Yellow emperor Xuan Yuan

Legend has it that the mausoleum of Yellow Emperor is that 0[Xuan Yuan, founder of the Chinese nation. The Mausoleum stands at the top of Mt. Qiaoshan, north of the Huangling County seat.Huang Di was a great tribal chief at the time towards the end of primitive society in China. He was honoured as the ancestor who had initiated Chinese civilization. He was attributed with the inven-tions of jade weapons, carts, boats, bows and arrows. Luo Zu, his wife, was good at raising silkworms. Cang Jie, an imperial histori-an, created the Chinese pictograph. Da Rao, one of his officials,worked out the first "Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch Calendar". Ling Lun, his official composer, developed musical in-struments. All of these brilliant achievements put forth by Huang Di, were indispensable to the later success of China as one of the world's four ancient civilized nations.

Huang Di's exploits went down in history also because he had punished the evil and wicked, and unified the Chinese nation for the first time. In that historical stage, the Chinese people laboured,lived and multiplied on the vast land around the Yellow River val-ley. Yan I)i (Emperor Yan) and his people of the Qiang nationality inhabited the middle. Tai Gao and his Yi tribe lived in the east. Chi You and the Man lived in the south, and Qiang, Dee and Rong tribes lived in the north and west. Huang Di and his tribe led a no-madic life then, in the west. Later they migrated south to the mid-dle. In a battle launched by the Man nationality, led by Chi You, whose aim was to seize the middle'area, Yah Di was defeated and turned to Huang Di for help. The combined forces defeated Chi You. At last, Huang Di unified these groups to become the first Chinese nation, after 52 battles. Huang Di was said to have lived to be 118. One day on an inspection tour to Henan, Huang Di heard a sudden crack of thunder from the sky, and a yellow dragon de-scended in front of him. The dragon said to Huang DJ, "You have accomplished your mission. Now, please return to Heaven with me." Huang Di knew he was not in a position to run counter to God's will and could do nothing but mount the dragon and go with it. When flying over Mount Qiaoshan of Shaanxi, Huang Di asked the dragon to land so that he could appease his subjects. At the news, the people hurried over and wept bitterly. Having been urged by the yellow dragon, Huang Di again mounted it. But the people got tight hold of his clothes, trying to make him stay. However,the yellow dragon took him away. All that the people had left of him was his hat and his clothes, which they buried on Mount Qiaoshan in a tomb that was built for him. That was how the leg-end went, yet some people believe that Mount Qiaoshan is exactly
where great man's final resting place is.

The burial ground is about four square kilometres. It is sur-rounded by mountains and rivers, and is covered with lush forest.According to statistics, there are over 60,000 one-thousand-year-old cypresses there. As one nears the top he passes a stele with the inscription. "Both civil officials and military officers must demount from here."

It is said that those who come to pay homage would walk from this spot up to the tomb. In front of the tomb there is a memorial pavilion with a huge stone stele, on which is carved Guo Moruo's calligraphy, which reads "Mausoleum of Huang DJ". Behind the pavilion another stele is inscribed with four characters "Qiaoshan Long Yu" (Mount Qiaoshan Dragon Carriage). A little farther up stands the Mausoleum of Huang Di, right in the middle of the mountain top. The south-facing mausoleum is four metres high and 50 metres in circumference. About 40 metres infront of the tomb is a twenty-metre-high platform with a stele on one side, on which is inscribed "Han Wu Xian Tai" (Han Wu Praying Platform). It is said to have been built in 110 B. C. for Emperor Wu Di of the Hah Dynasty to pay homage to Huang Di, and to pray for good luck on his way back to Suo Fang. Since then, it has been a state ceremony to pay homage to the Huang Di's Mausoleum on Chinese Memorial Day. Many eulogies to Huang Di by emperors of later dynasties have been passed down through the ages. Before 1949, some famors senior statesmen of the Nationalist Party, such as Yu Youren, Jiang Dingwen, and Cheng Qian, had been here. During the Yanan period, the Chinese Communist Party Central Commit-tee sent its representatives here to honour this great man. On the Memorial Day of 1937, Lin Boqu, entrusted by Mao Zedong and Zhu De, commander-in-chief, came to officiate at the ceremony. At the foot of the mountain stands a temple known as Xu-anyuan Temple, where there are still some structures, ancient cy-presses and stone steles. The first thing that strikes one's eyes upon entering the gate is a huge cypress, 19 metres tall, and six metres in circumference. It would take more than seven people to encircle the tree with outstretched arms. Some foreign scholars call it "fa-ther of world cypress". Legend goes that it was planted by Yellow Emperor himself, which would make it over 4,900 years old.

North of the gate there is hall and a pavilion with 47 stone ste-les on display. Before the temple's main hall stands another tall tree, known as the Cypress for Hanging Armor. It is covered with scars in regular patterns on its hark, seemingly, marked by armor and holes can be found in the trunk, with broken nails inside. Cy-press rosin flows out constantly from these holes, making this cy-press unique among all the cypresses in the temple. According to
legend, the Han Dynasty Emperor Wu Di had left all these marks when hanging his armor on it.

Above the door of the magnificent main hall is a large horizon-tal tablet with a four-character inscription. Ren Wen Chu Zu (Founder of the Human Civilization). Inside the hall is a gorgeous shrine. Displays along the side walls give an introduction to the temple and the mausoleum.