Qiu's written manuscript on several cultural relics buildings in Beijing

On Several Cultural Relics Buildings in Beijing

Beijing has the largest number of cultural relics in China and even in the world. Many buildings in this city are either full of historical significance or of high artistic value. Now people all over the country love their capital, and these cultural relics are one of the lovely contents of this capital. Everyone has a strong interest in them and is eager to know more.

There are too many cultural relics in Beijing, many of which are familiar to ordinary people, so I won't talk about them here. Now, the author only introduces some famous and relatively unnoticed proposals that are not known at ordinary times but have special historical and artistic value, so as to arouse people's greater interest in many cultural relics in the capital.

There is another fact that deserves our attention, and the author also wants to tell you in this postscript. That is: Beijing's rich cultural relics of past dynasties have never been systematically and comprehensively investigated by experts or academic groups; At present, the cultural relics in Beijing are still waiting for us to develop like barren hills. There is a great lack of reliable information about the historical evolution of many cultural relics and gardens, such as measured illustrations, photos and models.

Before this kind of investigation and research work can be effectively carried out, the information we can learn about Beijing is extremely loose and insufficient. The author is not only limited to materials, but also limited to his own knowledge. Therefore, the cultural relics that can be introduced are only fragments, hoping to attract jade, so as to promote many people familiar with Beijing to write what they know-everyone can complement each other's understanding of Beijing.

The plane shape of this square is like a "D". The word "D" passes through the middle, and to the north is the magnificent Tiananmen Square on the balcony. The building is a row of nine-bay halls, with a yellow glazed tile roof and two eaves, under which dandan jujube is painted. This is a typical, beautiful and serious China building. The upper tile slope is a so-called "blocking mountain" format. That is to say, the tile slopes on the left and right sides of it use vertical "hanging mountains" in the upper half and slopes in the lower half, and connect with the tile slopes before and after at the inclined ridge. This practice is more magnificent than the "no roof" on the front, back, left and right slopes of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, while "resting at the top of the mountain" is more beautiful and somewhat patchy. The Tiananmen balcony itself is huge and unpretentious, with five holes in the middle. It was originally a golden nail bamboo door, which has been open all the year round in recent years and leads to the vestibule of the inner gate of Miyagi.

At the left and right ends of the square "D", there are two brick east-west Chang 'an gates. Each building has three ticket gates, so people usually call it "East-West Three Gates". These two buildings are relics of the early Ming Dynasty. The proportion of characters is beautiful, and the material is simple and simple. There are often permanent buildings decorated with pure bricks and colored glazed tiles in Ming dynasty cultural relics, and these two doors are extremely precious among Ming dynasty cultural relics in Beijing. Their figures should also have their artistic status in the world classical architecture. Like the Zhonghua Gate at the end of the letter "D" (also built in the Ming Dynasty), these two gates are the three entrances to the square and the two guards and outposts of Tiananmen Square, forming the focus of the two ends of the letter "D".

The audience was surrounded by a red wall covered with yellow tiles and covered with Grand White Rock. In addition, there are five white stone bridges and railings carved on the Yu He River across the northern end of the square. There is a white stone lion and a pair of white stone watches eight meters high in front of the bridge. These simple decorations constitute such a great place. The audience's color matching is limited to red murals, yellow glazed tiles, gray stone carvings and some trees along the wall. In this way, the simple basic colors of pure red, pure yellow and pure white are used to set off the blue sky in Beijing, which just gives people an unparalleled sense of solemnity.

Inside the Zhonghua Gate, along the east and west walls, there were originally two rows of long cloisters, similar to those in front of the Wumen Gate, but much longer. The official name of these two rows of cloisters is "Thousand Steps Cloister", which is a beautiful and neat accessory building in front of the palace. These two columns of Qian Qian Lang were destroyed by the invading army Eight-Nation Alliance in the year of Gengzi. Later, the project was rebuilt because it was not good, and it was demolished in the early years of the Republic of China, so there are only two existing walls. If conditions are ripe, when we tidy up the buildings on the east and west sides of the square in the future, we may restore the Thousand Steps Gallery and build two beautiful promenades for the people to rest. A short exhibition with cultural and educational significance can be arranged in the gallery.

How did this so-called thousand steps gallery come into being? Speaking of it, its origin and development are very interesting. It is indeed the format and system of market construction in the later period. At first, it was an ornament between Miyagi and the market, a small "green space". It was only after the Jin and Yuan Dynasties that the rulers banned them from entering the palace and became a part of the forbidden area in front of the palace, keeping the people out of this area.

