The ignition method of the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games is related to the Greek fire
The main venue of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games▼
With the end of 2021 and the coming of 2022, in addition to the traditional spring (holiday) festival (period), I am afraid that the only thing that can make the world excited is the Winter Olympics on February 4 (the fourth day of the first month of January). In fact, this year, China not only hosted the Winter Olympics, a sports event, but also the 19th Asian Games. The Asian Games was held in Hangzhou from September 10 to September 25, 2022, and since then it has been held in Zhejiang for many times (Ningbo Division, Wenzhou Division, Jinhua Division, Shaoxing Division, Huzhou Division), and the facilities related to the Asian Games in Hangzhou have been basically completed. It is worth noting that two new competitions have been added this year, e-sports and breakdancing.
As the core city of The Hangzhou Metropolitan Area, Hangzhou has long attracted much attention, known for its beautiful scenery and high-tech industry, in fact, Hangzhou has had a high political status since ancient times, whether it is the six ancient capitals or the eight ancient capitals, Hangzhou is among them. However, many people in the world have questioned the status of Hangzhou as an ancient capital. After all, during the Southern Song Dynasty, Lin'an, the predecessor of Hangzhou, was not the legal capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. After the fall of Kaifeng Province in Tokyo, although Hangzhou was the most densely populated national metropolis among the remaining provinces of the Song Dynasty, Hangzhou's identity was still only a "walking place" until the fall of the Southern Song Dynasty (the place where the emperor settled, in fact, can be seen from the Linzi).
Hangzhou▼
In fact, the situation is similar to that of Japan, which is full of water and water in China, and to this day Japan does not have a legal capital (although Japan promulgated the Capital Construction Act in 1950 to formally stipulate that Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the act was repealed after only 6 years (June 9, 1956), and the Japanese government has never promulgated a new law on which city to designate as the capital).
Southern Song Dynasty Lin'an▼
However, Hangzhou also had a glorious moment in China's long history as a true capital.
In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, the feudal towns were divided, and there was a situation of warlord chaos in the whole country. On the eastern coast, Qian Miao, who was born in the cold, raised troops from his hometown of Hangzhou, followed Dong Chang to defend the township against the rebel army, and was worshipped by Tang Zhaozong as an envoy to the town navy for his outstanding merits, and then pacified Dong Chang (Emperor Luoping of Dayue), who was rebellious and rebellious, and basically controlled the two Zhejiang thirteen prefectures led by Hangzhou, and eventually divided the power of the emperor.
After that, no matter how the situation in the north changed, Qian Miao was still able to protect the people on one side, although he was successively enfeoffed by the Tang Dynasty, Later Liang, and Later Tang, but during his reign, there was basically no large-scale war in the two Zhejiang regions, and it was precisely because of this that Qian Miao was able to pull out his hands to carry out construction. After Qian Miao's governance, the two Zhejiang regions showed a thriving scene in a very short period of time, the economic prosperity of the two Zhejiang Provinces, the benefits of fishing salt and silkworms in Jiangnan, in addition to many scribes gathered in the two Zhejiang, Wu Yueguo has also been known for its talent and literary prosperity.
The end of the Tang Dynasty made a degree of envoy▼
At this time, as the fierce large-scale war in northern China continued to break out, the scale of China's second population migration to the south became larger and larger, and the south, which was far away from the war, naturally became the first choice of the people of the southward migration. Wu Yue and other southern regimes took advantage of this opportunity to absorb a large number of scholars, coupled with Qian Miao's good administration, the economy and culture of the two Zhejiang provinces entered a period of rapid development, but at that time, with the wealth of Wu Yueguo, it also aroused the covetousness and envy of nearby separatist forces.
Although many small southern states in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, their comprehensive strength and war mobilization ability, compared to the northern Later Liang, Later Tang and other countries, but still have to defend the territory and protect the territory, not to mention that the territory of Wu Yueguo is already small and surrounded by strong enemies, naturally it is necessary to maintain a high level of combat strength (the main opponent is Huainan Jiedushi Yang Xingmi). Although Wu Yueguo was relatively stable, there were also rebellions by subordinates (such as Dai Yun, Li Ruyun and others), and Wu Yueguo paid attention to civil rule, but also paid considerable attention to armament, after all, Qian Miao started with military merit, and naturally knew that the country could not be without armament.
From the founding of Qian Miao to the time when The last lord of Wu Yue, Qian Hongli, returned to the Song Dynasty according to his ancestral instructions, the State of Wu Yue had already divided Zhejiang for seventy-two years (actually ruled for eighty-six years), which was quite rare in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, when usurpation and self-reliance were extremely frequent.
