For 31-year-old Beijing-based state-owned enterprise worker Zhong Jing, 2024 marked the start of a new, intentional hobby: becoming a “weekend historian,” trading routine city weekends for cross-country road trips with friends to hunt for lesser-known historical sites scattered across China’s countryside. After each excursion, Zhong documents his observations and reflections, turning casual travel into a deeply personal journey of cultural discovery that has reshaped how he engages with the past and broadened his perspective.
It was during an October trip to Luoyang, Henan province, that this passion clicked into place for Zhong. Long celebrated as the capital of 13 ancient Chinese dynasties, Luoyang retains few visible above-ground traces of its imperial golden ages. Most of its layered history lies buried beneath the soil, so Zhong and his travel companions mapped out an itinerary connecting remote imperial tombs spread across the region’s rolling landscape.
Of all the sites he has explored on these trips, none left a more lasting mark than Changling Mausoleum, the final resting place of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–534), tucked into the slopes of Luoyang’s Mangshan Mountain. When Zhong arrived at the site, he encountered a playful, memorable moment: a group of local high school students had brought a tongue-in-cheek certificate reading “Luoyang Real Estate Annual Sales Champion Award” to present to the long-dead emperor. The joke carried quiet weight: Emperor Xiaowen relocated his dynasty’s capital to Luoyang 1,500 years ago, breathing new life into the city that endures to this day.
The encounter sparked deep reflection for Zhong. Growing up, traditional historical education framed the Northern Wei as just one of many competing dynasties during a chaotic period of division, overshadowed by the grand unification of the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC) and the military prowess of the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). That context left little room to appreciate the dynasty’s transformative legacy — a gap that visiting the emperor’s tomb in person filled.
What strikes Zhong most deeply through his on-the-ground explorations is the core truth of Chinese civilization: it is a diverse, deeply unified whole, sustained by its long history of openness and cultural integration. Emperor Xiaowen, a ruler of ethnic Xianbei heritage, championed mass cultural and ethnic fusion by embracing Han traditions, a policy of openness that Zhong argues laid groundwork for the later strength and cosmopolitanism of the Tang Dynasty (618–907). This willingness to welcome new influences, he says, is what keeps civilizations vibrant; without it, cultures stagnate, trapped in closed cycles of repetition.
Today, the slopes of Mangshan Mountain are dotted with imperial burials, and small pavilions near the tombs hang with an eclectic mix of banners: some honor the historical contributions of the figures buried below, while others carry the same kind of playful, irreverent humor that the high school students brought to Changling Mausoleum. A short distance from Emperor Xiaowen’s tomb, Zhong also visited the resting place widely believed to belong to Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960). Remembered by history as a fallen king, Li Yu is celebrated across the centuries as one of China’s most gifted poets, whose work captures universal human emotions that transcend his royal status.
“We do not worship victors; we treasure the hearts that have given the purest voice to human feeling,” Zhong observes. More than a thousand years after Li Yu lived, his emotions still draw modern visitors to stand quietly before his tomb. While few people today know what it means to lose an entire kingdom, everyone knows the weight of regret; though most have not watched dynasties rise and fall, all have tasted life’s quiet helplessness. The poetic sighs Li Yu wrote centuries ago still echo through time, finding a home in every heart that can understand them.
This firsthand feature was reported by China Daily’s Li Hongyang, updated on April 6, 2026.