Eastern Qing Tombs Jingling Mausoleum

At the southern foot of Changrui Mountain, the Jingling Mausoleum holds the remains of the Kangxi Emperor, his four empresses, and one imperial noble consort. Construction began on March 23, 1676. Breaking with the tradition of building tombs only after an emperor's death, Kangxi ordered the work to start early, driven by grief over the premature death of his first wife, Empress Xiaochengren. This site marked a permanent shift in Qing dynasty customs. It was the first imperial tomb to replace the traditional Manchu practice of cremation with earth burial.

Builders left the heavy stone doors of the underground palace open for decades, allowing the empresses to be interred first while they awaited the emperor's arrival. Outside, the sacred path features five pairs of stone statues, including elephants carrying treasure vases to symbolize peace. Further along, a five-bay, six-pillar wooden-and-stone archway gate stands with green-colored bracket sets and yellow glazed tiles. Inside the rebuilt Sacred Merit and Virtue Stele Pavilion, two parallel stone steles—one carved in Manchu and the other in Han Chinese—record the emperor's sixty-one-year reign.

Decades after the dynasty fell, the peace of the valley shattered. On December 22, 1945, local bandits and officials used explosives to blast open the underground palace. They plundered the burial treasures and scattered the skeletal remains of the imperial family across the stone floor. In 1952, a lightning strike burned the great stele pavilion to the ground. The underground palace remains flooded and closed, a silent, waterlogged sanctuary beneath the restored surface of the mountain.

The Jingling Mausoleum was designated a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 1961 as part of the Eastern Qing Tombs. In 2000, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.