Thousand-year-old ancient village—Zhangbi Castle in Jinzhong, Shanxi

As a thousand-year-old ancient village, Jiexiu Zhangbi Castle in Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province was built using traditional concepts and has a unique style. The entire village was built according to traditional Chinese ancient astrology and Kanyu concepts, and the ground layout corresponds to the twenty-eight constellations in the sky. Therefore, Zhangbi Castle is also known as the "No. 1 Village in Chinese Astrology." Most experts infer that Zhangbi Castle was built during the Sixteen Kingdoms period and is one of the many docks built by Zhao Haoqiang and Zhang Ping later. It has a history of more than 1,600 years.

Shanxi Jiexiu Zhangbi Castle is a national cultural relics protection unit. It was selected as one of the "Top Ten Charming Towns in China" by the CCTV "Charming China" series in 2005, and was also the second batch of "Chinese Historical and Cultural Towns" selected. Famous Village". The above-ground castle and the underground "10,000-meter Great Wall" in the castle are the best in the world. It is an ancient pocket castle that integrates military, residence, production and religion.

An old saying goes: One man can guard the gate, but ten thousand men cannot open it. This thousand-year-old castle can be described as a rare ancient military fortress. It gathers a series of Chinese cultural essences such as Xia and Shang ancient cultural relics, Sui and Tang ancient tunnels, Yuan Dynasty stages, Jin Dynasty tombs, Ming and Qing residential cultures, etc., and has extremely high academic research value and tourism appreciation value. The existing Mingbao secret passage in Zhangbi Village was built in 617 by Dingyang Khan Liu Wuzhou in the late Sui Dynasty to fight against the people of Li Shixiang. The tunnel is 10,000 meters long, criss-crossing and intersecting at three levels. It has functions such as surveillance, command, communication, water and ventilation facilities, stables, granaries, and troop garrisoning.

As its reputation spreads far and wide. In October 2005, the ancient and magical Zhangbi Castle competed with more than 20,000 well-known small towns in China. With the consistent recognition of the judges and experts, it stood out and was shortlisted for the top ten charming Zhangbi Castles of the year with an absolute advantage. Although it is only 12,000 square meters, it has a complete urban form, with military defense functions, small bell towers and drum towers, numerous religious activity venues, and transportation networks. The 11 wells in the fort constitute the city's water supply system, and the stage in the urn is a venue for public activities and a political and cultural center. These features make Zhangbi Castle different from a village castle in the traditional sense, and more like a castle. A small town with reasonable planning, complete functions and complete facilities.

It is of great research value. What Zhangbi presents to the world is an ancient castle with dual military and civilian uses. It has diverse connotations such as history, culture, religion, military, architecture, and residential buildings. It fills the gap in China's small town planning system in terms of urban construction. It is Scarce physical data in the study of ancient military engineering in my country.

The wall is also a military fortress. As the name suggests, Zhangbi may have originally been a military fortress with a single function. This is also true. Zhangbi is the only castle site in China that has both military and civilian uses.

Zhangbi Castle was built according to the original situation, with the south being higher and the north being lower. To the north, there are three deep ditches extending downward; to the south, there are three outward passages; to the west is Yaowan ditch, with cliffs and steep slopes, as deep as tens of feet; to the east, there are ravines blocking it, which can be said to be "easy to defend but difficult to attack." , there is a way to retreat and advance.” The castle has two gates in the north and south. The north gate is made of brick and the south gate is made of stone. In the middle is a 300-meter-long street with elegant shops and simple houses on both sides of the street, as well as several splendid temples with glazed roofs. The ancient locust trees hugging willows and the rare glazed stele also add a lot of color to the ancient reclamation.

What makes the castle unique is that all the intersections here are T-shaped and there are no crosses. Its primary and secondary streets are clearly defined. The main north and south roads are about 300 meters long and are paved with stones and strips. They are called Long Street. It forms a "T"-shaped structure with three lanes to the east and four lanes to the west. Most of the residences in the East Third Alley are farmyards, while the West Fourth Alley has well-proportioned buildings and neat streets and alleys. In the past, they were mostly inhabited by wealthy households, with elegant door lintels and exquisite brick, wood and stone carvings.

The well-preserved residences in Zhangbi Castle are mainly concentrated in Hujiayuan and Jiahui Hall in Jiajia Lane. Most of the descendants of these wealthy families have moved out of the castle, and their ancestral homes have also been closed. In addition, Zhangbi Castle also retains the "Lifang" that remains from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, where most ancient cities in China have disappeared. At the entrance of Long Street and several alleys, visitors can still see the alley gates that have been preserved to this day. They are The only exit of each "Lifang". After closing the alley gates, each lane becomes a relatively closed fortress within a fortress. The lanes can fight independently and respond to each other, forming a complete internal defense system.

