(Tu Duc’s pavillion within his palace complex)
Emperor Tu Duc was a Vietnamese monarch who reigned from 1848-83, enjoying the longest reign of any monarch of the Nguyen dynasty. He had over 100 official wives and countless concubines, and was known for being a very selfish and harsh ruler. Since he wasn’t able to father any children, possibly due to a smallpox infection when he was younger, he decided to write his own epitaph about all of his accomplishments.
These writings were placed on a 20 ton piece of stone that had to be brought from a quarry 500 kilometres away, which took the workers over 4 years to complete the trip. This level of excessive luxury was causing unrest in the local population, who were also taxed extra to pay for the tomb. There was a coup again Tu Duc in 1866 but this was quickly put down by his army.
His selfish behaviour continued for the rest of his life, which was mostly spent at his summer house, hunting small game on his private island and hanging out with his small army of female companions. After his death in 1883 all of his remaining wealth was supposedly put in the tomb with him, as he ordered before he died.
The current palace and pavilion are the sites open to the public, but the actual place of his tomb is thought to be else were. One of the things he ordered before he died was the execution of the 200 workers who would carry his body into the tomb along with all his wealth. They were beheaded by his personal guard upon leaving the complex after the tomb was filled and sealed.
The location of the actual burial site is still unknown to this day, as it was the Emperors wish that he was not to be disturbed after dying. The last time the tomb was accessed was when his adopted son died 7 months after taking over from Tu Duc, and since he didn’t have any other family members or adopted children, the family tomb was permanently sealed and apparently forgotten.
This story does not quite convince some people though as there aren’t any official records of any of this happening, and more of a collection of rumours and fragments of information. However the tomb of Tu Duc still hasn’t been found, giving credit to the tale, and if his selfishness when he was alive is anything to go off, there’s probably a huge amount of gold and jewelry buried with him.
The Vietnamese government doesn’t have any plans to start digging up one of their grand palaces to find a tomb that only “might” be there, and so it seems that for the foreseeable future the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc will remain hidden.
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