As we often say, An is a square city, Suzhou, Helu is a big city, and Beijing is a 49 city. These most intuitive adjectives constitute our basic impression of this city.
If it is endowed with cultural connotation, it can be said that it is a continuation of the context, a "three-dimensional park around the city" and an urban landscape. The city wall represents the magnificence of the city;
If we discuss the practical value of the city wall, we will be in dispute because of its role in ancient and modern times, the contradiction between its existence and urban traffic, and whether it is necessary to exist.
If we think about the meaning of the city wall, the definitions of "cultural heritage" and "cultural protection unit" limit everyone's thinking.
In fact, the city wall defines the scope of the ancient city, which bears the culture of China.
Just as we remember Chang 'an in the Tang Dynasty and Bianliang in the Song Dynasty, we like the appearance of cities within the city walls.
So what are the walls of Nanjing?
0 1. Squat on the dragon plate
The location of Nanjing City mainly depends on the Yangtze River, and its historical development can not be separated from the Yangtze River.
Nanjing camped in order to resist the enemy in the north with the help of the Yangtze River and Huaihe River. Therefore, the Yangtze River has also become a natural defensive barrier in Nanjing.
Nanjing is located in a valley basin near the Yangtze River. Among the surrounding mountains, Zhongshan is the highest, with an altitude of 448 meters.
The rest are surrounded by General Mountain, Niushou Mountain, Fangshan Mountain, Shogun Mountain and Qinglong Mountain.
For a long time, siltation and land reclamation, coupled with river diversion and lake shrinkage ... the water in Nanjing has also been changing.
The Mochou Lake, Xuanwu Lake, Qinhuai River, or the Yangtze River levee we see today are actually manifestations of the interdependence between cities and water.
This landscape pattern made the ancients describe Nanjing as "the dragon among tigers". The rhetoric used to describe Nanjing's "dragon among tigers" has been attracting groups of emperors to settle here for thousands of years.
This is one of the sayings that a tiger lives in a dragon's nest, saying that Zhongshan and Shishi Mountain (Qingliang Mountain) are dragons and tigers respectively. Although I dare not assert "Feng Shui", the location of Nanjing is indeed the most unique among many cities along the Yangtze River.
When selecting the site of the ancient city, we should follow the principle of "holding the sun in the negative, facing the mountains and facing the water, and looking at the general trend from a distance". Nanjing has a large river plain, but more importantly, it has all the elements:
There is Zushan-Shogun Mountain in the north.
The main mountain ranges are Zhoushan and Jilong Mountain.
In the east, there is ZhongshanNo. Qinglong 1 1.
There are white tigers and stone mountains in the west.
The south is surrounded by Qinhuai River.
There are mountains and rivers to gather in Baoshan.
There is Chaoshan in the distance-Niushou Mountain.
These mountains are surrounded by a piece of land pointing to the center, which is the approximate location of the city ruins.
The location of Nanjing in past dynasties basically followed this layout, with no major changes.
It was not until Zhu Yuanzhang built it on a large scale that the palace was built in the original site of the Six Dynasties. Instead, I chose a piece of land at the foot of Zhongshan in the east, which is now the location of the Forbidden City in Nanjing.
Generally speaking, the location of Nanjing City is both a historical accident and a necessity determined by the natural environment.
China people's understanding of capital has formed a unique oriental thinking in the rise and fall of this generation.
02. Appearance of masonry
Nanjing has a history of more than 2400 years since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Since the Three Kingdoms, Eastern Jin Dynasty, Southern Song Dynasty, Qi Dynasty, Liang Dynasty and Chen Dynasty, and even later generations, Southern Tang Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Republic of China have all established their capitals here.
We often describe Nanjing as "the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties" and "the metropolis of the Ten Dynasties", and these names were accumulated from these dynasties.
Unfortunately, compared with the northern capital, the dynasties with Nanjing as the capital did not last long, and most of them ended in extinction. Therefore, these past events in Nanjing have been difficult to trace back on the surface.
Once the city ruins overlap, the new dynasty will be replaced by the old dynasty.
First, the large-scale urban construction since the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the urbanization process since the founding of the People's Republic of China have also made the traces of the former dynasty disappear in the long river of history.
The Nanjing city wall we are talking about now is a large-scale construction since the Ming Dynasty.
"Building a wall is high, accumulating grain is wide, and being king is slow".
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang began to build the Nanjing City Wall with this set of guiding rules on his way to start a business. Our existing Nanjing city wall structure was basically finalized when Nanjing was built in the early Ming Dynasty.
Nanjing reorganized by Zhu Yuanzhang can be roughly divided into four cities: Miyagi, Imperial City, Beijing and Outer Guo Cheng.
Among them, Miyagi Imperial City can be roughly understood as the scope of the royal court. In the outer cities, more rammed earth is built to complete the defensive function of Zhongshan.
The Nanjing city wall we are talking about now mainly describes the Nanjing capital city wall.