The south gate of the Zhangbi Ancient Fortress is a "dragon head" in the hollow. There is a dragon head stone carving at the head of the gate. Nine vertical red stone roads are laid under the gate to the south, symbolizing the dragon's whiskers and the main trunk to the north. The road is the "dragon body": In order to make the "dragon" shape more realistic, during the Qing Dynasty, the horizontal bluestone slabs paving the streets were removed and replaced with three vertical red stone slabs to symbolize the dragon's back. On both sides of the main road, there are ponds (original) and locust trees in the north of the city center, together with the two kidneys symbolizing the "dragon" and the yin and yang fish in Chen Tuan's Tai Chi diagram.

Zhangbi has a small "Wengcheng" used to resist enemies. There is also a pair of small bell towers and drum towers with a complete urban form. This is a very important feature that distinguishes them from the well-preserved "village forts" that are common in other parts of Shanxi Province. They are not "village forts" in the general sense. But "city".

Across the loess land, beneath Zhangbi Castle is another amazing city.

Entering from the tunnel entrance of an ordinary residence in Xichang Lane, you will find a mysterious underground world, where a vast underground defense system is hidden, as well as unsolved mysteries.

The castle tunnel is three-dimensional. The upper level is only about 1 meter from the ground, the middle level is 8-10 meters from the ground, and the bottom level is 17-20 meters from the ground. The tunnel is curved and confusing. There are air holes in the tunnel that lead to the outside of the trench, and there are also wells that go straight down to the bottom of the third floor. There are small pits at different intervals on the tunnel wall, which are places where oil lamps are placed. There are caves for feeding livestock on the upper floors; there are earthen caves that can accommodate two or three people at intervals below the cave wall in the middle floor, which are authentic sentinel posts; on the bottom floor, there are deep caves 2 to 3 meters wide and 4 to 5 meters long. Cave for storing food. It is conceivable that such a large and complex underground project has military needs and a strategic purpose of keeping it secret from the outside world.

Under Zhangbi Castle, there is an intricate and huge tunnel system built by ancient people, with a total length of nearly 10 kilometers. Some sections have 2 or even 3 floors. In the tunnel, two people can pass side by side in the wide part, but only one person can pass through in the narrow part, and the height of most sections is less than 1.8 meters. There are recesses every few steps on the cave wall, which may have been used to place oil lamps.

There are more than 10 wells in Zhangbi Castle, and at least 8 of them have been found to be connected to tunnels. There are openings on the inner wall of the well. Some wells have two openings on the left and right opposite each other. A board can be put up to pass through. If the board is removed, the way back will be cut off. Due to collapse caused by multiple earthquakes and floods, the full picture of the tunnel is no longer known, and because villagers dug and cleaned it on their own without expert guidance, the original cave walls were destroyed.

Nowadays, it is impossible to get an accurate answer as to when and why the tunnel was dug. Some scholars believe that the builder of Zhangbi Village was Liu Wuzhou. The most direct evidence for this conclusion is the Khan Temple in the castle and the historical fact that Li Shimin and Liu Wuzhou fought in the Jiexiu area in the early Tang Dynasty. The dense concentration of religious temples in Zhangbi is a notable feature of Zhangbi Castle. A small village with more than 200 households had more than 20 ancestral temples in its heyday, and 16 of them are still preserved today. Such a density is rare in the country. The main religious temples in Zhangbi include Zhenwu Hall, Kongwang Hall, the Three Great Scholars Hall Lang Temple, Luzu Pavilion, Western Holy Land Hall, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Hall, Khan Temple Guandi Temple, etc. They are concentrated inside and outside the north gate. There are two temple complexes inside and outside the south gate, and most of them are built on the fortress wall. This not only increases the momentum of religious buildings, but also may be due to military defense considerations.

The star in the sky is like a wall in the world. The outline of Zhangbi Castle is very similar to the Kuixing in the sky, which hints at the glorious history of the castle as an important military defense site. The construction of the fort follows the basic principles of ancient Chinese astrology and Kanyu. In the ground buildings and tunnels, there are more than 30 landmarks corresponding to the twenty-eight constellations, such as wells, stage, seven-star locust tree, celestial eye, general kiln, etc., which remain in the fort to this day. The custom of "sacrifice to the stars" on the twenty-eighth day of the first lunar month is still retained. There are yin and yang and five elements on the ground, and six strange gates on the ground.