Wu Yueguo▼
The reason why wu yueguo's state was able to last so long was that, in addition to being far away from the Yellow River Valley, where wars frequently broke out, and the successive monarchs were more virtuous and focused on people's livelihood, they also possessed a high-tech mysterious weapon that may have come from eastern Rome for that era.
In the "History of Wu Yue Bei" written by Wu Yueguo Qian Yu (Qian Hongli's younger brother), the unique tactics used by Wu Yue Guo in internal and external wars are recorded in detail, and there is a passage in which it is worthy of in-depth study: The hainan food country where fire oil is obtained is sent out with iron cylinders, and the water is fertile and its flames are flourishing. The meaning of this passage is that the Wuyue army will use a device similar to a flamethrower, and use an iron cylinder to spray out a liquid called "fire oil" (also known as "fierce fire oil") during the battle, even if the enemy tries to use water, it will not extinguish, but will make the fire more and more vigorous. At that time, this weapon was produced in Hangzhou City, after all, to prevent leakage. It is quite interesting that Qian Mu is the use of precious metals to make the key components of the fierce fire oil cabinet, the reason for this, in fact, there is a deep intention, if the fierce fire oil tank is unfortunately captured by the enemy on the battlefield, the enemy soldiers will most likely steal the precious metal on the fierce fire oil tank first, so that the fierce fire oil tank naturally cannot be used.
After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, with the large-scale application of gunpowder to the military, the military industry experts of the Song Dynasty upgraded the equipment used by the Wu Yue Army, and eventually formed a fierce fire oil tank. The "Great Eater of the South China Sea" mentioned by Qian Yu in the "History of Wu YueBei" is the Arab Empire in the Middle East.
Fierce fire oil cabinet▼
In fact, the "fierce fire oil tank" is a flame pump composed of hydraulic oil cylinder as the main mechanism, in the Song Renzong period of the official comprehensive military work "Wujing General Essentials", there is a very detailed description of the use of "fierce fire oil tank" and structure, which has a special introduction to the "fierce fire oil tank" used.
According to the "General Outline of the Martial Classics", it uses fierce fire oil as fuel, uses cooked copper as a cabinet, has 4 feet under it, has 4 copper pipes on it, and places a transverse cylinder on the pipe, which communicates with the oil cabinet, and each time it is injected with about 1.5 kg of oil. The front of the cylinder is equipped with a "fire tower" containing gunpowder. When firing, use a red-hot cone to ignite the ignition powder in the "fire tower", and then pull the cylinder vigorously to compress the air into the oil cabinet, so that when the fierce fire hole is spewed out through the "fire building", it is ignited in the heat and becomes a flame, which is used to burn the enemy and burn the war equipment, or to burn the pontoon bridge and battleship in the water war. In fact, there is also a small flamethrower used for defensive warfare and water warfare, using copper gourds instead of oil tanks to facilitate carrying and moving.
In fact, the fierce fire oil is transformed on the basis of petroleum, as early as more than 2000 years ago, at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, China discovered and used oil, in the late Western Han Dynasty it was called "stone paint", and the Tang Dynasty "stone fat water" is actually oil. The first time that the name "oil" appeared in China was the "Mengxi Pen Talk" written by the Song Dynasty scientist Shen Kuo, and it is worth mentioning that Shen Kuo was also a hangzhou native.
As for the Greek fire used by Wu Yueguo, although it was learned from the Hands of the Arab Empire, it was the Eastern Rome that was first created and applied to the war. In 668 AD, a Syrian craftsman named Galinikos invented the weapon and brought it to Constantinople, where it soon became the great weapon of the Eastern Roman Empire, defeating the Arab Navy several times (the Arabs called it the Roman fire) and saving the Eastern Roman Empire from extinction many times. For such sharp weapons, the Eastern Romans naturally adopted very strict confidentiality measures to prevent the leakage of the formula.
Restoration of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire
The development and production of Greek fire was carried out in the Eastern Roman Palace, and not even anything about Greek fire was allowed. Although the Eastern Roman Empire adopted strict secrecy measures, it was eventually leaked out. In 827 AD, the Eastern Roman rebel general Euphumulius leaked the recipe for Greek fire to the Arabs, and weapons similar to Greek fire appeared in many countries since then.