Nanjing Capital City Wall, built in the early Ming Dynasty, can reach 35.3 kilometers per week. The wall has thirteen gates and external connections:
The thirteen gates in Ming Dynasty are: Jubao Gate, Tongji Gate, Zhengyang Gate, Chaoyang Gate, Taiping Gate, Toilet Gate, Jinchuan Gate, Zhongfumen, Yifeng Gate, Dinghuai Gate, Liangqingmen, Shichengmen and Sanshanmen.
If we judge each section of the city wall according to its orientation, it can be divided into several blocks:
The first is the Jubaomen section of Cheng Nan, which is the main entrance to the main urban area of Nanjing in past dynasties, connecting the Qinhuai River inside and outside and exchanging needed goods.
First, Sanshanmen and Tongji Gate connect the water inlet and outlet of Qinhuai River, which are the intersection of land and water in Nanjing.
The gates connecting the Qinhuai River inside and outside are all boat-shaped, and there is a sluice in the upstream and downstream, which is the main artery of land and water communication in Nanjing.
The first one is Shichengmen, which is the stone city and the barrier to the east of Nanjing.
One is Zhongfumen, Yifengmen and Lion Mountain, which explore the northeast corner of the Yangtze River for Nanjing City as the main strategic defense points and guard the northern part of Nanjing.
One is the toilet god gate to Taicheng, and Jiuhuashan to Taipingmen, which is the defense in the north of Nanjing and a section of the wall connecting Xuanwu Lake.
One is Zhengyangmen and Chaoyangmen, which contain the main Miyagi center of Nanjing Forbidden City and connect the southern sacrificial area with the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum.
As far as the scale of the city gate is concerned, Jubao, Sanshan, Shicheng, Tongji and Zhengyangmen are the largest, and they do not hesitate to consume materials.
Nanjing is different from other cities in that the main entrance of Nanjing, the urn, opens inward (Zhengyang Gate opens inside and outside) and does not face outward, so the highest-level city wall is actually the outermost.
There are hidden soldiers caves under the city gate, such as the main entrance of Jubaomen, and there are 27 hidden soldiers caves, which can hide more than 3,000 soldiers.
Several main city gates in Nanjing each have three layers of urns (Zhengyangmen guesses that there are two layers inside and outside, and Shichengmen has two layers inside and outside), and there are also unique ship-shaped urns with four doors and four walls, which is contrary to the style of city walls in previous dynasties.
In contrast, the layout of other city gates is relatively simple, mainly single-story arched doorway on the city wall, which mostly plays the role of communicating internal and external traffic.
However, most of the city walls are built according to the terrain, or surrounded by mountains, or climbed by the opportunity, or directly found an excuse to surround the river and adapt to local conditions.
In Stone Town, the city wall is built along the stone cliff, which naturally follows the trend;
In the case of large lakes and swamps, boulders or logs will be covered under the soil layer to stabilize the foundation;
The principle of peace is high wall to make up for the deficiency of plain defense force;
The city wall and the river network are also complementary and interlocking. It can be said that there has been a fairly mature architectural concept.
What's more worth mentioning is that Nanjing Ming City Wall uses a great amount of bricks.
A large number of city bricks are made by people from counties in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and many departments including garrison, industry and commerce 100.
It can be seen that the burning of the Ming city wall in Nanjing was not only a local income, but a large-scale project undertaken by the whole country at that time.
Moreover, in order to ensure the quality of the selected city bricks, this large-scale project also requires local officials, garrisons, organizers (general armor, junior armor, and minor armor) and brick-making kiln workers to engrave their names on the city bricks, so that the responsibility of the brick makers can be investigated after repair.
Because of the different tone selections in different places, the calligraphy of inscriptions is also different, and the Nanjing City Wall can also be called a complete calligraphy book.
The places that follow the etiquette are regular, and the places that are mainly practical can be found. It can be seen that Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty has jumped out of the past dynasties and become more practical and innovative.
As a result, it also laid the main features of the ancient city of Nanjing today, and this change lasted for more than 600 years.
03. The situation is constantly changing.
However, since the city was built in the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing has not been static.
The first is the battle of Jingnan in the early Ming Dynasty. After Judy seized power, she transferred the center of state power from Nanjing to Beijing. After Nanjing became the capital, there was basically no new construction.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the change of power center that Nanjing Miyagi gradually became vacant, and the city walls gradually fell behind the development of the city and began to fall into disrepair.
Until the turmoil in China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the urban pattern of Nanjing was gradually broken, and the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty became the residence of the Eight Banners. With the increase of population, the city walls needed more and more internal and external communication.
In the Qing Dynasty, the new Caochangmen and Fengrunmen (now Xuanwu Gate) were opened to facilitate residents' internal and external activities.
However, since the Ming Dynasty, the hierarchical order of quadruple cities has been broken, and Nanjing has finally changed from an imperial city to an important Jiangnan city for merchants.
