“China, a nation with a history of five thousand years,
Our ancestors have passed down from the Yellow Emperor of the Divine Land.
As a compass guiding the nation, vanquishing fierce enemies,
In the civilization of the world, we lead the way…”
Sun Yat-sen (Eulogy for the Tomb of the Emperor)
From the foot of the mountain, one can see the stone steps rising, winding in and out among the lush green cypress forests. On these steps, countless footprints of those who have come to pay homage to their ancestors have left their mark. Upon reaching the top of the stone steps, you will traverse the “Ancient Path to the Imperial Tomb” flanked by towering ancient cypress trees, where you will encounter a rectangular stone inscribed with the words “Civil and military officials dismount here,” and the atmosphere suddenly becomes more solemn. After walking about 200 meters, passing a small temple, you will see the Emperor’s tomb, which stands 3.6 meters high, has a circumference of 48 meters, and is surrounded by a 2-meter high wall made of Thanh bricks. On the tomb, a dense cover is placed, and in front of the tomb stands a large stone slab engraved with the words: “Emperor’s Tomb.”
This is the oldest sacrificial altar in the East and also the simplest royal tomb on the Chinese mainland.
The Emperor’s Tomb is a world of cypress trees. Local elders say that from Dong Xuyen to the north, hundreds of miles are just barren mountains, but in Qiao Mountain, there is a peculiar sight: the largest cypress forest in the entire nation, with more than 80,000 trees. This cypress forest seems to exist solely to shield the Emperor’s burial site. At the Hien Yen Temple at the foot of the mountain, there is the largest cypress tree planted by “the Emperor himself,” standing over 19 meters tall, requiring eight adults to encircle it, with an age exceeding 5,000 years. This could be considered the “ancestor tree” of cypress trees worldwide.
The land of the ancestral tomb of the Chinese ethnic groups is highly revered by the people of China. Some believe that a great dragon ascended from here and transformed into the sky: for Ban Long Giang serves as its foundation, with Long Loan on the left and Fang Ling on the right, and the Emperor’s tomb is positioned at the center of the dragon’s tongue, resembling a dragon clutching a pearl, half of which is exposed to the heavens while the other half is buried in golden earth (huangtu), symbolizing “the dragon’s pearl in its mouth.” Interestingly, on either side of the tomb, about 30 meters apart, stand two cypress trees reaching heights of 8 to 9 meters; with a trunk circumference of about 2 meters, these trees are also around a thousand years old, and their location corresponds exactly to the position of a dragon’s horns, hence they are known as the dragon horn cypress trees.
Qiao Mountain stands 944 meters tall, surrounded by water on three sides, and on the other side of the water barrier lies the Yin Dai He Shan (942.6 meters), gazing towards it, resembling a Taiji diagram, with the two mountains akin to the eyes of the fish in the Taiji diagram. Meanwhile, the Han Wu altar appears like a small boat in the azure sea, having stood there solemnly and quietly for 5,000 years.
The Emperor is recognized as the first sovereign to unify the entire Chinese nation, the common ancestor of the 65 ethnic groups of Huaxia, and also the progenitor of billions of Chinese people both domestically and abroad.
Inside the Hien Yen Temple, there is a famous stone statue of the Emperor, presented by the Han Wu Temple. Though his appearance and stature are not particularly tall or handsome, he is the one who created a brilliant legacy, a great leader who united various tribes with a humble and simple demeanor like that of a farmer. Importantly, the Emperor is a human, not a God or a Saint. He was born from the union of flesh and blood, nurtured by the earth and heavens. The culture of China began with the age of the Emperor and has been refined over 5,000 years by the heavens and earth, becoming one of the world’s most distinguished cultures.
The Hien Yen Temple houses many stone steles, bearing the inscriptions of many renowned figures from various eras, praising the virtues of their ancestors. There are over 700 steles inscribed with eulogies from different dynasties. Among them are two recent steles, one inscribed with a eulogy by Mao Zedong representing the Communist Party and the Soviet Government in 1973, and the second bearing the handwriting of Chiang Kai-shek, written in 1942, with the three characters inscribed: “Emperor’s Tomb.” These two significant political figures, despite their differing viewpoints, shared a common reverence before the ancestral Emperor, forever marking a grand scene in the natural landscape of China and humanity.
The lush green cypress forest of Qiao Mountain that envelops the Emperor’s Tomb will forever remain a magnificent natural landscape of China and humanity.
