A Northern Song Emperor’s Tomb in Hoeryeong?

Chasing the Mystery of Undusan Fortress and “Wuguo Fortress”

“Somewhere in the hills along the Tumen River, there lies the tomb of a Northern Song emperor.”

At first glance it sounds less like a documentary and more like the title of a light novel.
But this line actually comes from a late Joseon scholar’s own written account.
And behind that one line lies a long shadow of Northeast Asian border history:
the fall of the Northern Song, the rise of Jin, and the tangled frontier of Goguryeo–Jurchen–Joseon–Qing.

In this piece, instead of jumping straight to

“This is DEFINITELY the Northern Song imperial mausoleum!”

we’ll take a slower route:

What do the actual historical sources say?
How does modern scholarship interpret them?
And why is the Hoeryeong theory such an intriguing little mystery?

1. The “Tomb of the Song Emperor” Puzzle in Taengniji

The late Joseon geographer Yi Jung-hwan, author of the famous geography book Taengniji (택리지), passed through Hoeryeong in Hamgyeong Province and left a curious note. Summarized:

If you follow the Tumen River upstream to Undusan Fortress near Hoeryeong,
you’ll find several large burial mounds on a hill outside the fortress.
Local people call these mounds “Hwangjerung” – the Emperor’s tombs.”
In 1712, when the Qing envoy Mukedeng (穆克登) visited to set up the border stele for the Tumen and Yalu,
his party saw these tombs and tried to open one.
In the process, they found a small, short stele. On it were carved four characters:
“宋帝之墓” – “Tomb of the Emperor of Song.”
Mukedeng then ordered the grave to be repaired and the mound rebuilt on a grander scale before leaving.

Because of this, the rumor that

“This might be the tomb of a Northern Song emperor”

spread widely around Hoeryeong. Yi Jung-hwan himself notes that he doesn’t know exactly which emperor it might be, but the idea stuck with him.

If we then add later Joseon and early modern gazetteers, travelogues, and even Japanese colonial-era photographs, we get at least this much:

Inside Undusan Fortress at Hoeryeong, there was an old cluster of tomb mounds
traditionally called “Hwangjerung” or “Tomb of the Song Emperor.”
Japanese investigators even photographed it, labeling the images
“皇帝塚 (Emperor’s Mound)” or “宋皇帝塚 (Tomb of the Song Emperor)” in the captions.

So far, so good. The place existed, and the name existed.

Which naturally raises the next question:

Then which “Song emperor” is this supposed to be?

Of course, it could simply be a tomb of some local elite from the Song region.
But popular imagination jumped straight to the two tragic last emperors of the Northern Song.

2. The Fall of the Northern Song and the Two Emperors’ Bitter End

The Northern Song collapsed in 1127 when the Jurchen Jin dynasty stormed the capital in what is known as the Jingkang Incident (靖康之變).

Emperor Huizong (徽宗, Zhao Ji) and his son
Emperor Qinzong (欽宗, Zhao Huan)

were both captured and taken north by the Jin.

The Jin first kept them near the capital area, then transferred them:

To Shangjing (上京),
Then to Hanzhou (韓州, roughly in modern Jilin Province),
And finally to a fortress called “Wuguo Fortress” (五國城).

According to the standard Chinese histories (Song History, Jin History and related texts):

Huizong died in Wuguo Fortress in 1135.
Qinzong lived longer, dying sometime in the 1160s, also within Jin territory.

Later, in the south, the newly established Southern Song under Emperor Gaozong (Zhao Gou) negotiated with Jin to reclaim Huizong’s coffin.

Huizong’s remains were then ceremonially reburied in Song territory,
at Yongyou Mausoleum (永祐陵) near modern Shaoxing in Zhejiang.

Put together, the standard storyline is:

Both emperors spent their final years near Wuguo Fortress, under Jin control;
At least Huizong’s coffin was later moved south and reinterred in a newly built imperial tomb in Zhejiang.

On paper, this sounds neat and tidy:

The “final resting place” is in Zhejiang – end of story.

But the trouble starts when we ask:

“Okay, then where exactly was Wuguo Fortress?”

3. Where Was Wuguo Fortress? – Majority vs Minority Views

3-1. Majority view: Near Yilan in Heilongjiang

Most Chinese and Korean scholars today identify Wuguo Fortress with a site near Yilan (依蘭) in Heilongjiang Province.

Near the confluence of the Heilong (Amur) and Songhua Rivers,
there is a Jin-period fortress site with visible walls and moats.
This site is officially listed and marked as “Wuguo Fortress Ruins (五国城遗址)”,
protected by the local authorities.

When you combine:

The geographical hints in Song History, Jin History, and other old gazetteers, and
Modern mapping of the Songhua–Mudan River region,

the Yilan area matches quite well. That’s why, at present, the Yilan identification carries the most academic weight.

3-2. Why the confusion? Conflicting coordinates in old texts

Even so, it’s hard to slam the gavel and declare,

“Case closed. Wuguo Fortress = Yilan and nowhere else.”

Why?

Because over the Jin–Yuan–Ming centuries, different gazetteers gave slightly different descriptions of Wuguo Fortress:

Some texts place it “a few hundred li toward Liaodong,”
Others say “near the border with Joseon,”

and so on. The distances and directions don’t always line up cleanly,
which left plenty of room for later scholars to get confused.

