Other emperors in Chinese history: In order to prevent my tomb from being robbed, I’m going to build it on a remote mountain, hide it in a vast underground palace, and set a bunch of booby traps
The controversial and self aware emperors: I will do all of the above and hide the location of my tomb so my enemies cannot find it and desecrate it after my death
Liu Bei, Emperor of Shu: My tomb is in a royal temple right smack in the middle of my country’s capital, in the busiest area of the city. I am buried in a mound with my belongings, above ground.
Liu Bei’s son: I’m going to put Zhuge Liang’s temple right across the street from my father’s temple and grave
A governor of Sichuan, a few hundred years later: Zhuge Liang’s temple is much more popular among the everyday folk than the royal temple across the street. In order to uphold royal honor, let’s combine the two temples so that people have to pay their respects to the late emperor when they want to pray at Zhuge Liang’s shrine!
The people of Sichuan: Okay, we’ll refer to the combined temple as Zhuge Liang’s temple because we like him more, even though it’s technically also Liu Bei’s grave
Grave robbers, when they find the graves of other emperors: This grave is in the middle of nowhere, the closest village is a few days walk, and nobody even remembers where the grave is anymore so it should be safe for us to camp out here for a couple days, locate an entrance to the grave, and dig!
Grave robbers, when someone suggests robbing Liu Bei’s tomb: Everybody knows his tomb is in Zhuge Liang’s temple, which is one of the most popular temples in the province. The temple is in the busiest and thus one of the most closely policed districts in the city, surrounded by restaurants, markets, and residential homes. This is the temple where the city people come to pray for good luck and hold their annual festivals. I don’t think we could get away with camping out and digging here in the middle of the city.
And because for the last ~1800 years the city remained densely inhabited and the temple popular among the city folk and visitors alike, Liu Bei’s grave became the only royal grave from the three kingdom’s period that remained undisturbed by robbers.
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