In the 26th year of Tang Kaiyuan (738), the land of Yue Prefecture and Yan County was placed in Ming Prefecture (present-day Ningbo). In the first year of Changqing (821), Mingzhou Assassin Shi Hancha built a sub-city (inner city) in the area of Drum Tower in present-day Haishu District, Ningbo City, as the prefecture's administrative office. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the world was in turmoil, and Huang Sheng, the assassin of Mingzhou, built Luocheng (outer city) to protect the border and the people. According to the literature, the plane of Luocheng in Mingzhou is pear-shaped, with a circumference of 18 miles, the Fenghua River is limited to its east from the south, the Yuyao River is limited to its north from the west, the west and south are surrounded by the Beidou River and the moat, and the general range is basically the same as the closed loop of Wangjing Road - Yongfeng Road - Heyi Road - Dongdu Road - Lingqiao Road - Changchun Road - Wangjing Road in the Present-day Haishu District, and the Tang and Song Dynasties have opened up at most ten city gates, and six city gates have been set up after the reconstruction at the end of the Yuan Dynasty (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Comparison of ancient and modern locations of Mingzhou Sub-City and Luocheng
Archaeological finds and harvests
From August to September 2016, in order to cooperate with the construction of the 9# plot of Zhongshan Road in Haishu District, Ningbo City, with the approval of the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the former Ningbo Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (now ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute, hereinafter referred to as the Municipal Institute of Culture and Research) and the Department of History of Xiamen University jointly formed an archaeological team to carry out preliminary archaeological investigation and exploration of the plot, and found the remains of rammed earth and bricks of the city wall.
From November 2016 to June 2017, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, with the strong support of the former Ningbo Municipal Engineering Preliminary Office (now ningbo Urban Infrastructure Construction and Development Center, hereinafter referred to as the Municipal Urban Development Center) and the cooperation of relevant functional departments, the joint archaeological team carried out rescue excavations of the found city wall site, and confirmed that the site was a section of the city wall base site on the north side of the Wangjing Gate at the west gate of Luocheng in Mingzhou from the late Tang Dynasty to the Republic of China period (Figure 2). During the archaeological excavation, an east-west anatomical ditch perpendicular to the wall was also cleared in the north and middle of the base site of the city wall to understand the historical evolution, internal structure, construction method, and construction process of the Luocheng city wall in Mingzhou.
Figure 2 Location and scale of the ruins of Luocheng In Mingzhou (Wangjingmen section).
Archaeological excavations have revealed that the base site of the city wall is 0.24-0.5 meters deep from the surface, with a total length of 79.5 meters, a residual height of 1.46-1.86 meters, and a direction of 12°, which is roughly north-south. The remaining base site of the city wall is mainly composed of the base trough and cushion layer of the late Tang Dynasty, the rammed earth wall from the Tang and Song Dynasties to the Yuan Dynasty, the brick wall and slope protection wall of the Song Dynasty, and the stone wall from the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and also excavated and cleaned up 42 ash pits and 7 ash ditches from the Fifth Tang Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 7 water wells from the Yuan Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China Period, 3 ponds in the Yuan Dynasty, 6 building base sites, and 10 tombs in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period (Figure 3). Thousands of specimens of cultural relics have been unearthed, of which more than 1,900 complete and restorable artifacts (sets) are mainly Yue kilns, Longquan kilns, Jingdezhen kilns, Minqing Yi kilns, Fuqing Dongzhang kilns and other types of porcelain from kilns across the country, as well as stone rammers, bricks and tiles, pottery play, copper coins and other relics (Figure 4).
Figure 3 The ruins of Luocheng in Mingzhou (Wangjingmen section) are distributed in various ages
Figure 4 Partial excavations of relics
Layers of strata and dense relics vividly reproduce the rise and fall of Ningbo Luocheng since its founding in the late Tang Dynasty.