Out of that fog of ambiguous coordinates came the question:

“Is it possible there was another fortress called Wuguo closer to the Joseon border—say, right across the Tumen River?”

3-3. Minority view: Undusan Fortress at Hoeryeong = Wuguo Fortress?

That’s where the “Hoeryeong Undusan Fortress = Wuguo Fortress” hypothesis steps in.

Undusan Fortress (sometimes also called Oguk Fortress / O-guk-seong (五國山城) in some older materials) is:

A massive stone fortress clinging to cliffs along the Tumen River,
With a perimeter of about 6 km.
Its gates, command posts, and water gates are clearly laid out,
marking it as a key node in the northeastern defense line, likely of Goguryeo origin.

On the hill near this fortress is a group of large tomb mounds that:

Were already known in late Joseon times as “Hwangjerung” (Emperor’s tomb),
And, according to Taengniji, bore the stele inscription “Tomb of the Emperor of Song (宋帝之墓).”

Some Korean researchers take this a step further and argue:

If we re-read the fuzzy coordinates in the old texts,
it’s possible to interpret Wuguo Fortress as not only the Songhua–Heilongjiang region,
but also the Tumen–Hoeryeong region.
Therefore, the fortress where Huizong and Qinzong spent their final years could be Undusan Fortress,
and the “Tomb of the Song Emperor” stele might refer to one of these two captured emperors.

This is very much a minority hypothesis, not a mainstream conclusion.

Still, it’s a fascinating thought experiment at the crossroads of:

Border fortresses,
Old tombs and local legends,
Joseon scholars’ field notes, and
The fall of the Northern Song.

4. So What Is Actually in Hoeryeong?

Time for the practical question:

“Okay, but what is that ‘Emperor’s tomb’ on the hill at Undusan Fortress?”

4-1. Could it really be a “true” Northern Song imperial tomb?

Based on what we know so far,
the chances that this is the final, primary tomb of a Northern Song emperor are extremely low.

We already have records that Huizong’s coffin was brought south in the Southern Song era
and reburied at Yongyou Mausoleum near modern Shaoxing.
That tomb complex, although looted and damaged many times over the centuries,
has remained known and locatable in historical memory.

If the Hoeryeong mound were actually the real burial site of the emperor’s remains,
we’d have to assume that the Southern Song court:

Faked the location of the imperial tomb, or
Entirely fabricated a major part of their own ritual record.

That would require a huge historical conspiracy—and we currently have no solid evidence to support anything that dramatic.

4-2. More plausible: a cenotaph, symbolic tomb, or later memorial

Still, the stele inscription “Tomb of the Emperor of Song” is not something we can shrug off.
If we force ourselves to map out a few plausible scenarios:

1. Memorial or cenotaph

At some point in the Jin–Yuan–Ming–Qing continuum, someone—
perhaps officials or migrants with a cultural memory of the Song—
might have erected a symbolic tomb or memorial without actual imperial remains.
Both in China and Korea, building “empty tombs” (가묘) or symbolic shrines
for fallen dynasties and exiled rulers was not unheard of.

2. Tomb of a local elite claiming Song heritage

It’s also possible that some local power-holder or community in the north,
of Song origin or loyalist sentiment,
used the title “Emperor of Song” for themselves or for a revered ancestor.
But we have no corroborating texts or inscriptions supporting this scenario yet.

3. Misreading, exaggeration, or later reinterpretation

The original stele is now lost; we only have Yi Jung-hwan’s transcription from Taengniji.
It’s entirely possible that “宋帝之墓” was:
- Misread in the field,
- Mis-copied later, or
- Interpreted in a way the original stone never intended.
In late Joseon popular speech, titles like “emperor,” “princess,” “general” were often used loosely.
The label “Hwangjerung (Emperor’s tomb)” may itself be a product of such loose, legendary naming.

4-3. The core problem: we lack decisive archaeological data

The biggest issue is this:

There has never been a fully published, modern archaeological excavation
of the Undusan fortress tomb cluster that answers the key questions.

From:

Late Joseon texts,
Japanese colonial-era photos,
and some North Korean heritage designations,

we know only that:

There are large mounds,
They were locally known as the Emperor’s Tomb / Song Emperor’s Tomb, and
The Taengniji records a stele reading “Tomb of the Emperor of Song.”

But we still don’t have:

A detailed excavation report,
Clear plans of the internal structure,
Artifact lists,
Radiocarbon dates,
Or stratigraphic analysis.

So, as of today, the most academically honest conclusion is something like this:

“The ‘Emperor’s tomb’ on the hill at Undusan Fortress in Hoeryeong
is undoubtedly a historically interesting site with a rich local tradition.
However, there is currently no hard evidence that it is the actual primary tomb
of a Northern Song emperor.
Even if it does have some connection to the Northern Song,
it is safer to treat it as a possible cenotaph or later memorial
rather than a confirmed imperial mausoleum.”

And that, for now, is where the mystery quietly sits—
half in the documents, half in the earth, and very much still open to future digging,
both literal and scholarly.

A light history story

Tuesday, November 18, 2025