In the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also established its capital in Nanjing. In order to meet the architectural needs of Tianwangfu, the last remains of the Ming Palace were demolished and building materials were misappropriated. Nanjing was also renamed Tianjing.
Since then, in the fierce battle between the Qing army and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, many important buildings in the city have been destroyed, and Nanjing City has been hit hard again. So that the wooden buildings we see in Nanjing and even in the Ming Dynasty are extremely rare.
The Republic of China also took Nanjing as its capital. At this time, with the rapid change of traffic and the flood of population, the Nanjing city wall began to become an obstacle to traffic and urban development.
So during the Republic of China, Hailing Gate (now Jiangmen) and Wuding Gate were opened, Chaoyang Gate was changed to Zhongshan Gate, Hanzhong Gate and Central Gate were opened, Jubao Gate was changed to Zhonghua Gate, and Xinmin Gate and Yuhua Gate were opened. ......
The gradual development of the city and the emergence of new means of transportation mean that the traditional city wall defense system is no longer suitable for the construction of new cities. This series of transformations also shows that the Nanjing city wall gradually needs to face a huge problem-preservation and abolition.
During this period, the Japanese invaders' war of aggression against China was also well known. In the defending battle of Nanjing, the Nanjing city wall suffered heavy losses. From then on, there was the Nanjing Massacre that China people will always remember.
The war all over the sky and the slaughtered civilians have left the city with an indelible historical memory of the Chinese nation.
Nanjing, Nanjing.
The history of this city has been closely tied to the rise and fall of the whole nation.
With the accumulation of modern history, what new changes will Nanjing face?
04. History will last forever.
"The dragon plate of the tiger is better than in the past, upside down and generous."
It has been more than 600 years since its initial construction, but after the founding of New China, the Nanjing City Wall has gone to another door of history in the game between the old and the new.
1On April 23rd, 949, Nanjing was captured and liberated by the People's Liberation Army.
However, after liberation, the growing demand for cities and industrialization made the relationship between city walls and urban roads more acute.
Traffic detours, urban land, urban building materials and other issues are all stimulating people's nerves: Does New China need this antique 600 years ago?
Faced with the same problems, there are many cities such as Beijing, Nanjing, Xi, Taiyuan, Jinan and Kaifeng. Under such sharp contradictions, the fate of many city walls has come to an end in the land where everything is in ruins in New China.
Only Zhengyangmen, Deshengmen Arched Tower, and the walls of the inner and southeast watchtowers were left in Beijing, and almost all the others were demolished. Changsha, Wuhan, Luoyang and Taiyuan have all transformed the remaining city walls into spacious avenues.
The well-known "ring road" and "crossroads" have gradually replaced the function of the city wall and devoted themselves to a new round of urban development.
Most of the city walls were leveled and the moat was buried.
In this round of large-scale urban transformation, Nanjing lost important urn cities such as Sanshanmen, Tongji Gate and Zhengyangmen, and only the remains of the thirteen gates built in the early Ming Dynasty were the Toilet Gate, Liangqingmen, Zhonghua Gate and Shichengmen.
Up to now, Nanjing city walls belong to the lucky ones in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The city wall is still about two-thirds of its original length, but only a few important city gates and boat-shaped barbican styles have been preserved, but very few have been preserved.
So every time I write about the city wall, it is very inflammatory, as if everyone wants to compete. Beijing said it was a pity, Xi 'an said it was complete, Nanjing said it was true, and so on.
But there is really no need to argue. After the large-scale urban industrialization in the last century, the city wall has become a "rarity".
In fact, there is no right or wrong choice in history, and the development of cities will eventually face large-scale transformation. It is difficult to ensure that those white-walled tiles will not be replaced by high-rise buildings.
Therefore, who wins and who loses this old and new dispute can only be handed over to future generations for comment.
The history we can see should be protected and cherished. Their existence is the evidence that we stumbled over thousands of years ago, and they once represented the glory of an era.
We should respect the architecture of our ancestors. In fact, city walls and ancient buildings are bound by feudal order, so they can maintain unity in overall style.
Whether this unification is the dross left over from the old times is unknown, but it is a unique feature of China city and a feature that distinguishes China from the world's ethnic groups.
Time is also an insurmountable boundary for human beings, and the stories in this land are always superimposed according to time.
Perhaps the Nanjing City Wall, in its present form, will last forever in the history books of China.
Guangsha Wanqian
This series of ancient buildings and popular science articles in the ancient city
All the treasures of ancient architecture in China.
We will present the treasure you neglected before your eyes.
References:
Study on Protection and Construction of Heritage Corridor of Ming City Wall in Wang Yanyan and Nanjing
Fu Xiaoyu, Exploration on the Protection of China Ancient City Wall.
Study on Urban Space Construction in Wang Yi and Nanjing.
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Copywriting Yu Han
Drawing editor Yu Han
Yu Han's modeling and rendering
Pictures from
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particular thanks
Nanjing City Wall Museum
Nanjing city wall protection management center