After a century of vicissitudes, Nanjing City Wall is a witness and participant in the development and transformation of Nanjing. Nowadays, Nanjing is taking "innovative city and beautiful ancient capital" as the beautiful vision of urban development, and is committed to building the "six beauty" Nanjing of "beautiful and tasteful, space can be integrated, history can be read, temperature can be perceived, and tranquility can be relied on". With the formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Protection and Development of Nanjing City Wall, Nanjing City Wall will be transformed into a world-class historical and cultural tourism business card with international influence in the future from the aspects of comprehensive protection, rational utilization, mechanism innovation and sustainable inheritance.
Unique value
Construct a cultural landmark in Nanjing
The Nanjing City Wall is the capital city wall of the Ming Dynasty of China, which was built in 1366, and is the longest, largest and best preserved ancient capital city wall in the world, known as the "world's largest city wall".
The Nanjing City Wall in the broad sense is a city defense system composed of four walls of Miyagi, Imperial City, Capital City and Waiguo City, and now the Nanjing City Wall in the narrow sense refers to the third beijing city wall. After the completion of the capital city wall of 35.267 kilometers, with 13 gates, it was the longest masonry and stone capital city wall in the world at that time.
After the Ming Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, Nanjing became the capital of Liu, and since then the city walls have been partially repaired. In the Qing Dynasty, the imperial city of Nanjing City Wall was transformed into a garrison city (commonly known as "Mancheng"), and the damage to the city wall of the capital was deepened due to war and lack of maintenance funds. In the late Qing Dynasty, due to the needs of urban defense and transportation, 1 urn city was added and 3 new city gates were opened. During the Republic of China period, the Nanjing city wall opened 8 city gates, 3 city gates were rebuilt, and 7 city gates were renamed. In December 1937, the invading Japanese army caused serious damage to the city wall during the attack on the city of Nanjing, and the wooden castle tower on the Zhonghua Gate was completely destroyed in the war. In the 1950s, due to the deviation of people's understanding, the Nanjing City Wall was demolished for 11.5 kilometers. Since the 1980s, Nanjing has set up a series of professional protection institutions for the permanent city wall and began to carry out large-scale repairs to the Nanjing city wall. 4/5 of the nanjing city wall and moat have been effectively protected, repaired and displayed, and a small number of demolished city wall foundations have also been protected in the form of ruins.
As a unique image logo and cultural landmark in Nanjing, Nanjing City Wall has unique heritage value, historical value, cultural value, ecological value and tourism value in the construction of a beautiful ancient capital.
The joint application for the "China Ming and Qing City Wall" is the only world cultural heritage project in Nanjing to take the lead in declaring, and the Nanjing City Wall, as the first batch of urban walls listed in the "China Ming and Qing City Wall" to declare the World Cultural Heritage Project, has a high degree of authenticity and integrity. The Nanjing City Wall makes full use of Nanjing's famous city of "Xiangjiang River with Lake, Mountain and Water, Dragon pan and Tiger", and builds along the trend of mountains and rivers to build a unique urban context of "Shanshui City Forest", which is an important cultural heritage that helps Nanjing become an outstanding representative of the world's ancient capital.
As the largest historical and cultural relic in Nanjing, the Nanjing City Wall contains rich historical information, which is of extraordinary significance for Nanjing to protect the overall style of the ancient capital and shape the world's famous historical city. Nanjing City Wall is the peak of the ancient Chinese urban wall construction technology, reflecting the inheritance, sublimation and summary of Chinese city-building ideas and technologies in successive dynasties, and is the epitome of the history of China's urban development and the history of city wall construction; the Nanjing City Wall connects the great ruins of the Ming Dynasty capital city, which is the foundation for restoring the pattern of the Ming Dynasty Nanjing Capital, reproducing the urban style of Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty, and outlining the historical picture of Nanjing in the Ming Dynasty; the Nanjing City Wall, which is more than 650 years old, has laid the urban spatial pattern of Nanjing, and played an irreplaceable role in the formation of the beautiful ancient capital pattern. It is the core framework for Nanjing to build a beautiful ancient capital.
