From the Datong Northern Wei Yonggu Mausoleum system to see the ancient unit of length

From the Datong Northern Wei Yonggu Mausoleum system to see the ancient unit of length - Li

Journal of Shanxi Datong University (Social Sciences Edition), 2009.03 Chen Lianluo

The ancient unit of length "Li" is different from the measurement benchmark of today's common length unit "Li". The measurement benchmarks of the official rulers of various dynasties in ancient China varied. Based on the Datong YongguLing system, this paper believes that the scale used in the ancient "Li" has always been based on the "construction ruler", and 1 Guli is equivalent to 576m today. The author believes that in archaeology, it is more scientific and accurate to use the "construction ruler" as the benchmark, or converted into modern length units.

As a unit of length, it has been used since ancient times. However, the length of the ancient li is a little bit today, but it is also difficult to say.

Regarding the ancient system, there are many records in the history books and ancient books, and many experts and scholars have discussed and studied, and the understanding of today's people has become unified, that is, except for the Zhou Li system with 8 feet of zhou foot as a step and 300 steps as 1 mile, the rest is as Wu Hui said in the "New Concise General History of Chinese Weights and Measures": "Before the Tang Dynasty, six feet were steps, three hundred steps were one mile, and one mile was eighteen hundred feet; Tang began, five feet for steps, three hundred and sixty steps for miles, and one mile for one thousand eight hundred feet. [1] (P106) The problem is that the previous examination of each family is mainly based on the ancient rulers (or official rulers) that have survived from each generation. However, due to the continuous changes in the rulers of various generations, the length of the examined li also changes, such as the Han Dynasty one mile combined with the present 414m, the Northern Wei Yili combined today 418.5m or 419.61m, the Northern Zhou Li combined with the present 442.41m, the Tang Dynasty Xiaoli was 442.5m, Dali was 531m, the Song Dynasty yili was 559.872m, and the Qing Dynasty was 576m today. There may be a misunderstanding here, because when the ancients recorded the foot ruler, except for a few historical books such as the "History of Jin", they mostly recorded it as a ruler, but they did not know what the ruler was, resulting in inconsistencies in the understanding and judgment of today's people. As Jing Guodong said in the "Review of The Study of Tang Dynasty Commercial History in the Twentieth Century": "The problem here still lies in the judgment of the length of the Tang ruler. The academic research on the Tang ruler and the Tang Dynasty muli system has outstanding achievements, but the differences are also very large. New developments in this subject will await the discovery of new archaeological data"[2]. This paper uses ancient regulation records, combined with the archaeological results of Datong, to explore the ancient unit of length - the measurement benchmark.

First, from the Yonggu Tomb System to see the Northern Wei Dynasty

On the Temple Liang (陳兒梁) (i.e., the Fang Mountain of Pingcheng in the Northern Wei Dynasty) 25 km north of present-day Datong City, Shanxi Province, there is the tomb of Empress Feng of the Wencheng Civilization of the Northern Wei Dynasty, known as the Yonggu Mausoleum, which is still well preserved. The Book of Wei contains a detailed record of its regulations, including the rulers and steps required for the calculation. This mausoleum has been archaeologically excavated, the ancient and modern data are complete, and the two are compared, which is likely to solve the above problems. The discussion is as follows:

In volume 13 of the Biography of Empress Feng of the Book of Wei, it is recorded that Empress Feng was buried in the Yonggu Mausoleum after her death, which was "an abbot on the inside, and an outer cut to cover the barriers, and those who are out of the heart of filial piety are inexhaustible, and the chamber can be two zhang, and the tomb cannot exceed more than thirty steps." Now it is admired by the mountains and the mountains, and the restoration is sixty steps. [3] (vol. 13, p330) This document clearly states that its regulation is sixty steps wide and the inner chamber (long) is two zhang. This system is similar to the internal chamber regulation of the tomb of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, "Ming Zhong is one foot high and seven feet high, and two feet is four and two feet high". In 1976, the Datong Museum and the Shanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Work Committee jointly excavated and cleaned up the Yonggu Tomb. In the "Datong City Chronicle" edited by Yao Zijin, the situation of the mausoleum is recorded as follows: "The existing tomb is sealed with tall soil, sitting north to south, 22.87m high, the bottom of the tomb is square, 117m long from north to south, and 124m wide from east to west." The burial chamber is built in the center of the tomb and consists of a tomb passage, a tomb door, a front room, a Yongdao, and a back room, with a total length of 23.5 meters. The main room (rear chamber) is nearly square in plan, tall and spacious... It is 6.4m long from north to south, 6.83m wide from east to west, and 7.3m high. ”[4](P1593)

