The mass grave of Jingjiang Mausoleum in Guilin, Guangxi is surrounded by thousands of private graves, and villagers sell cemeteries in droves.

The Jingjiang Mausoleum Reserve in Guilin was eroded by ten thousand private graves.

Nanning, April 5 (Xinhua)-State-level key cultural relics protection units are surrounded by 10,000 private graves. Villagers can sell cemeteries in droves and issue "receipts" with official seals. They can "settle in" the royal geomantic treasures by paying more than 10,000 yuan …

The reporter recently visited Jingjiang Mausoleum Reserve in Guilin, Guangxi, and found that the former Mausoleum has become unrecognizable under the erosion of a large number of private graves, and it is getting worse.

New graves and old graves are intertwined, and the tomb turns into a "mass grave"

The Jingjiang Mausoleum in Guilin, Guangxi has more than 300 ancient tombs of Jingjiang captives, princesses, generals and ministers in the 11th Ming Dynasty. It is the largest and best-preserved tomb group of Ming captives and belongs to the national key cultural relics protection unit. On April 1st, the reporter came to Guazishan Village, located at the south foot of Yaoshan Mountain in the eastern suburb of Guilin, and saw the tomb of Duanyi, which was most seriously eroded by private graves.

According to the information provided by the cultural relics department, the tomb of Duanyi covers an area of about 43 mu. There are original buildings and stone carvings, such as the left and right courthouses, the mausoleum gate, the god kitchen and the god library, the tablet pavilion, and Shinto stone ceremonies such as the gatekeeper lion and the warrior horse control.

The reporter saw at the scene that the whole tomb has become a messy cemetery, with both old graves and new graves, and thousands of private graves spread all over it. Entering the tomb is like walking a maze. There are more than a dozen private graves on the mound of Duanyi tomb, which is 3 meters high and about 8 meters in diameter. Stone carvings such as the gatekeeper lion and the warrior controlling the horse on both sides of the Shinto Road in the tomb are separated by private graves.

On the wall that blocks the tomb, you can see advertisements with the words "repair the old grave and bury the new grave". Villagers gathered in groups on the side of the road next to the tomb, always selling graves.

In the corner of the tomb, the reporter saw that two villagers were building a new grave, and the black Shinto sculpture of the tomb next to the new grave was particularly abrupt. An elderly woman took the initiative to sell this piece of only two cemeteries to reporters, each covering an area of about 4 square meters, sandwiched between dense private graves. She asked for 14 thousand yuan, including land use, stone tablets and labor, and said that the tomb is a treasure trove of feng shui, which is very reasonable. She told reporters that the land here belongs to the village collective, and you can issue a receipt with the official seal of the village Committee, without worrying about being demolished.

In 2011, the cultural relics department investigated the phenomenon of random burial in the protected area. According to the investigation, there are 8,349 private graves in Duanyi tomb site, and there are more than 17,000 private graves in the whole Guazishan village. In recent years, the mass burial centered on Duanyi tomb site has spread to the surrounding rocky mountains and the core area of Jingjiang tomb site.

The situation of disorderly burial is out of control, and the lack of supervision is weak.

Zeng Xiangzhong, deputy director of the Jingjiang Mausoleum Cultural Relics Management Office in Guilin, said that within the 7.5 square kilometers of Jingjiang Mausoleum Archaeological Site Park planned and constructed by the state, there were more than 20,000 mass burials in 2011, and the annual increase was about 1,000, which caused serious damage to Jingjiang Mausoleum Site and environmental features.

"There are 60,000-80,000 mass burials in the area of Yaoshan. In the past two years, many luxurious tombs covering an area of 200 square meters have been found in Yaoshan, which wastes a lot of land and is distressing." Luo Yi, deputy director of Guilin Funeral Management Office, said.

Zeng Xiangzhong said that there are certain historical reasons for the chaotic burial in Guazishan Village. Before the tomb was listed as a cultural relics protection unit in the 1970s, Guilin built the crematorium in Yaoshan, and at the same time used the site of Duanyi Tomb as a graveyard for relocation. After the 1980s, with the progress of urban reconstruction, a large number of private graves were moved in, and mass burial gradually formed a scale. In recent years, village collectives illegally lease, transfer and sell collective land to grave builders, and collect a certain proportion of so-called contract fees or management fees from them, which has contributed to the phenomenon of indiscriminate burial.

Zeng Xiangzhong said that the cultural relics management office has no land ownership, no law enforcement power and no right to clear graves, so it is in an embarrassing situation.

Luo Yi introduced that in 2006, the Guilin Funeral Management Office had pushed the municipal government to introduce measures to clean up the indiscriminate burial, but the implementation effect was not good, and it was finally lost. Indiscriminate burial involves many departments, such as civil affairs, land, forestry, cultural relics, etc. The civil affairs department has no law enforcement power, and private graves can only be demolished by the housing and construction departments according to illegal buildings, and all departments have not formed a situation of joint management, which makes it impossible to curb and eradicate indiscriminate burial.

Only by clarifying the powers and responsibilities and comprehensively enforcing the law can we treat both the symptoms and the root causes with concerted efforts.

The Regulations on Funeral Management stipulates that it is forbidden to build graves in cultural relics protection areas, and public welfare cemeteries in rural areas may not provide graves for people other than villagers. If bodies are buried and graves are built in places other than cemeteries and public welfare cemeteries in rural areas, the civil affairs department shall order them to make corrections within a time limit.

Zeng Xiangzhong believes that comprehensively controlling the problem of mass burial in Jingjiang Mausoleum Reserve is a complex social project, which cannot be solved by a certain department. It is suggested that the municipal government take the lead in carrying out the work so that the departments of cultural relics and civil affairs can form a joint force.

Luo Yi suggested that Guilin should introduce municipal-level funeral management laws and regulations, clarify the powers and responsibilities of various departments, and provide operational normative guidance for law enforcement of relevant departments.

A large part of the reason for the phenomenon of indiscriminate burial lies in the lack of low-cost public welfare cemeteries, and the price of private graves is far lower than that of operating cemeteries. "We should speed up the construction of public welfare cemeteries, move sporadic private graves into public welfare cemeteries, transform large old cemeteries, green the surrounding cemeteries, and curb the construction of new graves." Luo Yi said.

Zeng Xiangzhong suggested that all the wild cultural relics sites and protected areas of Jingjiang Mausoleum should be demarcated by the land department, and on this basis, land confirmation and land expropriation should be carried out, and a protective ecological fence-site hedge should be built to protect the wild cultural relics sites of Jingjiang Mausoleum from man-made destruction.