Late Tang Dynasty: The foundation was founded
Archaeology shows that the ruins of the city wall in the Wangjingmen section are superimposed on the Han and Jin or Tang Dynasty strata, and when the city is built, a foundation trough with a depth of 0.2-0.4 meters is first excavated, and after filling the rammed, then laid with a thickness of 0.08-0.3 meters of rubble or straw and other plant rhizomes, and then the rammed earth wall is rammed earth layer by layer, and the rammed earth residue is 0.54-1.71 meters high (Figure 5); the city wall consists of a rammed earth wall with an outer width of about 6.9 meters and a slope with a width of about 6.7 meters on the inside, and between the two found wooden stakes for slabing or reinforcing rammed earth walls.
Figure 5 Part of the outer side of the Tang and Song Dynasty city walls
Two Song Dynasties: Complete repairs
Archaeology shows that during the Northern Song Dynasty, the foundation site of the city wall was greatly widened inward on the rammed earth and the inner slope at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and the base of the rammed earth wall was 15.3-20.5 meters wide. At the latest in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the base grooves were dug on both sides of the rammed earth city wall and bricks were laid (Figure 6), and the width between the brick walls inside and outside the city wall was 9.5-11 meters. Some of the bricks are inscribed with inscriptions such as surnames, personal names or place names, and there are also walking bricks used to collect the outer walls of the city walls. In the first year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1078), Zeng Gong, one of the "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties", served as the Zhizhou of Mingzhou, and was ordered by the Song Shenzong to send troops to rebuild the city of Luocheng in Mingzhou, and the remains of the city wall in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty discovered this time should be a reflection of zeng Gong's edict to repair the city, and also provided a practical case and writing basis for the publication of the classic work of Northern Song Architecture "Building The French Style".
Figure 6 Bricks wrapped around the outside of the Song Dynasty city wall
After the change of Jingkang, the southern Song Dynasty fixed the capital of Lin'an, Ningbo became an important place in Gyeonggi and an important foreign trade town, the status became more and more important, Mingzhou (Qingyuan Province) Luocheng was able to continue to repair, gradually complete, there is a history of the record, at least in baoqing two to three years (1226-1227), Baoyou four to kaiqing first year (1256-1259), the prefect Hu Yu, Wu Qiandu has successively overhauled the Ningbo city wall. Archaeology shows that the outer side of the Foundation Site of the Southern Song Dynasty City Wall in the Wangjingmen Section was built with a slope protection, built on top of the collapsed pile of the Song Dynasty, with a thickness of 0.05-0.4 meters and a width of 4.5 meters, and there were two rows of solid wooden pile pillar holes along the slope edge, with a hole diameter of 0.1-0.25 meters; the inner side of the city wall base site was built with water ditches and other ancillary facilities. At this point, the base site of the city wall on the north side of the Wangjing Gate in Luocheng, Mingzhou, was greatly widened inward on the rammed earth wall at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and facilities such as brick packing, slope protection, piles, and ditches were successively added, which gradually became complete, reflecting the rising status of Mingzhou City. In the first year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1195), "Mingzhou" was renamed "Qingyuan" and upgraded to "Fu".
Yuan Dynasty: Destroyed and restored
MengYuan won the world with the art of horseback, in order to prevent the Han people from gathering the city for change, the early Yuan Dynasty edict ordered the city of The world to be destroyed, and the sub-cities of Ningbo and Luocheng were both destroyed, "after the erosion of the houses, it was destroyed into a smooth road" (Yuan Dynasty", "Zhizheng Siming Continuation"), and finally "the old city was long abandoned, and there were hundreds of people at its site" (Yuan Dynasty Liu Ji's "Reconstruction of Qingyuan Road City"). This archaeological discovery is evidenced by the many living relics such as housing sites, ash pits, wells, and pools left on the walls of the Yuan Dynasty (Figure 7). From the end of the Yuan Dynasty to the twelfth year of Zheng (1352), the new marshal of the Xuanwei Sidu of Zhejiang Province, NalinHa, in order to prevent the Attack of the FangGuo Zhenxing soldiers of Taizhou, moved the residents living on the city site to the official land, on the site of the old city of Tang and Song Dynasties, and spent six months to rebuild Luocheng.