As far as we know, Chang 'an and Luoyang, the two major capitals of Han and Tang Dynasties, did not have the shape of a thousand steps corridor. However, at least in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, commercial corridors were well developed. The promenade house is convenient for storing goods coming and going, and the front eaves can shelter pedestrians from the wind and rain, which is convenient for buying and selling activities. The development of commercial corridor housing is understandable, and its universal application is due to the actual effect. So far, there are many places that use corridors as names to express the nature of business districts, such as the clothing gallery in Nanjing. In fact, the habit of taking the corridor as a row of shops can be seen everywhere in today's county towns.

Before the capital city of the Northern Song Dynasty (now Kaifeng), the capital city of Bianliang was a prosperous city because the Sui Dynasty opened the canal and the Bianhe River flowed in it. The "two lakes department stores" in the south all enter the border through the canal, which can reach Luoyang Chang 'an. Therefore, it is called Xiong Jun, because "from Jianghuai to Heluo, ships and cars meet". The city center used to be the county government of our time, and it was not until the Five Dynasties Liang Dynasty changed the capital of the Song Dynasty into the capital that the palace was created. But that's not our point. The main feature of the capital of song dynasty is that there are four waterways passing through the city, and there are many magnificent bridges on it. There are thirteen bridges on the Bianhe River, followed by eleven bridges on the Caihe River, so there is a special layout called "Hejie Bridge City". Commerce is usually concentrated around the bridge.

The front gate of Bianzhou County Command Office is facing the largest bridge on Bianhe River, commonly known as "State Bridge". Of course, its bridge market is also the largest, and the two rows of corridors in front of the county government may be such a bridge market. When we reached the capital city of Bianliang in the Northern Song Dynasty, this section of the road was called "Imperial Street", and the corridors on both sides were also called Imperial Corridor, which was forbidden for people to use. According to "Dream in Tokyo", the Imperial Street south of the Gongmen Xuande Gate is about 300 steps wide, and there are royal cloisters on both sides. During this period, the people of this city bought and sold, and the lawsuit was banned after the Song Huizong municipal government and the year number. And set up a black painted iron fence in front, with two rows of Zhu An painted iron fences in the middle of the road, which is closed to people. Pedestrians were stopped outside Zhuzha Gate. There are two masonry ditches in the gate, both of which are planted with lotus flowers, and the shore is planted with peaches, plums, pears and apricot flowers. "The moon looks like embroidery in spring and summer." The process of commercial city corridor becoming "imperial corridor" is all told here. From the perspective of urban environment, it is a kind of municipal improvement to turn a noisy business district into a beautiful scenic center like a square. Moreover, people can walk freely outside Zhuzazi, and the so-called Imperial Street is not completely forbidden. On the Lantern Festival, it was more lively there. Become a place where everyone watches the lights and entertains. The "Imperial Street" and "Imperial Gallery" in front of the Xuande Building in Gongmen are opposite to the land bridge on the Bianhe River, which is obviously a feature deployed in Song and Tokyo. Since then, history has proved that such a magnificent deployment was copied by Jin and Yuan Dynasties, used by Beijing, preserved in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and became customized.

Jin people are nomadic people, and their cultural level lags far behind that of Han people. After the rulers of the Jin Dynasty defeated the cowardly and incompetent royal family in the Northern Song Dynasty by force, they quickly imitated the cultural relics system of the Song Dynasty and enjoyed the essence of arts and crafts accumulated by the working people in China, especially in architecture. The Jin Dynasty began their architectural activities in 1 149, and moved its capital to Yanjing, known as Zhongdu, the predecessor of Beijing today. Through the land of Guang 'anmen in the west of Xuanwu Gate. The so-called systems of "building a palace according to the map", "grand scale" and "taking Bianjing by law" are all cultural relics of the Northern Song Dynasty, and they deliberately want to accept the concrete manifestations of their precious heritage and traditions. "Thousand Steps Gallery" is also their favorite architectural tradition.

There are more than 200 cloisters in the middle of Jindu, from Yangxuanmen in the south of inner city to Yingtianlou in the north of Tianjin Bridge, with a wide road in the middle and willows planted on both sides. At that time, the rulers of the Southern Song Dynasty sent envoys to the "Golden Court" one after another, and were deeply impressed by Jin's "Great Governance and Wei Hua Integrity". Although they once said in a superior tone that the rise of the golden architecture palace was not harmonious, they also had to admit that these buildings were "ingenious". In fact, all this was bought by the excellent working people in our country with their lives and blood. The real work is at the expense of "serving 800,000 migrant workers and 400,000 military workers" and "being in power for several years, the number of deaths is unknown". At that time, beautiful buildings were the fruits of working people, but they were monopolized by the rulers. After the commercial city corridor in the Northern Song Dynasty was changed into an imperial corridor, it was still a building between the city and the palace, and people could still come and go between it. In the Jin Dynasty, there were more than 200 rooms in front of Miyagi, which were divided into three sections, each with one door. The ancestral temple was in the east, Shangshu Province was in the west, and there were more than 100 cloisters at the turning point of things in the north. This scale is already a place with strict access control in front of the palace, and it is no longer a place where ordinary people can walk around and enjoy it.