As for whether the "fierce fire oil" used by the WuYue army was the Greek fire used by the Eastern Roman Navy, there is no literature to confirm it. In fact, not only Wu Yueguo, but all similar weapons that have appeared around the world since then, their sources point to the Arab Empire. In addition to China, the medieval countries of Western Europe, Britain, France and other countries, Turks and even the Crusaders used Greek fire extensively in warfare. Later Liang and Later Tang, who were contemporaneous with Wu Yue, according to the records of the "History of Wu Yue Bei", in many wars between Later Liang and Later Tang, both sides used fierce fire oil, and the most famous Later Tang founding emperor Li Cunxun (the famous Lingguan Tianzi Li Tianxia) twice used fierce fire oil to repel the attack of the Later Liang army.
Wu Yueguo is far away from the big food country, and the reason why fierce fire oil can cross the ocean and appear in Hangzhou also helps us prove the existence of the Maritime Silk Road at that time. With the severance of the traditional overland Silk Road, trade on the Maritime Silk Road inevitably flourished. It is worth mentioning that the term Silk Road was first proposed in 1877 by the German geogeographer Richthofen in his book "China".
Maritime Silk Road▼
After all, the cities of Chang'an and Luoyang at that time had long been dilapidated, and China's economic center had shifted eastward to south, and many Arabs came to China by sea to trade. Today, in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, there is such a group of Arab descendants, which is also the only ethnic minority township in Jiangsu - Lingtang Hui Nationality Township. In fact, at that time, not only Arabs came to China, but Jews also came to China during the Tang and Song Dynasties, mainly concentrated in the city of Bieliang, and even formed a Jewish community during the Northern Song Dynasty. However, with the development of the times, the descendants of Jews have long been integrated into the Chinese family, and most of them are defined as Han or Hui, and there is a similar situation in The Macao area, they are native Portuguese, and about 10,000 Macanese live in China today, and all have Chinese nationality.
Hangzhou is one of the centers of China's maritime foreign trade and cultural exchanges. Wu Yueguo, whose capital was Hangzhou, naturally obtained raw materials and recipes for "fierce fire oil" from Arab merchants, after all, the Arabs' secrecy measures were not as good as those of the Eastern Romans.
In fact, Hangzhou's status is not just a seaport so simple, China's southeast coast of the good port is many, and Hangzhou is also the mouth of the Qiantang River and the Starting City of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Qiantang River goes deep into the mountains of Zhejiang, the Grand Canal goes directly to the hinterland of the Central Plains, and Hangzhou, which integrates many waterway transportation hubs, naturally has the potential to develop into a big city.
However, after the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was opened for a long time, Hangzhou did not enter the most prosperous cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, or even the center of Zhejiang, after all, huijian was the most prosperous area in Zhejiang. In terms of foreign sea trade, Guangzhou and Ningbo were the first choices of foreign maritime merchants, and it was not until Qian Miao came to power that Hangzhou really developed. In fact, Hangzhou started quite late, and was not upgraded to a city until the eleventh year of the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui (591 AD).
After the founding of Qian Miao, Hangzhou, as the capital of wuyue state, naturally attracted much attention for its development. Due to the tense relations between Wu Yue and the neighboring Southern Wu and Southern Tang regimes, in order to continue the state's defense of the border and the people, Qian Wei took advantage of Wu Yue's developed water transportation and actively established close relations with the northern regime.
In addition, Wu Yue also maintained economic, trade, cultural and political exchanges with many countries around the world at that time, and even acted as the right of the Orthodox Dynasty of the Central Plains, as a suzerainty to communicate with East Asian and Northeast Asian countries, such as the later Baekje, Bohai, Silla and other countries, Qian Wei even crowned a number of kings, rebuilding the tributary system of the clan that disappeared after the fall of the Tang Dynasty.
In particular, diplomatic relations with Japan, which had been severed for many years, were restored (as early as the eve of the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Japan basically stopped sending envoys to the Tang Dynasty). In the chaotic era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, in the era when Qian Miao was in charge of Wu Yueguo, the image of "China" was re-established in the Confucian cultural circle.
The West Lake (also known as Qiantang Lake), which combines transportation and irrigation, was re-dredged during the reign of Qian. While the Qiantang River and other rivers have brought abundant water resources to the Hangjiahu Plain and the Ningshao Plain in northern Zhejiang, they have also caused their rivers to swing frequently due to the influence of the ocean, and frequent breaches of the embankment have seriously affected agricultural production and the safety of people's lives and property in northern Zhejiang. For example, the tide of the Qiantang River at the end of the Tang Dynasty destroyed thousands of acres of fertile land, but in fact, this situation occurred in all coastal areas of the world before the development of science and technology.
As we all know, Qian Miao is a monarch who pays special attention to people's livelihood, and he naturally will not let the floods be afflicted in the township, and Zhejiang is also his hometown. Soon after solving the external problems, Qian Wei not only set up a water camp envoy to be responsible for the construction and maintenance of water conservancy projects, but also urgently to control floods and coastal intrusions.