Figure 7 Three-dimensional model of a well in the Yuan Dynasty
Most of the stones on the outside of the city wall at the end of the Yuan Dynasty found this time are partially stacked on top of the Song Dynasty bricks, and most of them are built with more regular large stone blocks. The inner stone wall is shrunk by about 3 meters compared with the Song Dynasty brick wall, and the foundation groove is excavated on the Song rammed earth wall, and after the gravel pad is leveled, the stone wall is masonry with stone blocks of different sizes, and the width between the inner and outer sides of the stone wall is 6.5-8.7 meters. The rammed earth wall core is gray-brown clay, the soil is crispy, no obvious rammed nests have been found, and some areas are mixed with a large amount of Yuan Dynasty household garbage, shells and porcelain. Archaeological findings confirm the historical fact that the local government at the end of the Yuan Dynasty was forced by military pressure to collect materials for the construction of the city, hastily rebuilt the city of Qingyuan Road, and the width of the city wall was greatly narrowed.
Ming and Qing dynasties: continued to use repair
According to the literature, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, Ningbo Luocheng basically used the late Yuan Dynasty to rebuild the city wall, and the overall pattern did not change significantly. However, due to the need for the defensive function of the city wall, especially the frequent invasion of the Ming Dynasty, Ningbo Luocheng was repaired and repaired from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. In the northwest corner of the outer side of the wall site of the Wangjingmen section of the Wangjingmen section, a Ming and Qing Dynasty stone wall was found, about 0.46 meters wide, and was built on top of the Yuan Dynasty stone wall (Figure 8).
Figure 8 The ming and qing dynasty walls are wrapped in stones
Late Qing Dynasty: Gradually abandoned
In the era of cold weapons, in addition to the boundary function of distinguishing between "city" and "township", the city wall also undertook the heavy responsibility of guarding the safety of the city. However, with the advent of the era of hot weapons, the thick walls of the high city were difficult to block the musket cannons, and the defense and security functions of the city walls were greatly weakened. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the local government of Ningbo became increasingly sluggish in repairing the city wall, and residents in the city mostly built houses and operated shops in Theacheng Horse Road, and even opened restaurants, tea rooms, bookstores, stages, marble rooms and commissaries on the city towers. Before and after the Xinhai Revolution, most of the walls of Ningbo were desolate and eroded, and the area around Wangjingmen collapsed, almost oblivious.
There are as many as 10 tombs found on both sides of the city wall site of the Wangjingmen section from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, which shows that the city wall was desolate and dilapidated at that time, and the heel of the city even became a place of mass burial.
Republic of China: Demolition of the city and construction of roads
In order to develop industry and commerce and expand transportation, the third year of the Republic of China (1914) began to move the demolition of the city wall and the construction of a ring road, and by the twentieth year of the Republic of China (1931), except for the Qingyun Tower and the Drum Tower, the Ningbo City Wall, the City Gate and the Urn City were all demolished. The Wangjingmen Urn City and its northern city wall were demolished in 1929, and the foundation on the north side of the Urn City was set aside as a small vegetable farm at the West Gate, and the city foundation from the Urn City to the north end of the Gongshi Middle School was allocated to the Gongshi Middle School for the purpose of expanding the playground. In this archaeological excavation, the remains of the playground runway, bunker, boundary monument and house foundation of Xiaoshi Middle School were found on the site of the city wall of the Wangjingmen section, as well as the pile foundation of the Ximen small vegetable farm that was built in that year, reproducing the historical facts and details of the destruction of the city during the Republic of China period.
Although the ruins of Luocheng in Mingzhou (Wangjingmen section) only see the base site of the city wall, its structure is clear, the construction method is standardized, the history is clear, the morning and evening are orderly, and the history of urban defense construction in Ningbo (Mingzhou) is reproduced in a concentrated and true way from the beginning of Luocheng (Outer City) in the late Tang Dynasty to the Republic of China period for more than 1,000 years, providing valuable cases for studying the site selection, scale, construction technology, and technology level of the city wall of Ningbo and even the southeast coastal state capital of China, and also providing valuable cases for the "living fossils" of the "Maritime Silk Road" and the "South Port of the Grand Canal of China" The ancient famous port-type city of Ningbo provides extremely rare, non-renewable, vivid and powerful archaeological examples, and was awarded the "Important Archaeological Discovery of Zhejiang" in 2016.
