The Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, with an area of 0.10 square kilometres and located in the western frontiers of Beijing's massive
urban sprawl, was first built as a temple in honor of General
Gang Bing, a
Ming dynasty soldier who castrated himself as an act of obedience for the
Yongle Emperor. The emperor designated the area surrounding the temple as the final resting place of concubines and eunuchs. Over time, the
Taoist temple became a senior's home for retired eunuchs. The official name of the temple was (), roughly translating into Temple of Loyalty and Defender of the Nation. The last abbot of the temple was Xin Xiuming (信修明), who was married and had two children. Due to the harsh living conditions of rural China, Xin Xiuming, when he was 19 and against the strong oppositions of his family members, castrated himself and became a eunuch for
Puyi. After the establishment of
Republic of China, Xin Xiuming left the
Forbidden City and went to live in the Temple of Loyalty to the Nation, and by 1930, he had risen to the top as the abbot of the
Taoist temple. Under Abbot Xin's management, the
Taoist temple prospered as an agricultural business establishment: 52 Chinese acres of land that the temple owned were farmed by the eunuchs themselves, another 157 Chinese acres of land the temple owned were farmed jointly by eunuchs and tenant farmers, and the remaining 269 Chinese acres of land the temple owned were rented out to be farmed by tenant farmers. When the communists decided to turn the temple into a cemetery, Abbot Xin Xiuming was able to negotiate with the then deputy mayor of
Beijing, Mr.
Wu Han a good deal for the eunuchs: the government would pay the full price for all assets of the temple, and pay each eunuch a monthly pension until his death. The abbot also convinced the government to arrange vehicles to help relocate eunuchs to two new locations. Those older eunuchs were relocated to a
Taoist temple for eunuchs at Colored Glazed River (Liulihe), and the rest were located to another
Taoist temple for eunuchs at Westward Tilted Street (Xixiejie). In the 1950s, the cemetery was established as a burial place for those deemed the political and military martyrs of China. The ashes of the
Xuantong Emperor were interred at the cemetery in 1967 upon his death. They were later moved to the Hualong Imperial Cemetery, near the
Western Qing tombs, in 1995. The remains of his brother
Prince Pujie still rest at Babaoshan Cemetery.
Israel Epstein, a Pole who immigrated to China, was honored and cremated at Babaoshan in 2005. In January 2010, eight individuals (four UN peacekeepers and four Chinese delegates) who were killed in the
2010 Haiti earthquake were also laid to rest at Babaoshan as martyrs. On 5 December 2022, former
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and
leader of China's
third generation from 1989 to 2002
Jiang Zemin was cremated at the crematorium in preparation for his
state funeral. ==Notable people buried at Babaoshan==