In most records of the Yuan Dynasty, the official said that there was a thousand steps corridor in the south gate, 700 steps to build Lingxingmen, a river in 20 steps, and three bridges on the river. At this time, the royal corridor and the Zhou Bridge in the capital of song dynasty were called "Thousand Steps Corridor" and "Zhou Bridge", which became a format and customization in front of the palace, divorced from the people and attached to the palace.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Qianbulang continued to be used as an annex building in front of the palace. There are not only thousand-step corridors from the meridian gate to the front gate, but also two thousand-step corridors in front of the front gate, which open in the middle and lead to the social altar and ancestral temple. 14 19 When Beijing moved south, the south wall moved south from the present Chang 'an Avenue to the present Zhengyangmen Gate, and there was Tiananmen Square in front of the end gate. Only in front of it, there are two more large-scale and developed thousand-step corridors, which reach the Zhonghua Gate. This kind of boldness of vision in front of the palace exceeds the imperial street in Song and Tokyo.

Of course, the scale of the palace is spectacular, but it can't be built without economic conditions. So by the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial palace in Lin 'an, its capital, had no power to continue this beautiful tradition, so it could only pave a royal avenue with fine sand. On the contrary, the imperial gallery format spread from Yuan and Yuan Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, and was named "Thousand Steps Gallery".

We may have enough conditions and strength to consider restoring and developing all the beautiful bodies in our tradition in the future. Beautiful corridors can also be built on both sides of the square. When this architectural environment is not monopolized by the rulers, it is one of the most lovely architectural types in the city, which is beneficial to people's spiritual life. Like the tower, Zhou Rao of the promenade is also a figure who can best represent the architectural characteristics of China. Used between various buildings, it is both practical and beautiful.

Tuancheng —— An Example of Ancient Taiwan Province

Qionghua Island in Beihai is the foundation of Beijing today. Before the capital was established in the Yuan Dynasty, it was the imperial palace of the Jin Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was regarded as the center of Miyagi, and it was called Wanshou Mountain. Beihai and Zhonghai are tai liquid pools. Tuancheng is a special and important part of it.

Yuan's palace originally had three parts, except the "ouchi" in the middle and the palace west of Wanshou Mountain, which is the area around the Beijing Library today. Before Sheng Xing Palace, there is Long Fu Palace. At that time, the Tuancheng was called "Yingzhou Yuandian", also called Eternal Temple, on a dome in the pool. In other words, it is an island, between the North Sea and the China Sea. The first bridge in the north of the island connects Qionghua Island (which is still the case today), the first bridge in the east connects the then "ouchi" and the first wooden bridge in the west, which is 470 feet long and leads to Sheng Xing Palace with a section in the middle. The two ends are only connected by erecting beams on two ships, so it is called a suspension bridge. When the emperor went to Shangdu (near Duolun, Chahar Province), the left-behind officials moved the boat and broke the bridge, and no communication was allowed. Since the Ming Dynasty, this bridge has been replaced by the exquisite stone Jin 'ao Jade Bridge, and the east of Tuancheng is connected with the east coast, which has become the front three gates of Beihai Park today. Therefore, Tuancheng is the most special and beautiful place in Beijing. Today's wronged status makes it difficult to feel the central position it once occupied. We must pay attention to improving the road system in the future.

To the west of Tuancheng, today's Jade Bridge in Jin Ao is a beautiful stone bridge, facing Tuancheng, with two arch bridges at each end. The bridge is not wide enough to cross between the North Sea and the China Sea. It is picturesque and still retains the flavor of the time and place. However, there are twists and turns to the east of Tuancheng, between Qianmen and Sanmen of Beihai Park, and it is necessary to pay the price and give Tuancheng a better layout in order to restore its due background. When conditions are better, the front door and fence of Beihai Park can be removed, and the original relationship between Tuancheng and Qionghua Island will be better presented. After three doors, turn north and east, and come to the roadside of Sanmenqiao. The tiny and complicated shops in the north are not commensurate with the Tongzi River in the south; There are also small houses blocking the scenery on the east side of the road turning south at the northern end of Beichang Street, which is particularly unreasonable and should be improved in the future. The Yuqian Bridge in Jin Ao, which is particularly important, is very beautiful. It is one of the important traffic tunnels between the East and the West. The width of the bridge body is not enough to meet the needs of modern transportation. In the future, a cross embankment must be added at an appropriate place in the south of the bridge. As the task of vehicle traffic, the bridge itself should be reserved for pedestrians to walk slowly. The form of the dike must not be repeated with the bridge, so as to weaken the feeling that the Jin 'ao Jade Bridge drives the center of the lake, so it must be flat, similar to the river bank. In the future, overlooking the levee from the bridge, "cars and horses are intertwined", and looking up at the pedestrians on the bridge from the levee will be "like a fairy", which is also a great spectacle. I believe that many methods can be worked out through careful planning.

