Maoling,the mausoleum of Emperor Wu Di of the Western Han Dynasty,is located about nine kilometers southeast of Xingping County and 45 kilometer from Xi'an.The mausoleum was in Maoxiang Town in Huaili County during the Western Han Dynasty;hence the name Maoling(the mausoleum at Mao xiang).Emperor Wu Di(140-87B.C.),also called Liu Che,was the fifth emperor in the Western Han Dynasty. At the age of seven,he was made the crown prince.He came to the throne at 16 and was in power for 54 years.He was the emperor for the longest period in the hisory of China.The First Qin Emperor and Emperor Wu Di.In order to centralized power under the feudal imperal court,Emperor Wu Di deprived every dependent state of their titles of nobility by means of various pretexts.However,Emperor Wu Di did not stick to the old rule.On the contrary,he was unconstrained and broad-minded in choosing talents.He even established the Imperial College from whicht to train and choose qualified officials.These measures were adopted to strengthen further the system of centralization strenghthen and its feudal economy flourished.Emperor Wu Di launched three important battles,and defeated its formidable enemy,the Hun invaders on the northern border.He also sent men,more than once,to establish relations with the Western Regions.The well-known Silk Road was opened during his reign.
Emperor Wu Di was not only a statesman but also a strategist of great talent tactics,and tactics,and a lover of poetry and music as well.He set up an origanization called "Yuefu",an offician conservatory for
collecting and compsing folk songs and ballads and for training musicians.It was because of this that many folk songs in the Han Dynasty were preserved and passed down through the ages till today.Yuefu poems had a great influence on people of later periods.Poets like Li Bai,Du Fu and Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty,used to imitate and devolop the style of the Yuefu poems.In order to consolidate feudal domination and of further achieve the untiy of academic thought,Emperor Wu Di accepted the Confucian,Dong Zhoushu's proposal of "rejecting the other schools of thought and respecting only Confucianism".Thus the period of "contention between a hundred schools of thought "came to an end.From then on,Confucian thought gradually developed in to an rothodox philosophy and had far-reaching influence on the history of China.
At the age of 71,Emperor Wu Di died and was buried at Maoling Mausoleum.His mausoleum was built of rammed earth in the shape of a four-sided dipper,46meters high and 240meters long.Around the mausoleum there are vestiges of wall on the four sides,each of which was 400meterslong with a base of 5.8meters wide.Today the vestiges of the eastern,western anf northern watchtowers can still be clearly seen.
Among the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty,Maoling Mausoleum was the largest in dimension,took the longest time to be built and had thre richest funeral objects.EmperorWu Di was in power for 54years ,yet the construction of Maoling Mausoleum took 53 years to be complete.By the time he died,the trees at the mausoleum had grown so large that one could hardly get his arms around them.
It is horrifying to mention graves,but Maoling does not give you that feeling.During the Western Han
Dynasty in the area around Maoling cemetery ,there were s lot of mansion built for high officials and noble lords.Inside the cemetery there were many palaces and houses inhabited by tomb keeper and palace maids,there were over 5,000 custodians responsible for the maintenance of the mausoleum.The town of Maoling County was purposely built to the southeast of the mausoleum.Generals,officials,noblemen and the rich lived in the town and numbered over 277,000. There are over20 satellite tombs of high offiails and noble relations around the Maoling Mausoleum.The famous young general Huo Qubing who,on six occasions,fought the Huninvaders bravely,was buried on the eastern side of the mausoleum one kilometer away.In1978,Maoling Museum was set up .