The above two sets of ancient and modern data are compared with each other, and it can be seen that the ruler and step length used to build the mausoleum are some of the present. Let's start with the mausoleum steps. Mr. Zhang Changgeng, former director of the Datong Archaeological Research Institute, once pointed out in "Wei Du Pingcheng Examination": "According to the Yonggu Tomb of Fangshan In the Northern Wei Dynasty, the step length was 'widely sixty steps,' about 120 meters today, and the step length was about 2 meters." [5] (P27) This is a divisor, and if it is accurately calculated, "widely sixty steps" is equal to "117 m long from north to south", and the combined step length is 1.95 m. In addition, the ancient took six feet as a step, and the length of the equivalent ruler should be 0.325m today. Looking at the inner chamber: "the room can be two zhang" is equal to "6.4m long from north to south". The second ruler, that is, 20 feet, is equivalent to 0.32 meters in length. Six feet is a step, and the length of the step should be 1.92m. Compared with the two sets of data, there are only slight differences, indicating that the data are reliable and the scale standards are consistent. As for the slightly larger count according to the mound, when it is caused by the slipping of the sealed soil after more than a thousand years of wind and rain, it should be calculated in the inner chamber, that is, the length of the ruler is 0.32m. From the "Book of Wei" of "Guangyang Wang Jia Biography", "Gao Lu Biography" and "Gao Cong Biography", it can be seen that the Northern Wei Dynasty also took three hundred steps as a mile, then 1 mile was 576m. This number is completely consistent with note 4 of the "Li" of the Hanyu Da Zidian: "The old construction library is 1 mile in the flat system of 1800 feet, and the metric system is 0.576 km".

Second, the construction of the ruler and the construction of the inside

In the Northern Wei Dynasty, according to relevant literature, there were three kinds of rulers, the front, middle and back, and their length was 0.27974 m from the "Comparative Table of The Scale of Later Wei" provided in the "Comparative Table of The Scales of the Past Dynasties" provided by Fan Wenlan's "Compendium of The General History of China" after the second part of the "Compendium of General History of China", and according to the proportional relationship between the front, middle and back rulers recorded in volume 16 of the Book of Sui, the front ruler should be 0.27882m, and the rear ruler should be 0.29591m long. So, why is it not one of the three feet used in the Yonggu Tomb, but is 0.32 meters long? Why is this ruler? Page 1667 of the 1979 edition of "Ciyuan" explains: "Step, the old way to create a foot five feet as a step. "Jin Shi Food Chronicle": "Measuring the field, to create a foot five feet as a step." [6] (Vol. 47, p1043) Both of the above historical sources mention the foot gauge as the "construction ruler". The 1979 edition of "Ciyuan" explains on page 1960: "The ruler of construction, since the Tang Dynasty, the ruler used by the Ministry of Works of the Tang Dynasty, also known as the ruler, is commonly known as the Luban ruler." A ruler fits 0.32m. Volume 108 of the Continuing Literature Examination of Weights and Measures: "The ruler of the merchant is the curved ruler used by the carpenter today." Gai from Luban to Tang, the Tang people call it a large ruler. Used by the Tang Dynasty to the present, it is known as the present ruler, also known as the construction ruler, the ancient so-called turning ruler. According to this, it is a "Luban ruler", and its origin should be earlier, and it has been used in the Tang Dynasty for generations, rather than in the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, it should not be accidental that the length of the ruler used in the Yonggu Tomb coincides with this, indicating that the "construction ruler" was also used in the Northern Wei Dynasty. In addition, it also shows that in the ancient pedometer, it is based on the construction ruler, not other rulers, so it is called "creating the inside" here. Moreover, if the Northern Wei Dynasty is counted separately, there will be three miles in one dynasty, which seems unreasonable. According to the "Encyclopedia of Cultural Relics and Ancient Chinese Rulers", the average length of the construction rulers in the Ming and Qing dynasties was 0.32m. Does this mean that the length of the construction ruler (Luban ruler) has always been consistent from the Northern Wei Dynasty to the Ming and Qing dynasties. Or this ruler has been used since Luban, and has been passed down from master to apprentice since then, dedicated to craftsmen, like a ruler of its own system, although it has gone through various dynasties and generations, but its length has always been the same, remaining unchanged.