The construction of the Nanjing City Wall cost about 380 million pieces of inscription city bricks, and the system of "material work names" was uniformly adopted, and the names of the city brick production area, the officials responsible for firing, the heads of grass-roots organizations, and craftsmen were all engraved on the city bricks. These city bricks come from large and small brick kiln farms in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and contain historical and cultural information such as administrative divisions, local official systems, rural grass-roots organizations, calligraphy culture, and local folk customs in the Yangtze River area in the early Ming Dynasty. City bricks of different colors produced by the slight differences in soil quality and kiln techniques in different regions; various ways of making inscriptions such as molding, engraving, and writing; multiple writing fonts such as seals, letters, lines, and grasses; city wall bricks with interesting contents such as chronicle bricks, auspicious bricks, and symbol bricks; and a large number of simplified characters and variant characters reflecting the evolution of Chinese characters in brick texts are all reflections of the Yangtze River culture in the early Ming Dynasty, adding cultural "thickness" to the construction of Nanjing's beautiful ancient capital.
The moat system of the Nanjing City Wall is 31,159 meters in circumference, which is well preserved and still plays a role today. In ancient times, the wide and deep moat and the strong city wall together formed a solid defense system to defend the city of Nanjing; at the same time, through the city wall water pass, culvert, etc. to communicate with the city's water system, the city's flood control and drainage, material transportation, urban production and living water, environmental beautification and other functions played a role. Nowadays, the moat system has become an important part of Nanjing's "Shanshui City Forest", providing a good urban environment and leisure space for citizens.
Nanjing City Wall is an "open-air museum" containing a rich history and culture, which connects many scenic spots in Nanjing in the modern urban pattern, forms a unique landscape of "Shanshui City Forest", has the strength to create a world-class cultural business card, and builds a comprehensive tourism system of Ming City Wall that integrates culture, ecology, leisure and humanities.
Innovative development
Create a charming space with unique characteristics of the times
In 2014, the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center was established to bring the entire city wall under the management of the center; in 2019, the Ming Palace Museum Ruins Park was also assigned to unified management. In the past seven years, the city wall center has taken the "heritage application" work as the starting point and the cultural relics protection and scientific research work as the basis to promote the integration of culture and tourism, and built the Nanjing city wall into a charming space that reflects the integration of ancient and modern times and has unique characteristics of the times.
In the past seven years, the Nanjing City Wall has formed an advanced protection concept, a perfect protection mechanism, and a scientific protection system, and divided the protection of the Nanjing City Wall into five categories: preventive protection, daily protection, repair protection, emergency protection and exploratory protection, and comprehensively repair and protect the Nanjing City Wall and its surrounding auxiliary buildings.
In 2015, the "Regulations on the Protection of the Nanjing City Wall" was officially promulgated, becoming the first special legal regulation of the Nanjing City Wall, which made the protection of the Nanjing City Wall embark on the road of legalization, standardization and strictness.
With the strong support and guidance of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, relevant provincial and municipal departments and scientific research institutions, the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center has carried out a series of protection work. For example, a number of city wall body restoration projects such as 2300 meters from Zhongshanmen to Biwa Lake, 900 meters from Biaoyingmen to Guanghua East Street, and 200 meters from Xigan Long Lane have been completed to achieve the basic breakthrough of the top surface of the city wall; the protective display project of the "wall in the wall" of the qianhu section has been praised by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, which is called "the 'innovative measure' of the domestic protection project"; in addition, the environmental improvement along the city wall has been done well, and the 22 kilometers of the entire 8 sections of the city wall have been fully opened.
In recent years, the Nanjing city wall has realized the transition from rescue protection to preventive protection, large-scale maintenance work has been basically completed, and a full-line security monitoring system has been built. At the same time, in accordance with the requirements of the application for heritage, we will actively promote the construction of the Nanjing City Wall Monitoring and Early Warning Platform; important cultural relics protection and display projects such as the Zhonghuamen Urn City Protection Project and the Ming Palace Museum Site Exhibition and Display Project are also in preparation.
Research work is the basis for protecting, utilizing and inheriting the Nanjing City Wall. Since its establishment, the City Wall Center has absorbed dozens of multidisciplinary doctoral and master talents, established the Basic Research Department, and promoted the full blossoming of the research work on the Nanjing City Wall, and achieved fruitful research results in just a few years. Under the continuous exploration, the basic research work of Nanjing City Wall has gradually formed a "4+1" model, that is, it has been vigorously carried out in five aspects: an academic research brand, an international organization, a key laboratory, a scientific research model and a number of academic topics.
