The eight gates of the ancient city of Suzhou are collectively known as Pochumen (Changmen), Guxumen, Panmen, Shemen, Miaomen, Ganjiangmen, Wumen and Wangqimen. Suzhou’s eight representative ancient city gates.
1. Breaking Chumen (Changmen)
"Broken Chumen" is the current Changmen. In 506 BC, this is where Sun Wu, Wu Zixu and others led the Wu army to attack Chu. Place of departure and triumph. From then on, the Changmen also broke through the Chumen. Wu Zixu established the capital of Wu as Xiangtianfadi, and Changmen was the first gate of the city's "Qitongchou".
2. Guxumen
"Guxumen" means Xumen. Among the eight city gates in Suzhou, none is more legendary than Xumen. Naturally, because it has so many connections with the legendary hero Wu Zixu, it is useless even if future generations of scholars prove that Xumen has no connection with Wu Zixu. Suzhou people need such a gate as a memorial in their hearts: it is named because "Wu Zixu lived next to it" and is famous because Wu Zixu's head hangs on the Xu gate. His reputation was so great that even when the Yue Kingdom attacked the city, they did not dare to enter the city rashly.
3. Panmen
The Kingdom of Wu was in the Chen position, so Panmen was set up in the south of the city. A wooden dragon was carved on the city, facing the Yue Kingdom, symbolizing Wu's conquest of the Yue Kingdom. Later it was renamed Panmen. In addition, if you don't open the east gate at ordinary times, it means "absolute crossing". The existing Panmen was rebuilt in the Yuan Dynasty, and the gate tower was built in the early Qing Dynasty with the inscription "Dragon Pan Water and Land". The water and land gates of this gate are juxtaposed, and the Wengcheng is between the two land gates. Panmen is the most complete ancient water and land gate in existence.
4. Snake Gate
Wu is in the Chen position and belongs to the dragon. Yue is in the Si position and belongs to the snake. Therefore, a wooden snake is placed on the snake gate with the north head facing inward, indicating that the Yue ministers belong to Wu. The course of history always makes people laugh and cry. Helu built the Snake Gate in order to suppress the Yue State, but it was Yue who destroyed the Wu State. This is a dumb joke. Among the eight city gates in Suzhou, none is shorter-lived than the Snake Gate, which seems to give people a glimpse of the smile of fate.
5. Miaomen
"Miaomen" is Loumen. "Wu Di Ji" records: "The original name of Loumen is (Miao)men. During the Qin Dynasty in the southeast, there was Gu (Miao) County. It was changed to Louxian by King Mang of Han Dynasty." The gate was then renamed Loumen. This Loumen seems lackluster, with no "glorious deeds" for people to remember. But beside it, there is another famous guy, that is, the Humble Administrator's Garden, which is known as the four famous classical gardens in my country along with the Summer Palace in Beijing, Chengde Summer Resort, and Suzhou Liuyuan, and is known as the "Mother of Chinese Gardens" .
6. Qianjiangmen
"Qianjiangmen" and "Xiangmen" are the craftsmen's gate. It was named after many craftsmen living nearby. King Helu of Wu once named Shiqianjiang and set up a furnace to forge swords in this gate, so Xiangmen was also called Qianjiang Gate. Zhu Changwen's "Continuation of Wujun Tujing" states: "The gatekeeper is now called a craftsman, and the sound has changed." The wrong name is "Xiangmen". The Jiangmen area was designated as a weapons smelting area, so the city gate was named "Jiang".
7. Wumen
"Wumen" means Pingmen. According to legend, in 505 BC, Wu Zixu led his troops from Pingmen to the north and finally defeated Qi. Entering the city from the flat gate. In the 15th year of the Republic of China, Pingmen was opened to the west of Qimen. Later, the Battle of Qilu occurred. Due to Feng Shui theory, Su City resembled a crab, but it could not have eight legs, so Pingmen was abandoned. In the 17th year of the Republic of China, in order to facilitate transportation inside and outside the city, the Pingmen was rebuilt into two parallel tall city gates.
8. Wangqimen
"Wangqimen" means Qimen. This name comes from the youngest daughter of Duke Jing of Qi State. When the state of Wu was strong and prosperous, the elderly Qi Jinggong was so frightened by the power of the state of Wu that he had to send his daughter to the state of Wu thousands of miles away to get married. From then on, the princess of Qi State stayed away from her hometown. She often missed her hometown and shed tears every day. In order to alleviate the princess's pain of lovesickness, King Wu specially ordered people to build a tall tower facing Qi State so that she could climb up and see Qi State's homeland from afar.