ABSTRACT
The Ming dynasty had sixteen emperors. The first emperor was buried near Nanjing. The remains of the second emperor were never found (p. 175). For reasons to be discussed later, the seventh emperor, Zhu Qiyu, alone was buried west of Beijing. All remaining thirteen emperors found their resting place about twenty-five miles north of the capital city, in thirteen mausoleums over a belt of land that looks on a map like a huge horseshoe around a reservoir. Few visitors to Beijing fail to go out to the "Ming tombs." One of these, that of Zhu Yijun, the thirteenth emperor and generally known to Chinese and Western readers by his regal name "Wanli," was opened up by archaeologists in 1958. Millions of visitors have since then been inside his burial chamber.
