The Ming Tombs are the royal tombs of the Ming Dynasty. They have not been dug up and robbed for more than 300 years after the demise of Ming Dynasty. Even in the war-torn Republic of China, unscrupulous warlords did not put their thoughts on them. But later, because of archaeological needs, Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, excavated the Dingling Mausoleum of Emperor Wanli and became the only imperial mausoleum excavated at present. When Guo Moruo proposed to excavate the Ming Tombs, many experts and scholars opposed it. They thought that the cultural relics protection technology at that time was not mature enough to properly protect unearthed cultural relics, but Guo Moruo was helpless. In fact, he originally wanted to dig the Changling Mausoleum of Yongle Emperor Judy, because he suspected that there was a "Yongle Grand Ceremony" in it, but he didn't get the approval from the above, so he turned to dig Dingling Mausoleum. There is also a saying that Changling is too big. Try to dig a smaller Dingling first, and then dig Changling after accumulating some experience.

In May, 1956, Dingling started trial excavation. Guo Moruo led the archaeological team to dig for several months but failed to find the entrance. It was not until September that the diamond tablet was dug up, which read: "This stone is sixteen feet in front of the diamond wall and three feet and a half deep". In May of the following year, the King Kong wall was dug, and the trapezoidal opening on the wall was the entrance of Dingling.

After entering the tomb from the entrance, archaeologists were completely shocked by the resplendence of the room, and countless calligraphy and painting, silk costumes and porcelain jewelry almost filled the tomb. After the ecstasy, archaeologists began to sort out these funerary objects. Inexperienced, they soon found that calligraphy and painting and silk carbonized at a speed visible to the naked eye and turned to ashes when touched by their hands.

Emperor Wanli's robes were bright and dazzling when they were first unearthed, as if they had just been put on. Not long after they were taken out of the mausoleum, they rotted in many places. Now all the objects we saw in the museum have become tattered "beggar clothes".

Later, the archaeological team learned about oxygen and carbon dioxide, strong light and so on. It is the natural enemy of cultural relics entering Dingling. What is even more distressing is that later, the bones of Emperor Wanli and Empress Dingling were carried out by the boy in red and burned in public. Three huge red lacquer coffins made of top nanmu were cut into firewood and thrown into the ravine.

The excavation of Dingling has been going on for more than two years, and more than 3,000 various artifacts have been unearthed in * * *. These cultural relics were put in ordinary bungalows without special protection and repair, and were not transferred to the underground cultural relics library until more than 60 years later to delay their damage.

Guo Moruo wanted to explore Zhaoling of Tang Gaozong and Wu Zetian after excavating Dingling, because it was said that Wang Xizhi's Preface to Lanting Collection was in Zhaoling, but this matter was rejected by Premier Zhou Enlai, because the excavation cost of Dingling was too high.