Before Beijing, before the Forbidden City, the people who would rule China as the Qing dynasty were a clan of forest-edge farmers and hunters in the hills of eastern Liaoning. Yongling is their ancestral grave. It lies near Xinbin, a Manchu autonomous county in the mountains east of Fushun, not far from Hetu Ala, the small hill town that Nurhaci made his first capital, and it holds the remains of the forebears of that remarkable man, who united the Jurchen tribes in the late sixteenth century and set in motion the conquest of China by his successors.
The tomb complex was laid out in the Chinese imperial manner, but with Manchu touches. Walls, gates, halls and spirit-way run along a hillside, with tiled roofs in yellow and green, and from the upper terrace you look out over a quiet green valley with the Suzi river below. It is smaller and more intimate than the Ming and Qing imperial tombs near Beijing, and it is part of the same World Heritage listing, the Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Nearby, Wunu Mountain City, a mountain fortress of the Goguryeo kingdom, tells of an even older people who held these hills two thousand years ago.
The countryside is the real reason to come. Eastern Liaoning is hilly, wooded and surprisingly green, with oak, pine and larch on the slopes and terraced fields of maize and soybean in the valleys, and the villages are low, brick and tile. Autumn is outstanding, when the forests turn orange and red, while summer is warm and wet and winter is bitterly cold with snow on the ground for months.
Riding a foreign motorbike in China is complicated, since it generally requires a Chinese licence, local plates and registration, and often a guide, so most visitors come by car with a driver or by public bus from Fushun or Shenyang. Fuel and food are easy in Xinbin and the larger towns, and local Manchu cooking features dumplings, pickled cabbage and stews. Check opening times in advance, and allow plenty of time, since the roads are often slow and sometimes busy with trucks.