As the name suggests, the building ruler is used when used to create. Successive dynasties have used craftsmen to create things, and the craftsmen should use to build rulers. Therefore, today's system of examination should also take ancient construction as an example, such as cities, guo, palaces, tombs, etc., because either ancient buildings still exist, or there are ruins to examine, and there are archaeological experts as evidence. As for the distance between the two places, it is difficult to determine the beginning and end of the two points, and the twists and turns are unclear, and it is difficult to say clearly. Therefore, it is reasonable to investigate the ancient construction, which should be based on the ancient construction, and the ancient construction should be based on the construction ruler.

III. The Generations before and after the Northern Wei Dynasty

The Northern Wei system is known, but what about the other generations? Let's look at the relevant records and references.

Book III of the Book of Wei records that the Northern Wei Pingcheng "Zhou Hui Twenty Li". According to Mr. Zhang Changgeng's research, "The Tang, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties have always been used by the ancient city of Yunzhong, that is, the Wei capital Pingcheng." [5] (P27) The Liao History and Geography records that the Datong Fu city in Xijing was "vast for twenty miles"[7] (vol. 41, P506), consistent with the perimeter of The Northern Wei Pingcheng, indicating that the Liaozhili system was the same as that of the Northern Wei. The "Jin Shi Food Chronicle" clearly and accurately records that "measuring the field to create a foot of five feet is a step". The length of the building ruler is 0.32m, the five feet is a step, each step is equivalent to 1.60m, and the 360 step is 1 mile, which is also 576m. As for the Kaifeng City of the Northern Song Dynasty, the "History and Geography of the Song Dynasty" records that the Zhou Hui was 50 miles and 165 steps. According to the research, the circumference of the outer city is 29126m, which is equivalent to 576.7m per mile, which is also consistent. In the Yuan Dynasty, it can be seen from the "Biography of Dong Boxiao" that it is still 360 steps and 1 mile, and it is also between Song and Ming, which should also be consistent.

The ming ruler is 0.32m, and the length of 1 mile is 576m. Ming Zhang Qinxiu's "Chronicle of Datong Province" records that the northern small city of Ming Datong was "Saturday Li" and the Datong Fu City was "Zhou Thirteen Li". The circumference of Datong North Small Town is 3508m, and the length of the meter is 584.5m. Is it a few meters more because the measurement site is different from the inside, outside, and inside the city? The measured length of Datong Fucheng is 7270.7m, equivalent to 559.3m, and if the two numbers are average, it is 571.9m long in 1 mile.

Like the Qing and Ming Dynasties, the length of the building ruler is also 0.32m, and the late Qing Dynasty re-defined the weights and measures, stipulating that the system is "five feet for steps, two steps for Zhang, ten Zhang for citations, and eighteen for one mile", that is, 1800 feet 1 li, with a length of 576 m.

In the Tang Dynasty, there were two imperial cities of Chang'an and Luoyang, and there were also records such as the Old Book of Tang, the New Book of Tang and the Southern Record of Youcheng, which quoted the "Chang'an Zhi", which had more data and more miscellaneous. It is discussed in two parts:

First, large and small rulers. Small ruler length 24.5cm, when the astronomical ruler; The large ruler, Wu Huiyue 29.494 cm, Sun Jiyue 29.67 cm, and the Architectural Design Data Collection is 29.58 cm, about 29.6 cm. This is obviously inherited from the 29.591cm of the Northern Wei Hou ruler, to the Northern Zhou City Ruler and the Sui Kaihuang official ruler 29.5911cm, which is relatively small and called a large ruler, but it is not a large ruler compared to the construction ruler. Explained in the "Etymology", "Tang Da ruler" should refer to the construction of a ruler.

Second, according to the inspection of the imperial cities of Chang'an and Luoyang, the combined step length is 1.212m ~ 1.958m, of which the Luoyang Imperial City is 1378 steps wide and the Chang'an Palace City is 1440 steps long, with an average step length of 1.585m. Consistent with the 1.584 m measured in the 805 steps (1275 m) of Luoyang Palace, the length of the ruler is 31.7 cm, and the length of the meter can be 436.32 m to 704.88 m. In a dynasty, the possibility of such a change in the system is unlikely, and the average of the two extremes is 570.6m in length, which is still close to creating a system.

According to the above discussion, the system before and after the Tang Dynasty was 576m, and the Tang Dynasty seemed to be an improper exception.

