Eastern Qing Tombs

In Zunhua County, Hebei Province, 125 kilometres east of Beijing, lies a group of imperial tombs of the Qing Dynasty. It is known as the Eastern Tombs because there is another group, the Western Tombs, located in Yixian County, southwest of Beijing. It is the largest and most complete group of imperial tombs in China, covering an area of 48 square kilometres. It includes 15 tombs for five Qing emperors, their empresses and concubines. The tombs for the emperors and empresses are decorated with yellow glazed-tiled roofs, while the concubines' tombs were only entitled to green glazed-tiles.

The emperors who were buried here are Shunzhi (in Xiaoling), Kangxi (Jingling), Qianlong (Yuling), Xianfeng (Dingling) and Tongzhi (Huiling). Altogether 5 emperors, 14 empresses and 136 imperial concubines were buried here, including the notorious Empress Dowager Cixi.

Now the underground palaces of the tombs of Emperor Qianlong and Empress Dowager Cixi are open to the public.

The tombs of the Empress Dowager was looted by a warlord named Sun Dianying. He closed the tomb grounds under the pretext of using it for military manoeuvres and, with the help of his troops, opened the tomb of Cixi to steal the treasures.

Empress Dowager Cixi spent a fabulous amount of money to build a mausoleum for herself long before her death. Its total cost came up to 72 tons of silver.