If it were not for the damming of the Wusong River (present-day Suzhou Creek), to which the Qinglong River belonged, which led to narrower and narrower channels, its tributary, the Huangpu River, would not have been dredged and made it wide as it is today.
If it were not for the "tributaries" of the Huangpu River becoming the "main channel", the Qinglong Pagoda on the Qinglong Town (now Qingpu Baihe Town) at the confluence of the Qinglong River and the Lujiatai River would still have assumed the function of a "navigation landmark".
At the time of the Song Dynasty, the Qinglong Pagoda was to Qinglong Town, just as today, the Oriental Pearl Tower was to Shanghai. If the waterway is not changed, "Lujiatai" may be more famous than "Lujiazui".
At a time when this newspaper was devoting itself to the search for the Song Dynasty in Shanghai, which was "staying unharmed, coming and going, and searching for the Song Dynasty," this reporter recently visited the Qinglong Pagoda and qinglong Temple in Qinglong Village, Baihe Town, Qingpu, which carried forward the history of Shanghai's port to the Tang and Song dynasties.
Wang Hui, director of the Qingpu Museum, said:
"The Qinglong Pagoda is the 'Pearl of the Orient' during the Tang and Song dynasties."
, duration 01:12
Octagonal tower
It is the Song Dynasty system
On the edge of a large area of farmland, the on-board navigation winds its way to the Qinglong Pagoda – a circle of white walls surrounded by a gray tower, with a thick, simple and solemn temperament that is very different from the surrounding environment.
Walking into the courtyard door, it is as if you have traveled back in time and space to ancient times - a stone road at your feet, invaded by surrounding plants, so that only one or two people can walk side by side. Under the clouds, next to the gray tower, the entire ground was three or four steps lower than outside the courtyard. From the base of the tower to the top of the tower that was lifted off by the typhoon, different levels of gray and black constitute a sense of gravity of history.
During the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty (734 AD), a monastery was built here first; in 821-824 AD, the Qinglong Pagoda was built and rebuilt during the Northern Song Dynasty (1041-1048 AD). After being rebuilt in 1648, it has not been overhauled to this day. In 1956, a typhoon blew the tower brake down, and the treasure bottle on the brake fell with it. The copper cast gourd-shaped treasure vase has the words "Ming Chongzhen was cast in March of the seventeenth year" and so on.
There are dozens of wooden stakes "pestles" on the outer walls of each floor on the ash tower, which are the supporting parts of the eaves.
Wang Hui said:
"Ancient Chinese architecture is usually brick and wood structure, and the wooden part is the various eaves. In the past, the tower could go up, so it is estimated that there was a wooden staircase outside the tower, but now it does not exist. ”
The wood cannot withstand the erosion of time, and the waist eaves, outer eaves, bucket arches, fangs, etc. are constantly falling off. Therefore, today, the seven-story Qinglong Pagoda looks like the shape and lines are relatively "smooth".
The diameter of the tower is only six or seven meters, walking into the tower, looking up to see the landscape is quite spectacular - also because the tower brake is damaged, rainwater inflow, the wooden floor slabs have decayed, so you can see the inner frame structure of the seven-story tower - 45 degrees to the floor, that is, each floor is stacked on the next floor at a 45 degree angle. At the same time, the tower is octagonal. "The octagon is exactly the system of building towers in the Song Dynasty," Wang Hui said.
Green Dragon Tower
Structure inside the tower
The reason why it was verified that the tower was built in the Tang Dynasty is because in the 1960s, experts from the Municipal Cultural Management Commission found inscriptions from the late Tang Dynasty on the tower, which was engraved on the inscription bricks, which identified the "origin" of the tower.
Green Dragon Tower "Navigation"
The earliest "international port"
During the Five Dynasties period, Qinglong Town was a rare trade port in Wuyue, and there were trade exchanges with Japan, Goryeo (ancient Korea), Khitan and Daeshi (Iran). Later, a "Municipal Shipping Department" similar to the "Customs" was set up to manage the tax revenue of Chinese and foreign merchant ships.
The configuration of the Qinglong Temple and the Qinglong Pagoda was also built for the faithful to pray for the safety of their families to go to sea - on the one hand, to ask for the blessing of the bodhisattva, on the other hand, to navigate by the building. The Qinglong Pagoda is used as a navigation marker: "See the Qinglong Pagoda, that is the Qinglong Town is coming." "The height of the Qinglong Pagoda with the tower brake is about 44 meters, and the current height is 30 meters. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the qinglong town building could not exceed the Qinglong Pagoda.
Qinglong Town was an important port on the "Maritime Silk Road" at that time. Wang Hui revealed: "The status is comparable to the Port of Quanzhou in Fujian at that time. ”
According to the official compilation of the Northern Song Dynasty," the "Song Hui Essentials" records that at that time, Suzhou's silk, as well as porcelain, grain, etc. could also be exported as far as the Arab region, in the Northern Song Dynasty (1077), the commercial tax paid by Qinglong Town reached 15879 guan, when the country had more than 1880 towns, of which only 10 were more than 10,000 guan, Qinglong Town ranked fifth, ranking among the top ten "star towns" in the country, ranking first among the 17 towns of the economically developed Liangzhe Road (roughly present-day Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and Shanghai). The commercial tax in Quanzhou City is 353 yuan in 19939, which is not much higher than that of Qinglong Town.
Therefore, Qinglong Town was the "Xiongzhen Town under heaven" at that time - Xiong, naturally first attributed to strong economic strength. Qinglong Town is also the "Southeast Giant Town" - Ju, referring to the large scale of the town. In the third year of Jianyan (1129), Huating Town had only 26 squares (that is, today's "community"), while Qinglong Town had 36 squares, greatly exceeding Huating Town. Among them, there is a "back and forth shop", which is dedicated to foreign merchants.