Site preservation and display
Once the ruins of Luocheng in Mingzhou (Wangjingmen section) were discovered, they attracted great attention and sustained attention from all walks of life. In March 2017, when archaeological excavations were still in progress, the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics sent a letter to the former Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Television News and Publications (now ningbo Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Television Tourism, hereinafter referred to as the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism) and clearly stated that the construction of an archaeological site park should be the goal, and the relevant departments should be invited to adjust the nature of land use as soon as possible, guide the organization to prepare a protection and display plan, and request the territorial government to announce the site as a cultural relics protection unit in a timely manner. In July 2017, just after the completion of archaeological excavations, the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism submitted the "Report on Strengthening the Protection of the Luocheng Ruins (Wangjingmen Section) in Mingzhou" to the Ningbo Municipal Government. According to the opinions and suggestions of the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the report of the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, under the overall coordination of the Ningbo Municipal Government, after the coordination of cultural relics, housing construction, planning, municipal, garden, urban management, transportation and other relevant departments at the municipal and district levels, and multiple rounds of expert demonstration, the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government decided to adjust the site of the site as a mixed land for cultural relics and greening, cancel the original planned underground garage construction, significantly reduce the area of the first and last bus stations, and rely on the city wall ruins combined with urban functions to build an archaeological site park. Under the premise of scientific protection, it is required to be fully displayed and utilized, so that the public can share the results of urban archaeological and cultural heritage protection. In August 2018, the Haishu District Government officially announced the Mingzhou Luocheng Ruins (Wangjingmen Section) as a district-level cultural relics protection unit, providing a basic guarantee for the protection, management and display and utilization of the sites.
However, the protection of earthen ruins is a worldwide technical problem, and it is necessary to carefully consider the scientific protection and full display of the Luocheng ruins in the Wangjing Gate section, so that they can be shared by the public and can be passed on forever. During the archaeological excavation in February 2017, the Municipal Institute of Culture and Research organized and held the "Expert Demonstration Meeting on the Excavation and Protection of the Luocheng Ruins in Mingzhou (Wangjingmen Section)", and specially invited 9 relevant experts from all over the country to guide the follow-up excavation and scientific protection of the city wall sites. In October 2017, the Municipal Institute of Culture and Research organized the "Mingzhou Luocheng Ruins (Wangjingmen Section) Protection and Display Expert Demonstration Meeting", and invited 11 relevant experts from all over the country to gather in Ningbo to offer suggestions and suggestions to discuss good strategies and display plans for the protection of the sites. At the same time, the Municipal Chengfa Center commissioned the Zhejiang Ancient Architecture Design and Research Institute to carry out the "Research on the Protection and Planning Strategy of the Luocheng Ruins (Wangjingmen Section) in Mingzhou" and compile a research report. In addition, the municipal cultural relics, housing construction, planning departments have also consulted the opinions and suggestions of relevant departments at the municipal and district levels, gardens, urban management, transportation and other relevant departments for several rounds, and finally reached a consensus: backfill and protect most of the sites, partially select the best to expose and display, and build a city wall site museum (exhibition hall) on the spot.
How to effectively protect the site of the city wall displayed by local disclosure in the humid environment of the south is a real problem that needs to be solved urgently. In March 2019, the Municipal City Development Center commissioned the team of Professor Zhang Bingjian, an expert on the protection of earthen sites of Zhejiang University, to compile the "Research Report on the Principles of Protection and Design of the Original Site of ningbo Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park", which recommended the adoption of a "small environment control plan", from the aspects of temperature and humidity control, sunshine control, water replenishment strategy, microbial control, drainage treatment, supporting facilities, etc., put forward corresponding design requirements for the protection of the original site of the site revealed and display area, clarified the specific control indicators, and after many expert arguments and consultations, It was finally determined to build a double-layer electric heating glass cover above the area of the city wall site (18 meters long and 16.5 meters wide) exposed and displayed in the local area, and build a gas phase water replenishment system in the glass cover, and at the same time equipped with electrical engineering, temperature and humidity monitoring, water level control, spray system, fresh air system, lighting system and other equipment and facilities, so that the daily protection of the city wall site disclosure area is simplified and automated, and it is conducive to the long-term protection of the site, and can also intuitively present the millennium true appearance of the site to the public, which is the first in China. In August 2021, the Municipal Chengfa Center entrusted the School of Humanities of Ningbo University of Finance and Economics to review and implement the "Small Environment Control Plan for the Disclosure Area of Ningbo Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins" according to the "Research Report on the Protection and Design Principles of the Original Site of the Ningbo Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park" and the "Small Environment Control Plan for the Disclosure Area of the City Wall Ruins of Ningbo Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins" actually compiled by the City Wall Site Museum (Exhibition Hall) Project.