The Northern Wei Dynasty was a minority regime, and the rulers and systems used by them should come from those used by their predecessors in the Han regime, and would not be isolated and self-determined. As the Book of Wei records: "From Tude, color is still yellow, counting five... The right thing to do in the summer. Take zhenghan ancient city as an example: According to the description of Zhenghan's ancient city in the "Exploration and Discovery" column of CCTV on the evening of July 11, 2007, the circumference of the city is 25700m. According to Zhu Shiguang's "Eight Ancient Capitals of China": "The ancient city is irregularly rectangular, commonly known as the Forty-five Mile Bull Horn City." "The two-digit phase is equivalent to 571 m in length, which is close to 576 m, which is consistent with the ancient calculation of three hundred steps.

Speaking of Han Chang'an City, its city system has more records and the data is more chaotic. According to the Old Book of Tang and Geographical Records, "The ancient city of Han Chang'an is thirteen miles from east to west. "Net Fun City n to this is the same as Liu Zhao's annotation to the "Han Old Yi" "Chang'an City Fang Yi Thirteen Li" note in the "Book of Later Han and Geography", the same as the photocopy of the "Twenty-Five History", and also with today's archaeological data North Wall 7200m; The average data of 7600m on the south wall is basically the same, indicating that the construction system was also used in the Han Dynasty.

On the other hand, if the scale used in Han Dynasty architecture is based on the Han official ruler (0.23m), the east-west length of Han Chang'an City will reach 17.4 miles to 18.3 miles, which is inconsistent with the "thirteen miles" recorded above. According to the regulation of the tomb of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty mentioned above, "1.7 zhang in the Ming Dynasty" (3.91 m in total), "4.6 m square" (equivalent to 4.6 m square, the area is 21.16 m), which is 3.39 m lower than the inner chamber of the Feng tomb of Yonggu Ling (7.3 m high, 6.4 m north and south, 6.83 m east and west), more than 1.8m shorter on each side, and 22.55 m less. It seems to be a little small, but also a little low, not to mention the "inner zi coffin cypress yellow intestine inscription, to the second hundred officials to hide the end". Therefore, it is more appropriate to calculate in terms of construction yardsticks.

As for the "HanGuan Old Yi", "Han Old Yi", "Han Old Yi", "Three Auxiliary Yellow Figures" and "Shi Ji Lü Hou Ji" notes "Suo Yin" and other "Fang 60 Li", "Fang 63 Li", "Zhou 62 Li", "Zhou 65 Li", "Longitude and Latitude 12 Li", "Longitude and Latitude 32 Li 18 Steps" and so on, all of which are far from the above, only the "Later Han Book" note "Fang Yi Thirteen Li" is in line with archaeological reality. And although the city system recorded is different, there is one point that is consistent, that is, "973 acres of land", which is basically the same as "Fang Yi Thirteen Miles".

Since since the Warring States, Han, Northern Wei, Tang, Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan to Ming and Qing dynasties, the system is about 576m, can it be said that in addition to Zhouli, the scale used in the ancient jili has always been a ruler (Luban ruler), and the ruler has been passed down from master to apprentice, and its own system has never changed. The mile system has always been 1800 feet for 1 mile, so the length of the mile has always been 576m, which remains unchanged.

To sum up, in ancient China, the construction system was always used in activities such as building cities, building guo, camp palaces, and building tombs. If the mileage is measured, according to the drum car in the "History of Song" and the "Great Dictionary of Chinese History, Science and Technology History Volume", the drum car is described: the wheel is six feet, the turn is 18 feet (6 feet is the 3 steps of the step), and the 100 turns are 1800 feet for 1 mile. Only because the ancient Chinese pi value is 3, the 18 feet, it should be 18.85 feet, then the 1 mile measured by the drum car is about 603m, and the folk estimate by step measurement is equivalent to the system of the week, which is the same as that of the current city.

Notes on page 3106 of the Etymology: "The ruler, also known as the ruler. At first, the black millet seed was fixed, and the length and breadth of 1 grain was 1 point, and the 100 grain was 1 foot, so it was also called the longitudinal ruler. The author believes that the ancient system is based on the "Sima Law", and the ruler originates from the longitudinal ruler. In the archaeological research of China's archaeological community or Datong area, the benchmarks of ancient and modern length measurement units are not consistent, resulting in different ancient "Li" length calculations. It is suggested that in archaeological practice, the ancient ruler should be used as the benchmark to be more accurate.

Thanks. This article was triggered by reading relevant articles by Zhang Changgeng, Yin Xian, Li Gaocai, Zhang Zhuo, Yao Zijin and Mr. Zhao Yide on the ruins of Pingcheng, and the writing was pointed out by Mr. Yin Xian and professor Li Hai of Datong City Library, Jianyuan Review Company, Shanxi Datong University, as well as Gao Fushan, Guo Jisheng and other friends, and thank you together.