Province, t 0312 471 0016, www.qingxiling.com, gps 39º21’23.28” N, 115º20’42.18” E, 8.30am–5pm; 4.30pm winter. ¥120 1 Apr–31 Oct, otherwise ¥82. b from Liù Lǐ Qiáo to Gāo Bēi Diàn every 30mins 8.30am to 4.50pm, ¥30, then minibus or taxi; or Lìzé Qiáo to Yìxiàn every 20mins 6.50am to 5pm, ¥20 then minibus or taxi just 7km to site. Last buses back mid-afternoon, so take train. taxi 3hrs, ¥500 or so, including tolls. See below.
The quánchéng tōng piào is another tào piào — a ticket admitting you to 11 locations, although one of these is only a stelae pavilion and another a gate. The ticket may be used on two consecutive days. You may instead buy tickets for individual tombs at prices from ¥15 to ¥47, less in winter.
After the construction of the foreign railway line the Dowager Empress used to visit the Western Tombs by train. It is not possible to go from Běijīng directly to Yìxiàn (易县), the nearest town to the site, but you can go to nearby Gāo Bēi Diàn (高碑店) — not to be confused with the area just east of central Běijīng of the same name — and take a minibus or charter a taxi from there. There are now several early morning services from Běijīng West, taking as little as under 30 minutes, and several late afternoon and evening return services.
Timetables will change, but the outbound T5685 at 08.22 arriving 09.10 would suit those who don’t want to rise too early, and perhaps the T5686 at 17.52 arriving 18.55 to return.
By taxi, road access is more convenient than for the Eastern Tombs, taking the Jīngshí Freeway (京石高速公路) from the southwest Third Ring Road to exit 2, about 110km away, for Gāo Bēi Diàn to the west. This is also the turning for Báigōu (白沟), the bag capital of China and very likely to be where your suitcase was made. Head westwards to Yìxiàn. Tolls are around ¥13. After a toll gate on the main road look for slip-roads down to the old road on the right, from which an assortment of signposted roads lead to the tombs. Most of them are connected by a village road that runs east-west a short distance south of the main tombs, but a return to the main road is necessary to reach a turning for the westernmost tomb, the Tài Líng, despite suggestions to the contrary on the map on the back of the ticket and on the leaflet you can buy at the site. If you visit the Peking Man exhibition first there’s an excellent country road through small villages and a military exercise area (you may encounter tanks), which crosses into Héběi at Zhāngfǎng (张坊) and comes down to Yìxiàn from the north.
The tombs are more spread out than those at the Eastern Qīng complex, so while a central group can be seen on foot, to see all of them a vehicle is almost essential. Hiring a taxi for the day from Yìxiàn would be better, as there are, as yet, none hanging around the site waiting for custom. There’s a parking fee of ¥5–10 at every single site, and even if you park on the road away from the site the staff will pester you to pay. Agriculture is pleasantly intrusive, with the odd cow to be encountered on a spirit way perhaps lined with orchards.
Several hotels advertise around the site, and there are more choices in Yìxiàn, although of modest quality. There are also tiny nóng jiā farmer-family guesthouses and restaurants, specifically advertising themselves as Mǎn zú (满族), or Manchu minority. There are several designated Mǎn zú xiāng (满族乡), or Manchu villages, in the countryside around the tomb complex, and in fact at around 10 million registered members, the Manchus have now emerged from post-revolutionary persecution and some slaughter as the second most numerous minority in China.
Next in Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond: Sleeping with an Emperor (story)
Previously: The Legend of the Fragrant Concubine (story)
Main Index of A Better Guide to Beijing.
For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
