Cixi was buried one year after her death, and the funeral procession stinks. How did the smell come from?

Since ancient times, China people have kept and passed on auspicious culture, that is, when doing something, we should choose a suitable time and sometimes even consider space. For an obvious example, Qixi is considered as the Valentine's Day in the East. On this day, there are always long queues at civil affairs bureaus all over the country. According to common sense, this day is no different from other dates, but most people hope to win a good lottery.

When this auspicious culture is applied to ancient tombs, its manifestations are more complicated. To do one thing, the four elements are subject, object, space and time. If these four elements are applied to tombs, the subject is the deceased, the object is the coffin and funerary objects of the deceased, the space is the place where the deceased is buried, and the time is the specific date of burial. Because of the influence of auspicious culture, those dignitaries in ancient times always built luxurious tombs, used excellent coffins, put a lot of funerary objects in them, and then asked Feng Shui masters to see a suitable place, and finally decided on an auspicious day before burial.

Therefore, in ancient China, a person was not buried soon after his death, and most of them had to go through a series of complicated procedures. For example, Cixi, the actual ruler of China in the late Qing Dynasty, was buried with twists and turns. It is very rare for Cixi to be buried one year after her death, and it took such a long time to die. This is not in line with the customs of our traditional culture, but perhaps because Cixi is Manchu, she is not restricted by it. Besides, Cixi's funeral procession stinks. How did the smell come from?

We can know from Notes on the Moon Pavilion that the mausoleum of Empress Dowager Cixi is very luxurious, and there are nearly 10,000 gems in the clothes she wears alone. Empress Dowager Cixi's burial ceremony is extremely luxurious in terms of goods, and the next thing to consider is the specific burial time and place. In other words, if the auspicious day of the ecliptic is far from the anniversary of the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, you can only wait in place.

The reason why it is so difficult to choose the date of burial is because it is impossible for an ancient emperor or an actual ruler like Empress Dowager Cixi to simply choose an auspicious day of the zodiac, and the date of this status is generally reserved for civil dignitaries or courtiers. For people like Cixi, to choose a suitable burial date, besides asking the warlock to observe the celestial phenomena, we should also combine the birth date of Cixi to pick out the most suitable date.

Therefore, although there are 365 days in a year, it is still very difficult to get an accurate date under such harsh conditions. The burial procedure of Empress Dowager Cixi is complicated, which has a lot to do with the background of the times. If it is a peaceful and prosperous time, or the ancient society of China hundreds of years ago, burial need not be so complicated. Generally, as soon as the new emperor ascended the throne, he began to build his own mausoleum and made full preparations for the funeral.

In ancient times, it was very common for people to build their own graves while they were alive. Both Qin Shihuang, who unified the six countries, and Han Wudi, who fought against the Huns, began to build tombs for themselves before they died, although they had been striving for immortality during their reign. In other words, when the country is stable and the national strength is strong, the emperor often has enough time and money to build a huge and luxurious mausoleum for himself. Therefore, in ancient China, it often took more than ten years to build the emperor's mausoleum.

In addition to the early days of the mausoleum construction, when the new emperor ascended the throne, he had already found a professional geomancer to find a suitable burial place and date for him after his death. Therefore, most of these rulers have made comprehensive preparations for the future when they are 3 or 40 years old. So decades later, when they die, they won't waste a lot of unnecessary time.

But Empress Dowager Cixi obviously didn't have such good luck. This is because although she was the actual ruler in the late Qing Dynasty, she was just like Lv Hou in the Han Dynasty. Although she holds great power in her hands, she has never proclaimed herself emperor, and her status is limited to the queen mother at most, not the emperor. This means that the emperor can do many things. Although he has a lot of power, due to the restrictions of etiquette system, he can't implement it, which limits his hands and feet. This is a great limitation, which makes Cixi unable to properly explain her own affairs in her later years.

In addition, it should be combined with the background of the late Qing Dynasty. As we all know, ancient China went downhill from the middle of Qing Dynasty until 1840. With the outbreak of the Opium War, China was forced to open a closed door and become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. In other words, since this period, the comprehensive strength of China has been declining, limiting the daily expenses of the palace.

Although the court forces headed by Empress Dowager Cixi and others tried their best to search for the world's property. However, with the signing of one unequal treaty after another, China's silver flowed out in large quantities and became the capital of other countries' political reform. Under such a cycle, the late Qing court completely became the ruler of foreigners, and with Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of China, we almost ran out of money. Even if Empress Dowager Cixi wants to build a mausoleum in advance, she can only do it with her heart.

It is for this reason that the tombs of Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu were built a long time later than those of the former emperor. If Cixi can narrow down the regulations of her mausoleum and reduce the funerary objects inside the mausoleum, it can also speed up the construction of the mausoleum. Obviously, however, it is impossible for people like Cixi to make concessions in this respect by spending military money to build a back garden. Therefore, the mausoleum of Empress Dowager Cixi was built for a long time, and even in the twenty-first year of Guangxu, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the expansion.

The day after the death of Emperor Guangxu, Empress Dowager Cixi also died. However, Cixi was buried one year after her death. One reason is that the underground palace of Empress Dowager Cixi has not been fully built, and the other main reason is that it is still far from the auspicious day of the ecliptic. On the one hand, it is the place, on the other hand, it is the time. At this time, there is an irreconcilable conflict between the two. Obviously, there is a good date, which is shorter than the death date of Empress Dowager Cixi. But because the underground palace has not yet been built, we can only skip this date. It has been a year since the underground palace was built and then specially buried.

In ancient times, there was no anti-corrosion technology today, and the disposal of corpses was not so mature. This means that it is almost impossible for a corpse to remain innocent. After the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, according to limited historical records, the palace bought a lot of spices to cover up the smell of the body, and also stored a lot of ice cubes to protect the body of Empress Dowager Cixi.

Although the body of Empress Dowager Cixi has received limited protection in these two ways, the biggest difficulty is not here, but the transportation of the body behind. In the process of transporting the body of Empress Dowager Cixi to Ding Dong Mausoleum, the funeral procession gave off a stench. What is the reason? This is because the body of Empress Dowager Cixi has not been buried for a year and has been damaged to a considerable extent. However, due to the thick barrier of the coffin, its smell cannot be completely emitted. The reason why the funeral procession has a pungent smell is mainly because there are many people in the funeral procession, and of course there are also a lot of livestock such as mules and horses.

These animals excrete at will in the process of marching, which leads to chaos everywhere, so the funeral procession emits a stench when it passes by.