Created the "Cultural Tourism Pioneer + 'Wall Science' Research under the International Perspective" party building brand, continuously extended to other chinese city walls and even the world, and achieved many academically influential achievements: founded the first domestic "City Wall" research professional series "China City Wall", which was included in CNKI and appeared in the Academic Achievements Exhibition of the Chinese Historical Research Institute, which was highly recognized by domestic and foreign academic circles; published "China's Ancient City Wall", "Inscription World - Nanjing City Wall Brick Text", "The City Wall of The Years Passed down the City - The Old Shadow of the City Wall in Old Photos", "The Old Shadow of the City Wall in the Old Photos", "The Ancient City Wall of China" More than ten academic and interesting books, such as "Research on the Ruins of Brick Kilns of Nanjing City Wall", "Heart City: Memory of Nanjing City Wall", "City Wall of China's Ming and Qing Dynasties", etc., have won funding from the National Publishing Fund and various awards; published more than 100 academic papers, many of which have been published in core journals and won various provincial and municipal awards; actively integrated with the international community, hosting the "2018 International Forum on the Protection and Utilization of Nanjing City Walls", and appearing in the "World Heritage" magazine published by UNESCO. It became the first cultural and cultural institution in China to join the international organization of ICOFORT (International Council on Monuments and Sites Committee on Urban Defense and Military Heritage).
The outstanding role of the imperial court; the project "Comparative Study on the Value of the Ruins of the Ming City Wall and the Liangzhu Ancient City in Nanjing" published the "Imperial Capital Royal City - From liangzhu Royal City to the Ming Empire" and media books, which profoundly showed the continuity of liangzhu royal city to the ming emperor's capital and demonstrated the cultural heritage value of the ming nanjing city.
Form a scientific research model of "one academy, two sessions", with the China City Wall Research Institute, the Nanjing City Wall Research Association, and the Nanjing Ancient City Wall Protection Foundation as the framework, to promote the scientific protection and academic research of the Nanjing City Wall in an all-round way. At the same time, it has carried out strategic cooperation with the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage of Nanjing University, the Multimedia Science and Education Center of Nanjing University, and the School of Humanities of Jinling University of Science and Technology to promote the high-quality development of basic research on the nanjing city wall.
Carry out more than 30 provincial and municipal research projects, involving the history and culture of the city wall, protection and repair, scientific utilization, comparative research on Chinese and world city walls, etc., to comprehensively enhance the scientific research strength of nanjing city wall and dig deep into the historical and cultural connotation of Nanjing city wall. A number of project achievements have won honors in provincial and municipal selection activities.
Activation and utilization
From "Ming City Wall" to "People's City Wall"
The Nanjing City Wall is the "Ming City Wall", but also the "People's City Wall". In recent years, under the background of the integration of national culture and tourism, the city wall center has sublimated the content depth of tourism projects and enhanced the quality connotation of the tourism industry by releasing the vitality of the city wall culture, and at the same time, spreads the culture of the Nanjing city wall through tourism experience, highlights the beauty of the ancient capital of Nanjing, intertwines culture and tourism, and activates the inherent vitality of the Nanjing city wall.
In the past seven years, the Nanjing City Wall has successfully explored a series of new ways to revitalize and utilize heritage. Create the brand of "Books Full of Fragrance", use the internal space of Nanjing City Wall, and create ten reading places for the whole people, such as Jiefang Mentaicheng Study Room and Wuding Gate Wall; hold colorful cultural activities, "Seventy Miles Around the City, Walking to Help Apply for Heritage", "City Gate Hanging Spring League, Ancient Capital Opening Red", "Nanjing City Wall Photography Contest", "Nanjing City Wall Global Chinese Poetry Collection Contest", "Standing on the City Wall to See the Moon", etc.; Innovate the city wall exhibition method, use the city wall as a primary and secondary school education base, and carry out various public welfare activities; create a cultural and creative brand, and design out" There are more than 900 kinds of cultural and creative products of Nanjing City Wall in 14 series such as "Jubao Culture" and "Wufu Linmen".
While doing a good job in the revitalization of heritage, the City Wall Center attaches great importance to the publicity, exchange and cultural promotion of the Nanjing City Wall. Through the original Peking Opera "Daming City Wall" and the 100-episode documentary "The Story of The Chinese City Wall", which covers nearly 200 episodes of the country, the cultural attraction and influence of the Nanjing City Wall have been effectively enhanced, and the popularity of the Ming City Wall at home and abroad has been significantly enhanced.