Qinglong Town "Strong"
Cultural celebrity contacts
Economic development naturally brings prosperity to the people. In the bustling crowd, there is no shortage of literati and inkers. According to the county chronicle, Mi Fu served as the town supervisor (mayor) of Qinglong Town, so that it became the first town in Shanghai to have a cultural and entertainment area.
The Northern Song Dynasty Ying Xi wrote "Qinglong Fu" with great emotion, which vividly depicted the prosperity and grandeur of the town at that time.
Mi Fu wrote the "Tibetan Scriptures of Longping Temple"—Longping Temple is aliased "Qinglong North Pagoda". He also called on friends and created a good humanistic environment.
In the sixth year of Xi Ning, Su Dongpo, who was then the judge of Hangzhou, traveled with Li Xingzhong, a scholar who lived in seclusion in Qinglong Town. The following year, Su Dongpo left Hangzhou to work near Jinan as an official, passing through Huzhou, Suzhou and other places to travel with friends through landscapes and poetry. Li Xingzhong composed the poem "Drunken Sleeping Pavilion" on the occasion of greeting Su Dongpo in Huzhou, and Su Dongpo wrote the inscription for it, and gave it "Three Songs of Li Xingzhong Xiucai Drunken Sleeping Pavilion". For a time, the drunken sleeping pavilion in Li Xing of Qinglong Town was named After shaking Jiangnan. Today, in the Qingpu Museum, the Drunken Sleeping Pavilion has been copied.
Su Dongpo
The Song Dynasty poet Mei Yaochen also lived and traveled in Qinglong Town, wrote the first Qinglong Town Chronicle "Qinglong Magazine" and created a poem "Watching the Tide on the Qinglong River".
Also wandering in Qinglong Town are Tortoise Meng, Song Zhiwen, Bai Juyi, Du Mu, Pi Rixiu, Lu You, Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi, Qin Guan, Zhao Mengfu...
Ren Renfa, a water control expert who is good at Danqing, lives in Qinglong Town. In order to dredge the Wusong River, he repeatedly proposed water control plans. Today, the Yuan Dynasty sluice gate site on Yanchang West Road is his contribution. And Ren Renfa's three generations also funded the repair of the Qinglong Pagoda for 44 years...
【Comment now】
history
Turn here
In the mobile game "100 Scenic Spots of Gangnam", there is an important level called "Dredging", and the player must constantly clean up the silt in the river until it is clear.
"Gangnam Hundred Views" players dredged Songjiang Province
Ding Guangji, a young urban culture scholar, revealed that the "dredging" of the Qinglong River is purely artificial. In the Tang Dynasty, the Qinglong River was 20 miles wide, equivalent to the trumpet mouth of the Qiantang River now, and in the Song Dynasty it was 7 miles, and finally only 1 mile - that is, 500 meters, merchant ships could not enter the port, and port trade naturally declined. Therefore, the fate of Qinglong Town, which was once a rich party, turned with the disappearance of port advantages. The original Wusong River tributary, the Huangpu River, rose from a "supporting role" to a "protagonist", while the Wusong River became today's Suzhou River – instead becoming a tributary of the Huangpu River.
Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the inheritance of civilization and cultural development will inevitably live by water. Water is the source of life and one of the bearers of the economic lifeblood. To this day, the port city is still undoubtedly a relatively more developed international metropolis. The cargo throughput of Shanghai Port has ranked first in the world for many years. The urban characteristics of Shanghai's Haipai culture are also based on the frequent docking and exchange of Chinese and foreign merchant ships and even passenger ships in the Bund area more than a hundred years ago, such as the Sixteen Shops Wharf...
Shanghai, from Hudu Village to Wusong River, from Qinglong Town to Shanghai County, from Qinglong Port, Shanghai Port to Yangshan Port, the same port water system, has created a city spirit of haina and river, atmosphere and modesty.
The Shanghai Museum simulates a reconstructed part of the social landscape of Qinglong Town in its heyday
Back to urban construction, Shanghai is located at the mouth of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the alluvial plain naturally becomes the "bottom place" under the mud and sand. Today, Chongming Island, which is formed by the mud and sand of the Yangtze River, is moving towards the goal of a world-class ecological island. Planning with a far-sighted vision will not be wrapped in the mud and sand of fate.
Related Links: Shanghai's oldest tower
Qinglong Temple was founded in the second year of Tang Tianbao (743 AD) and was then named "Baode Temple". In the first year of Tang Changqing (821 AD), the ancient temple was rebuilt and renamed "Longfu Temple", and the Qinglong Pagoda was built next to the temple, named "Longfu Temple Pagoda". In 1299, the painter and water conservancy expert Ren Renfa's ancestors and grandchildren successively funded the repair for 44 years. In the seventeenth year of Ming Chongzhen (1644 AD), the pagoda was rebuilt again. After 3 years of repairs, the Qinglong Pagoda has not been overhauled for more than 300 years. The tower was once tilted 12 degrees to the southwest, and in 1992, after the construction expert Cao Shizhong used special techniques to correct and straighten out, "straightening the waist bar".
Today, for the sake of cultural relics protection, the Qinglong Pagoda is not open to the public, but you can overlook the majesty and simplicity of the Qinglong Pagoda from the new Qinglong Temple, which was built in the 1990s.
New Performing Arts Studio
Author: Zhu Guang
Photo: Photo by Li Mingyan, partly from the Internet
Editor: Wu Xuying
Xinmin Evening News Cultural Department