In addition, the format of Tuancheng is also worthy of our attention. Taiben is a very common type of ancient architecture in China. From the Lingtai in Zhou Wenwang and many platforms in the Spring and Autumn Period, Qin and Han Dynasties, we can know that it is a common type of ancient architecture, but it is less and less in later generations. In ancient times, Taiwan Province was mostly the place where the feudal ruling class boarded banquets. There are many halls, corridors and pavilions on it, and Cao Cao's bronze sparrow terrace is a prominent example. As far as I know, today's Tuancheng is the only example of this kind of architectural heritage, so it is precious. Now the above Chengguang Temple replaced Yitian Temple in Yuan Dynasty, which was rebuilt in 1690. The famous jade Buddha in the temple is also a sculpture of the Qing Dynasty. The big jade urn in front of the temple was carved by Kublai Khan of Yuan Shizu, and was originally the "Shoushan Jade Sea" of Guanghan Temple on Qionghua Island. It was restored after the temple was destroyed and moved here. This small platform is opposite to the big platform on Qionghua Island. Their relationship is very close. Let's talk about Qionghua Island together.

The predecessor of the White Pagoda of Qionghua Island in Beihai

The White Pagoda in Beihai is one of the most prominent scenic spots in Beijing, and everyone often sees it. The style of this tower belongs to Zangyinpo. This style was built in the north after the Yuan Dynasty. What we are talking about now is not the tower, but its historical address. It has the greatest relationship with the site that laid Beijing.

Qionghua Island turned out to be a high platform with a big hall built on it, which is still in the shape of an ancient high platform. According to legend, it is in Liao's residence, called "dressing table". In other words, it was the tradition of the Tang Dynasty that was maintained in the Liao Dynasty. Based on this excellent foundation and the natural lakes and marshes in the North Sea, the Jin Dynasty will build a famous detached palace-Daning Palace here. When Yuan Shizu invaded Yanjing, he destroyed the city, but he noticed this beautiful place and lived in a temple on the big platform here.

When I arrived at Zhu Yuandu, I designed it according to this palace. It is the three palaces mentioned above; The so-called "ouchi" Sheng Xing Palace and Fujiang Palace are centered on the lakes and marshes in Beihai (called Taiye Pool), and ouchi is the core of the whole capital. Kublai Khan soon ordered the reconstruction of the main hall on the island, called Guanghan Hall. Above the green spring is a summer resort. Kyle Poirot (Italian) arrived in China at that time and was able to see it. In his travel notes, he described this beautiful and exotic palace in detail, saying that there are exotic transplanted trees everywhere, and the temples are emerald green, and it is cool in summer.

After the Ming Dynasty destroyed the Yuan Dynasty, Nanjing, the former capital, ordered ministers to come to Beijing to destroy the old capital of the Yuan Dynasty. Xiao Xun came with this "sabotage mission". He searched the Forbidden City in Yuan Dynasty, but he couldn't help but cherish such a beautiful architectural essence, which would be ruthlessly destroyed, so he recorded everything in his "Heritage of the Forbidden City in Yuan Dynasty".

According to another record (textual research on the old news under Sun's Taiyue Collection), Ming Chengzu ordered that Guanghan Temple should not be destroyed. In May of the seventh year of Wanli (1579), "Suddenly, I fell, and there was money on the beam, which was extremely valuable." In fact, at that time, it was said that the crock was broken, leaving only the beam frame, and the wood was rotten and dangerous. Of course, it is easy to suddenly collapse.

The current White Pagoda was built on the site of Guanghan Temple in the early Qing Dynasty 165 1, which is 73 years after its collapse. Another 300 years passed. Knowing these development processes, when we look at the White Pagoda in the morning glow, we have a rich feeling of China's long history in our hearts, and we cherish all the achievements made by people in various dynasties. The difference is that at that time, it was a luxurious building occupied by emperors. When they got tired, they were allowed to destroy it. From now on, all beautiful artistic achievements belong to the people themselves, and we will do our best to protect them forever.