The Tailing is the oldest and most elaborately developed tomb in the Western Qing complex, begun in 1730 and completed in 1737 for the Yongzheng Emperor. As the founding mausoleum of the western site, it set the template for the others: a long spirit way with stone animals and officials, a series of ceremonial gates and courtyards, offering halls, and the burial mound behind. The processional spirit way at Tailing is particularly fine, with some of the best stone animal sculpture in the complex.
The Yongzheng Emperor is one of the more intellectually interesting Qing rulers: a disciplined administrator who worked extremely long hours, deeply suspicious of the officials around him, and the subject of persistent rumours — never definitively resolved — about whether he came to power legitimately. His tomb reflects his character more than most: substantial and well-ordered, without the theatrical excess of Cixi's mausoleum at the Eastern Qing Tombs, but imposing in the way that serious authority tends to be.
The offering halls are open and give a clear sense of the ceremonial functions the tomb was designed to serve.