In the mouths of old Beijingers, there has always been such a legend. There is such an ancient well under the Beixin Bridge in Beijing, and at the mouth of the well there is a huge iron chain hanging down to the bottomless well, which seems to lock in a mysterious thing. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, the unbelieving Japanese tried to pull up the iron chains in the well, but a large amount of yellow water suddenly gushed out of the well, and a fishy smell of sea water wafted out, accompanied by a lengthy roar, which frightened the Japanese army into fleeing.
This is the folk legend of the "lock dragon well", as the name suggests, it is used to lock the dragon. There are a total of nine such wells in Beijing, as long as people pull the chains on the edge of the wellhead, there will be a rumbling sound at the bottom of the well, followed by the smell of seawater. This series of phenomena caused the people to be quite frightened, and over time, no one was willing to go near the Lock Dragon Well, and some of the wells were fenced with railings.
So, how true is this legend? Aren't dragons non-existent? Is there really a locked dragon under the lock dragon well?
First, let's look at the source of the legend of Suolongjing. This legend first originated in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, when Beijing was not yet the capital, but Nanjing. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang sent two major military divisions, Liu Bowen and Yao Guangxiao, to garrison and rebuild the city of Beijing to prepare for the future relocation of the capital.
Beijing in this period was also called "Eight-Armed Nezha City", and the people all said that this place in Beijing was originally a bitter sea and Youzhou, where the evil dragons were very powerful, and the military generals went to no way at all, and could only send military divisions to go over, so Liu Bowen and Yao Guangxiao received a heavy responsibility.
When planning the layout of Beijing City, Liu Bowen, who was proficient in geographical feng shui, found that there were several sea eyes buried under the city. The eye of the sea is the ancient people's mysterious saying, the ancients believed that the sea has eyes, this eye is unfathomable, can be directly from the land to the bottom of the sea, even if the water of the world is poured, it can not be filled. The eye of the sea and the sea are directly linked, and there is an endless sea in it, as long as it floods, it will engulf the entire surrounding area and make it a zeal country.
Legend has it that the sea eye was controlled by the dragon clan in the sea, and in order to prevent the sea eye from engulfing Beijing, Liu Bowen sent a general to remove the dragon woman before Gao Liang. Later, the Dragon Lady was defeated, and the Dragon Girl was seriously injured and fled to the Black Dragon Pond. Liu Bowen's move completely angered the Dragon King, so he took the dragon son and dragon grandson and all the water in the rivers, lakes and seas to take revenge.
At this time, Yao Guangxiao appeared, defeated the Dragon King and his party, and suppressed the defeated Dragon King in the Lock dragon well of the North New Bridge. And with its three chapters, saying that when the bridge becomes old, the Dragon King will be freed again. Therefore, Liu Bowen named this bridge Beixin Bridge, deceived the Dragon King for a lifetime, and also suppressed the evil dragon and the water it brought to this locked dragon well for generations.
The legend is that this is actually another matter, Washington State University seismologist Michael Wilson once did field research in Beijing, beijing underground there is indeed a huge hidden water body, the amount of water storage is equivalent to a small ocean, and this rare geographical phenomenon in Beijing is extremely abnormal. That being said, it doesn't prove that there really are sea eyes and dragon kings under the Lock Dragon Well.
In fact, there is another more reliable saying in the folk, saying that the lock dragon well is used to control the underground dark river. Because Beijing's groundwater resources are quite abundant, in order to adjust its flow direction and water level, the so-called Lock Dragon Well has been specially built, and the other end of the iron chain is a huge iron pillar, specially used to block the spring, loosen when the water is dry, let the groundwater gush out of the spring, and when the rainy season comes, the spring is blocked to prevent the groundwater from flooding and rising, flooding the land.
The reason why there is a fishy smell is that the groundwater body is buried in the ground all year round and does not see the light, coupled with a certain degree of pollution, there is a fishy smell for a long time.
This is the whole story of the Lock Dragon Well, although these Lock Dragon Wells have basically been buried and abandoned, but their mysterious legends are still spreading more and more mysteriously in the mouths of the common people. To put it bluntly, it is a water conservancy and hydrological facility in ancient times, where there are so many moths, after all, no one can prove the existence of dragons now, and the lock dragon well is even more ridiculous.