The Little Emperor Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size:
 (small)
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Shaodi (meaning "junior emperor") was a child. He was just 9 years old when his life came to an end, marking the end of the Song Dynasty.
After the Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) conquered the Southern Song capital of Lin'an (today's Hangzhou) in 1276, Song ministers Lu Xiufu, and others escorted Shaodi to Xinhui, in Guangdong Province, and backed him to become emperor in 1278.
They built a temporary palace and army camps in Xinhui, and prepared boats and food for battle against the Mongols. However, the Mongol army surrounded their base in 1279 and defeated the Song troops.
When resistance finally crumbled, Prime Minister Lu jumped into the sea, with Shaodi on his back, and drowned, in order to avoid being humiliated by the Yuan.
According to a local legend, Shaodi's corpse floated to Chiwan village, a group of birds perching on his body to protect it against the fish.
At the same time when the villagers saw the child's corpse, dressed in yellow dragon-embroidered robes of an emperor, a wooden beam fell down in the nearby Palace of Tian Hou (Goddess of the Sea). Devotees who recovered the body prayed at the temple to find out what to do with it. The goddess Tian Hou answered through a medium that the fallen board had been "given" to make a casket, and that the boy was to be entombed nearby.
So the villagers burried Shaodi to the west of the palace of Tian Hou.
Nowadays Shaodi is regarded as a god of children in local folklore, and Shaodi's Tomb is constantly veiled in incense, as people pray to him for the welfare of their children.
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Xrrc Pyrne
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