General situation of Huang Lu tomb in Zoucheng, Shandong Province
The southernmost peak of Jiulong Mountain is called "Dragon Head" (also known as "Xuanwu"). Luwangling is backed by Jiulong Mountain, with fertile land in the south, far away from Zhuque Mountain, Wohu Mountain in the east, Yuquan Mountain (also known as "Qinglong" and "White Tiger") in the west, and White Horse Spring below the cemetery, which is the source of Baima River. The Mausoleum of Lu is commanding, facing the sun and facing the water, hiding the wind and gathering gas, looking around the mountains and rivers, lush trees and towering green, which is really a scenic spot on earth.
The original area of Huang Lu Mausoleum is about 70,000 square meters. The cemetery is grand and solemn, with elegant and rich architecture. This is a typical Ming Dynasty prince cemetery.
The mausoleum separates the inner city from the outer city, and there are inner and outer moats. The first entrance to Shinto is the meridian gate, followed by a single-arch stone bridge named "Imperial Bridge". The railing of the stone bridge is decorated with designs such as carved bottles of Ganoderma lucidum. On the east and west sides of the bridge are Baima Er Quan and Quanshui Ming Che, which never dry up all year round and are called "Longan". Crossing the "Imperial Bridge" is the gate of the inner city. There are ice-plate eaves masonry walls with a height of 3.70 meters and a width of 0.70 meters around the inner city. The cemetery is divided into two courtyards, front and back, with strict layout and different patterns. There are three south gates, the middle gate is high, and the side gate is short, side by side, which is a door-hole type bucket arch building.
The second gate and the south gate are built on a central axis, which is a four-column and three-story cornice building. There is a pleasure hall in the middle of the backyard, which is a temple dedicated to Zhu Tan, the king of Lu, every year. It is said that there were turrets at the four corners of the city wall in the early years. The back door of the cemetery is the Ming building of Fangcheng and an important symbol of the underground palace. Fangcheng is 7.20 meters high. There is a 2.70-meter-wide cloister around for tourists to enjoy the scenery of the mausoleum. There is Amin Building on the Fangcheng. Ming-style building is a kind of cornice-style bucket arch building.
Emperors of past dynasties attached great importance to the construction of mausoleums, which they thought was a major event related to the national luck and the rise and fall of dynasties. Therefore, the choice of tombs should be investigated in detail by magicians who are familiar with geomantic astrology.
It is said that Zhu Tan took great pains when choosing a mausoleum, and traveled all over the mountains and rivers in Shandong, looking for terrain and wind veins, and finally chose this "Feng Shui Treasure Land" with Jiulong Mountain in the north and Baima River in the south. According to legend, Zhu Yuanzhang personally ordered Liu Ji, an imperial envoy, to preside over it.
In order to protect the safety of the mausoleum, an army was set up to guard the mausoleum. To the east of Zhu Tan's tomb, there is a village called Laoying Village, where the army was stationed at that time. It is said that once the address of Jianling is determined, it is not allowed to touch the soil there, otherwise it will hurt the "Feng Shui", so the engineering soil will be transported from other places. The place to the west of Zhu Tan's tomb is where the ground was broken. Because of the large amount of soil used, the land was dug and the accumulated water became a lake, so it is still called "West Lake". The origins of some village names and place names around Zhu Tan's tomb are mostly related to the construction of tombs.