In recent years, under the leadership of the Joint Application Office of the Ming and Qing Dynasties of China, the City Wall Center has cooperated with other cities applying for heritage and made joint efforts to hold a joint meeting on the application for the heritage every year, actively promoting the smooth progress of various applications and writing a new chapter for the Nanjing City Wall on the basis of protecting, inheriting and making good use of the historical and cultural value of the Nanjing City Wall. At present, the Miyagi (Ming Palace) in the four walls of the Nanjing City Wall has also been included in the "Maritime Silk Road" heritage declaration project as the main application site, and the Nanjing City Wall has two application points at the same time, the Beijing City Wall and the Miyagi City Wall.
Future outlook
Actively promote the process of applying for heritage
Proceeding from the aspects of comprehensive protection, rational utilization, mechanism innovation and sustainable inheritance, the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center has formulated the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Protection and Development of Nanjing City Wall", which includes a number of innovative development strategies and highlight projects.
Promote the process of applying for the "double heritage point" of the Beijing City Wall and the Ming Forbidden City. Integrate the joint application for the Ming and Qing Dynasty City Walls of China, the "Maritime Silk Road" application for heritage and the protection of nanjing intangible cultural heritage, and accelerate the process of applying for heritage.
Plan the construction of the Nanjing Ming Palace National Archaeological Site Park, actively promote the implementation of environmental remediation in the core area of the Ming Palace Site and the display of key relics, improve the landscape lighting environment of the Ming Palace Ruins Park, increase the public service infrastructure for leisure and entertainment at night, and build a "Night Ming Palace Ruins Park" with unique charm. Collect data and information and collate image resources for the cultural relics of the Ming Palace, establish the earliest digital archive of the Ming Palace Site, and use the "Ming Palace Museum" WeChat Mini Program to publicize and display the relevant cultural relics resources of the Ming Palace Museum site online. At the same time, the Xi'an Gate and Donghua Gate in the great ruins of the Ming Palace will be returned to the Nanjing City Wall Protection and Management Center, expand the scope of functions of the Ming Palace Palace Management Office, and form a pattern of protection of the great ruins of the Ming Palace.
Do a good job in the research and planning of the moat heritage under the integration of the city and the river. Published books such as "Research on the Moat System of Nanjing City Wall" to clarify the history and current situation of the moat system of Nanjing City Wall and expound the heritage value of the moat system. At the same time, we will strengthen the historical and cultural research and protection of Stone City and Qingliangshan, plan to unify the management of Nanjing Stone City Park (Nanjing National Defense Park) and the Nanjing Qingliangshan Park Management Office, further sort out the space along the Qinhuai River inside and outside, and depict the historical and cultural picture of the integration of the city and the river, ancient and modern.
Accelerate the protection and unified management of the Nanjing Mingwaiguo system. Prepare for the establishment of the Nanjing Mingwaiguo Ruins Museum, carry out unified planning and unified display of the Waiguo ruins, strengthen the excavation and interpretation of the value of waiguo as an important part of the four-fold city wall, and comprehensively revitalize the cultural tourism resources of the Waiguo ruins.
Promote the protection and research of the great ruins of the Capital City of the Ming Dynasty with the Nanjing City Wall as the framework. The four-fold city walls of Miyagi, Imperial City, Beijing City and Waiguo and their ancillary buildings are systematically planned, and the four-fold city wall is used to connect the relevant sites of the Ming Dynasty capital city of Nanjing, and reproduce the pattern and appearance of the Ming Dynasty capital.
Construct a cultural heritage structure of the Yangtze River with brick kilns as the core. On the basis of the unified management of the Qixiashan Brick Kiln Museum as a branch of the Nanjing City Wall Museum, the Qixia Mountain Brick Kiln Museum is under the unified management, the protection of the brick kiln ruins in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is the core work, conserving the historical and cultural roots of the Yangtze River; in-depth study of the cultural connotation of the brick kiln site, and constantly enriching and developing the Yangtze River culture, so that the Yangtze River cultural heritage with the brick kiln as the core becomes a magnificent chapter under the huge system of Yangtze River culture.
At the end of this year, the Nanjing City Wall Museum located on the east side of the Zhonghua Gate will meet with you, as the largest city wall thematic museum in China, it will become an "important hall" for protecting and inheriting the culture of the Nanjing city wall and urban civilization, and will also add a classic that shows the culture of the city wall to Nanjing. In the future, the Nanjing City Wall will further take the Nanjing City Wall Museum as the position, cohesiveness, innovative practice, effective protection, inheritance and good use of the Nanjing City Wall, and use the four-fold city wall to protect the beautiful ancient capital, so that innovation and development can brighten the city business card.
Proofread by Xu Heng
Source: Purple Cow News