Tomb of Gia Long

The sign that came up was the one called Dự. Nguyễn Hữu Thận, the minister of rites, read it and said only, "Very good." The man who had cast the divination was the fourth prince, who would later take the throne as Emperor Minh Mạng. And it had been cast for a hill his father had already chosen, after the land had been divined seven times.

That hill was Thọ Sơn, a flat rise among ranks of mountains at the head of the Perfume River, southwest of the capital at Hue. In 1814, Emperor Gia Long went up there himself to see it with his own eyes. He stood inside the ring of mountains that faced toward it. He saw that this was land where vital energy gathered, where the living breath of mountains and rivers came together. Yet the emperor was still not at ease, so he had his son divine one more time. The sign was good. Soldiers and civilians were called in, and work on the tomb began.

The emperor had a reason to take such care. This ground was not meant first for him. In February of that year, the wife who had stood by him through his hardest years had died. She was Empress Thừa Thiên Cao, born Tống Thị Lan. On May 11, 1814, the emperor ordered work to begin on the Thiên Thọ tomb, to lay her to rest.

To understand why the emperor loved her so, the story has to go back nearly 40 years. The emperor was born Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, in 1762. In 1777, when he was only 15, his family met disaster in the war with the Tây Sơn, and the boy had to flee. The Tây Sơn were three brothers who led an uprising from 1771 and for a time ruled Vietnam. So began 25 years of war. A French missionary, Pigneau de Béhaine, helped him organize his army. In Vietnamese he is called Bá Đa Lộc.

Tống Thị Lan was the daughter of a duke, Tống Phúc Khuông. In 1778, she went south with her father to Gia Định. When she was 18, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh came in person to ask for her hand. From then on, for more than 20 years, she followed her husband through every hardship. At one point, she and her mother-in-law had to take refuge on the island of Phu Quoc. She bore Prince Cảnh, his eldest son, but both of her sons died young.

One small story here is especially lovely. In 1793, she adopted Prince Nguyễn Phúc Đảm, the very boy who would later become Emperor Minh Mạng. Many years later, that adopted son would divine again over the ground for her tomb. He would also be the one to finish the tomb.

In 1802, Nguyễn Phúc Ánh took the throne at Phú Xuân. His reign name was Gia Long. That began the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty, which reigned from 1802 to 1945. He was the man who unified the country after a long period of division. It had begun when the land was split between the Trịnh lords and the Nguyễn lords. In 1804, the name Vietnam was officially adopted for the country, a name still in use today. In 1806, Tống Thị Lan was made empress. She was the only woman the emperor ever raised to that rank.

When she died, the emperor mourned her for a full year, as the rites required. He wanted the two of them to share one tomb. So he chose her resting place himself, then chose his own place right beside it. For six years he oversaw the design and the building work. In the third lunar month of 1815, the empress was buried on the hill. That same year, the emperor gave the mountain a new name, Thiên Thụ Sơn. It is also read as Thiên Thọ, and thọ means long life.

On February 3, 1820, Emperor Gia Long died, in his 58th year. Emperor Minh Mạng finished the tomb. He brought his father to rest beside his adoptive mother, in exactly the place his father had chosen.

The Thiên Thọ tomb lies about 16 kilometers from the center of Hue. The road follows the Tả Trạch River upstream, toward the source of the Perfume River. In the old days, the only way to reach the tomb was by water. The way in passes through a pine forest, and that forest is the natural boundary of the tomb.

Then the mountains appear, on every side. In all, 42 mountains, large and small, gather around the tomb. Each one has its own name, carved on a stone stele set on its summit. The largest is Đại Thiên Thọ. It stands in front of the tomb like a screen. On either side, 14 mountains line up facing the tomb. They follow the old pattern of the Azure Dragon on the left and the White Tiger on the right.

In the salutation courtyard, stone statues of mandarins, war elephants and horses stand in silence on both sides. Then the sacrificial courtyard rises in seven tiers to the top of the hill. There stands Bửu Thành, a ring of walls around the graves. Its bronze door opens only a few times a year.

Inside lie two stone tombs side by side. They are the same size and the same shape, with no carved decoration, and the years have darkened them. This was the first royal tomb of the Nguyễn dynasty. It is also the only one where an emperor and an empress rest side by side in a double burial. The old name for this placing is Càn Khôn hiệp đức, heaven and earth joined in one harmony.

To the left of the graves stands the Bi Đình, the stele pavilion. It holds the stele called Thánh Đức Thần Công. Its text was written by Emperor Minh Mạng in praise of his father's achievements. To the right is the Minh Thành hall, where the emperor and empress are honored. The name of the hall means radiant perfection. Yet the building is plain, with no gilding, only four stone dragons along the steps.

Compared with the tombs of later emperors, this one has few towers, halls, pavilions and kiosks. The Nguyễn dynasty was newly founded then, and it still faced many hardships. Around the tomb there were once 85 ceremonial pillars. Only two remain today. In 1918, the scholar Phạm Quỳnh came to visit. He wrote that, compared with the other tombs, this one was the simplest of all, yet it had something majestic about it.

More than 200 years have passed since the emperor stood on that hill. The land had been divined seven times before he chose two places side by side. Today, behind the closed bronze door, the two stone tombs still lie side by side in silence. And the 42 mountains still gather around one place, as they have since the very first day.