While continuously promoting the protection research and display and utilization of the Luocheng Ruins (Wangjingmen Section) in Mingzhou, under the leadership of the Ningbo Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau, the Municipal Chengfa Center is specifically responsible for promoting the planning, demonstration and project declaration, approval and fundraising of the Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park.
Figure 9 Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park, which is about to be completed
In October 2018, the Municipal Urban Development Center commissioned the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of Tongji University to compile the "Concept Plan for wangjingmen city wall ruins park", which passed the review in January 2019. In the same month, the construction project of Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park was approved. In April 2019, the Municipal Chengfa Center entrusted Ningbo Zhongding Architectural Design Co., Ltd. to compile the "Landing Plan of Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park", which passed the review in January 2020. In May 2019, the Municipal Chengfa Center entrusted Ningbo Yiyang Architectural Planning and Design Co., Ltd. to compile the "Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park Engineering Cultural Relics Impact Assessment Report", which passed the review in November 2019. In April 2020, the construction project of Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park was completed and supervised by the construction and supervision bidding, which was supervised by Ningbo Landscape Engineering Co., Ltd. and Ningbo Huasheng Engineering Management Co., Ltd. On June 13, 2020, on the occasion of the "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day", the release of archaeological achievements of the Wangjingmen massif and the groundbreaking ceremony of the City Wall Ruins Park were held. In April 2021, the main framework of construction was completed and passed the acceptance of the intermediate structure. At present, the heritage park has been basically completed and is ready for completion and acceptance.
Figure 10 "Millennium City Events" exhibition real scene
The total land area of the Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park project is 12,035 square meters, with a total investment of 64.56 million yuan, which is mainly composed of the City Wall Ruins Museum (exhibition hall), supporting management rooms, sunken squares, basement pump rooms, courtyard leisure areas, green slopes and bus first and last stations (Figure 9). Among them, the Wall Site Museum (Exhibition Hall) is a single-storey building, 72 meters long, 31 meters wide at the widest point, 6.5 meters high, and an area of 2165 square meters. The museum (exhibition hall) according to the direction and scope of the ruins of Luocheng (Wangjingmen section) in Shunming Prefecture, the large span is built above the site, which is not only the protection building of the site, but also the empirical space for displaying the history of Ningbo's millennium city, the built-in permanent display is called "Millennium City Affairs", which is composed of three parts: the prologue hall, the reproduction of the city wall, and the millennium of the city, and comprehensively uses a variety of scientific and technological means to vividly tell the wonderful story of ningbo's thousand-year-old city in the form that the audience likes to hear (Figure 10). The exhibition is planned, carefully designed and meticulously arranged by Ningbo Gangbo Cultural Development Co., Ltd.
On the occasion of the 1200th anniversary of the founding of Ningbo (Mingzhou Sub-City Construction), and the imminent arrival of the Ningbo Historical and Cultural City Protection Day, the elaborate Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park is also about to open to the public. Wangjingmen City Wall Ruins Park, the scientific protection of the thousand-year-old city that has disappeared, and the comprehensive display of the urban relics that have seen the light of day, is undoubtedly an empirical space and spiritual home for looking back at the history of ningbo's thousand-year city wall construction and urban development history, and is also a cultural landmark and an important window for tracing the trajectory of Ningbo's urban evolution and reading the thick history, and will surely become an excellent place for citizens and tourists to understand Ningbo and daily excursions and rest.
Ningbo Cultural Heritage Management Research Institute
Ningbo Urban Infrastructure Construction Development Center
Ningbo Haishu District Cultural Relics Management Office
(Written by: Lin Guocong, Zhou Yunheng, Ma Jiannian)
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