Zhangbi Castle is oriented in the direction of Ziwu, with the south high and the north low, which goes against the ancient city site selection principle of "Ziwu" where the city must be high in the north and low in the south. In order to make up for this shortcoming, successive builders of Zhangbi Village spared no effort to carry out many renovations on the Beibao Gate and surrounding ancestral temples. They built Erlang Temple and Zhenwu Temple on the North Fort Wall. The height of the temple roof is higher than that of the South Fort Gate to comply with the principle of high in the north and low in the south. Because the terrain of Mianshan Mountain is high and steep, the "evil energy" is strong, so the Guandi Temple was built outside the Nanbao Gate to block the "evil energy" from Mianshan Mountain. In fact, if you pay a little attention to the architecture of the ancient castle, you will understand the ancient castle. The construction plan inside all reflects the ancient Chinese idea of ??harmony between man and nature and conforming to nature. For example, the two castle gates in the north and south are invisible to each other. They are not on a straight line, because the two gates are connected by a straight line. The main street is intentionally curved at both ends, forming a slight "S" shape, and this is due to the consideration of "feng shui not leaking out"

There are so many buildings in the small Zhangbi Castle. The temples and palaces are really amazing. Their splendor and brilliance also reflect the spiritual sustenance of the people of that era, which is the hope of peace and happiness and the long-lasting prosperity of the people of that era. The hilly area of ??the Loess Plateau where the wall is located has been suffering from drought and little rain all year round. Historically, there has been a custom of praying for rain: "Buddha, King of the Sky, it will rain heavily, it will rain heavily to save the people...", the rain prayer song has been passed down to this day, and the rain prayer tower with carved beams and painted buildings has been passed down to this day. , I don’t know how many times I have witnessed those sad and pious scenes.

The origin of the folk activities has not been verified. It is said that in ancient times, the Jiexiu area was a large lake. After "Lingshikou, Jinyang Lake was vacated", people began to plant rice seedlings in the open space. However, the rice seedlings would wither if they were not exposed to sunlight. So everyone waited for the sun in the fields while singing. Over time, the song became popular It is said that these are two old trees growing together, which are the "Sophora japonica and willow" from the Song Dynasty. , the roots are intertwined and the branches are intertwined. Is it the true portrayal of "I wish to be a winged bird in the sky, and a connecting branch in the earth" in "Song of Everlasting Sorrow", or is it a restoration of materialization? People can't help but lament that Sophora japonica has " "Nostalgic" means "nostalgic", and Liu has the intention of "staying behind". So "Huaihuo Liu" should be an agreement with the decaying land of his hometown? After all, they have been side by side for hundreds of years, and it is early winter, and the winding branches of the hornet are not green. , but it is covered with colorful cloth strips. It has obviously been regarded by the local people as a sacred tree to protect the people.

Under the ancient locust trees hugging willows in the village, six or seven old artists sang dry-tune Yangko, and both local villagers and tourists from outside the area quickly gathered around. Gandiao Yangko is a folk drama without musical accompaniment. It has an unrestrained and high-spirited style, which is similar to the grassland style. It is also known as singing on horseback.

In addition to dry-tune Yangko, the Star Festival is also a traditional folk custom that has been passed down to this day in Zhangbi Castle. Every year on the 28th day of the first lunar month, Gubao celebrates the Star Festival, and the people of Gubao call it Xiaonian. On this day, villagers will gather together to worship the Lord of the Six Stars of the South Dou, Lord of the Nine Obsidian Stars, the Twenty-eight Gods and the Four Gods, invite relatives and friends to gather together, watch Yangko, and watch the prosperous performances in the streets and alleys.

“Look at Beijing for five hundred years of scenery, and look at Shanxi for five thousand years of scenery.” Shanxi's antiquity, Shanxi's simplicity, Shanxi's clumsiness, and Shanxi's purity have condensed into the soul of Chinese civilization. Zhangbi Castle is a small town with an area of ??only 0.12 square kilometers, but it has rich and diverse cultural heritage. Since the Sixteen Kingdoms period, the ancient castle has roughly gone through several stages such as dock wall, military town and fortified village. In the long history of more than 1,600 years, it has gradually formed an "above-ground open castle and underground secret passages". "The unique military defense system, the religious culture that complements Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, the magical astrology culture, the splendid farming folk culture, etc.