Hanhai Stone Pond▼
Qian Miao, the king of Wuyue State Wusu, gathered 200,000 people and built the famous Hanhai Shitang, forming a strong seawall and ancillary facilities, which can be described as an important water conservancy project integrating irrigation and disaster prevention, and this move laid the prosperity of Hangzhou for thousands of years. In addition, Wu Yueguo also built weir gates in the Taihu Lake Basin to store floods in time, not to fear drought and floods, and established a maintenance system for the water network polder area, which consists of many fields and ponds, and the land is anointed, with the words "Nearzawa Zhitianmei". It was at this time that there was a saying that "Qiantang was rich in the southeast". Qian Wei also encouraged the expansion of land reclamation, from "no abandoned land in the territory", and the years were mature and rich, and Qian Miao was therefore honored by the people of the two Zhejiang Provinces as the "Sea Dragon King".
In fact, the rulers of Zhejiang all paid more attention to people's livelihood issues, such as Zhang Shicheng, the king of Wu during the chaotic period at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, who also paid special attention to people's livelihood issues. As for the Hanhai Stone Pond built during the Qianmiao period, even after eight hundred years of sea tide erosion, until the Yongzheng period, the main part of the Hanhai Stone Pond still stands on the coast.
In fact, the impact of the Qiantang River is far more than this, it is precisely because the problem of coastal intrusion in Zhejiang is too serious, so that Zhejiang has formed an indissoluble relationship with the ocean since ancient times. Whenever the tide of the Qiantang River comes (around the eighth month of the lunar calendar every year), the young and middle-aged people in Hangzhou go down to the sea to meet it, churning in the tide of the Qiantang River that swallows the heavens and the sky, showing people that they can control and conquer the monstrous waves. Dare to fight the wind and waves In the eyes of the people in the coastal areas, this is also a symbol of courage, and this is also the origin of the tide.
Get wet▼
This kind of atmosphere is quite prevalent in Zhejiang, in fact, this spirit is not only reflected in fighting the wind and waves. China's traditional top ten merchant gangs, only the Ningbo merchant gang in Zhejiang has survived, and the commercial development of other parts of Zhejiang is still dominant in China. After all, there are a group of talented people who can still empty their inventory in the event of a tannery closure.
To this day, this spirit of tide making is still inherited by the people of Hangzhou. As the pioneer of reform and opening up, Hangzhou, after more than 40 years of development, high-tech industries have also blossomed everywhere in Hangzhou, which is not only the core city of the Hangzhou Bay Greater Bay Area, but also the central city of the Shanghai-Jiahang G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor and an important international e-commerce center.
In 2020, the core industries of the digital economy have accounted for 26.6% of Hangzhou's GDP, and as high-tech enterprises such as Alibaba lag behind Hangzhou, the Internet economy has become a new economic growth point in Hangzhou. Under the background of economic prosperity and the extensive absorption of high-tech industries, Hangzhou's science, education, culture and public health undertakings have developed in an all-round way. In recent years, the 11th G20 Summit (September 2016) and the 14th World Short Course Swimming Championships (December 2018) have been held in Hangzhou, and the future network test facility has been officially opened in Hangzhou (June 2019), and now Hangzhou has been promoted to the fifth place in China's top 100 cities (2020) and promoted to a Chinese megacity.
It is precisely because of Hangzhou's strong comprehensive strength and experience in successfully hosting many large-scale conferences and events that Hangzhou can become the host city of the 19th Asian Games in 2022. Hangzhou will uphold the concept of "Smart Olympics" and show its city style to Asian countries and the world.
Hangzhou Asian Games▼
As of the end of this article, the opening ceremony of the Hangzhou Asian Games ignition creative activities are still in full swing, here I would like to provide a way of thinking, the fierce fire oil tank is a model of ancient Chinese technology application, witnessing the prosperous years in the history of Hangzhou, but also the product of ancient Chinese Cultural Exchanges between the East and the West, representing the openness, progress and tolerance of the city of Hangzhou.
The ignition opening ceremony I envision is for the last person to pass the torch of the flame, use the flame to ignite the fierce fire oil, and then take a boat through the surging tide of the Qiantang River, and finally approach the torch tower, and then start the fierce fire oil cabinet to spray the flame out through the water curtain, and light the Asian Games torch called "Fire", and at the same time, a large number of drones are gathered over the torch tower remotely to form an overview map of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou in 2022, in order to show Hangzhou's openness to the world and the spirit of tide making.
Fire▼