At the time of the Song and Yuan dynasties, there was a monk named Liu Bingzhong.
This learned wizard, as a monk, went north to meet Kublai Khan and became his number one adviser.
Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, believed that his cultural level was not very good, and he valued Liu Bingzhong very much. From divination and fortune telling to drawing up the name of the country, there are the credits of Lao Liu.
As the Yuan Dynasty gradually completed its unification, Kublai Khan asked Liu Bingzhong to build a new capital city northeast of jinzhongdu's former site, Yuan Dadu (present-day Beijing).
Therefore, Liu Bingzhong took top talents such as guo shoujing and Arabs and Hei Die'er, and spent all his life learning to find an ideal capital city plan for yuan capital.
Modeled on the ancient system of the Zhou Li, they used the four-square city gate and the vertical and horizontal streets to form the layout of "Left Ancestor Right Society, Former Dynasty and Later City", and in the city, with a central axis as the control line, the palace and the city were built, and its central point was at the location of the later Beijing Drum Tower.
The construction of the Yuan capital was not completed until 1285, and Liu Bingzhong could not see the whole picture of the new city during his lifetime.
However, the central axis he depicts has been inherited, remodeled and extended in a long history, until the present, into the digital world. The vitality of this line has long exceeded Liu Bingzhong's imagination.
Photo | overlooking the Forbidden City and Beijing's central axis · Figureworm creative
The central axis of culture
More than a hundred years after the yuan capital was built, the city has another heavyweight fan - Ming Chengzu Zhu Di.
During the Yongle period (1403-1424), Zhu Di, who won the victory in the Battle of Jingnan, moved the capital of the Ming Empire to his "land of Longxing" Beiping, and promoted Beiping to Beijing.
The emperor moved, and that was a big deal.
Therefore, Zhu Di launched a new city-building project in Beijing, and promoted countless skilled craftsmen, such as Ku Xiang, who was born in Xiangshan, Suzhou.
Ku Xiang came from a family of carpenters, and was only in his twenties when he was used by Zhu Di. From the halls and halls to the pavilions, even the drawings he drew at will satisfy the emperor. Later, when Ku Xiang rebuilt the three halls of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Gate (known as Chengtianmen in the Ming Dynasty), he made great contributions, and the official was served by the Ministry of Works, and the emperor repeatedly called him", calling him "Kuluban".
It was through the hands of craftsmen such as Ku Xiang that Liu Bingzhong's ideas were inherited.
National projects such as the Forbidden City, the Taimiao Temple, the Sheji Altar, the Temple of Heaven and Earth (today's Temple), and the Mountain and River Temple (now the Agricultural Temple) have risen from the ground. The majestic Bell and Drum Tower stands at the center of the Yuan Dadu and becomes the northern end of this central axis, and the city as a whole has moved 1 kilometer to the south.
Later, during the Ming Jiajing period, a large-scale construction of the outer city, the entire central axis continued to be extended, the south to Yongding Gate, a total length of about 8 kilometers, and the existing central axis basically coincided, connecting the Zhengyang Gate, Chessboard Street, Thousand Steps Corridor, Forbidden City, Jingshan, Di'anmen, Wanning Bridge and other important buildings.
On this central axis, there is traditional Chinese philosophical thought.
The picture | schematic map of the layout of Beijing city in the Ming and Qing dynasties
As early as the pre-Qin classic "Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji" recorded, "The craftsman camped the country ... Left Zu Right Society, former Dynasty And hou market". This is the capital city planning 3,000 years ago, and it is also the target of Beijing's central axis.
If you use digital technology, you "cross" back to the Ming and Qing Dynasties Beijing City.
Entering the city from south to north from the Yongding Gate, along the way, the Royal Temple of Heaven, the Taimiao Temple that worships the ancestors, and the Xiannong Altar and the Sheji Altar that protect jiangshan Sheji are arranged on the east and west sides of the central axis, on the one hand, symbolizing the worship of heaven and the ancestors, on the other hand, it symbolizes the guotai min'an, on the one hand, it is reverence for the past, and on the other hand, it is the expectation of the future.
Picture | Above: Temple of Heaven; Bottom: Xiannong Temple
It is said that in the nineteenth year of Yongle (1421), after Zhu Di officially moved the capital, the Taimiao officials invited him to plant a cypress tree in the courtyard.
At that time, no matter how many trees were planted in the Temple, it was difficult to survive, so some people took the opportunity to publicize that only when the emperor himself planted trees, the trees could grow, which was a metaphor for the evergreen pines and cypresses of the Ming Dynasty.
On this day, Zhu Di came to the Taimiao Temple and planted a cypress tree, or the heavens opened their eyes, or the officials secretly changed the saplings.
This tree, really alive.
The picture | a portrait of Zhu Di, the ancestor of Ming Chengzu
On this central axis, the emperor not only planted trees, but also cultivated fields.
In the era of farming, "the people take food as the sky, and food is based on agriculture."
After Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, he followed the tradition of sacrificing Xiannong (the legendary god of agriculture who first taught the people to cultivate) and pro-farming ceremony, and set the location of the emperor's personal cultivation at the Beijing Xiannongtan (named ShanchuanTan in the Ming Dynasty).
Picture | Ancestral Farm: Guan Geng Tai and Zhi Tian
Every year in the middle of spring, the emperor would lead a hundred officials to the first agricultural altar to personally cultivate, holding a whip in one hand and supporting the old farmer in the other, sowing five grain seeds in "one acre and three points of land", and then climbing to the north viewing platform to watch the princes and ministers and the elderly farmers ploughing the fields.
The history books record that on one occasion, during a pro-ploughing ceremony, several cattle pulling plows dared to "resist and disobey the will"; more than a dozen guards even dragged the belts, and the cultivating cattle did not listen to the call, which provoked the emperor Long Yan to be angry, and finally had to calculate the responsibility for adjusting the ploughing cattle on the heads of several local officials.
Photo | Qing Dynasty "Yongzheng Emperor Sacrifice Ancestral Agricultural Altar Map" (partial)
"The great affairs of the country are in the worship and the rong." In the past five hundred years, the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties have worshipped their ancestors in the Taimiao Temple, sacrificed the heavens at the Temple of Heaven, and prayed for the abundance of grain and the stability of the Society at the Altar of Xiannong and the Altar of Sheji, and did not dare to slacken off in the slightest.
In Chinese culture, the ideas of ancestor worship, unity of heaven and man, and respect for heaven and the people are passed down on the central axis.
This is the "Left Ancestor Right Society".
Picture |: Taimiao Temple; Bottom: Sheji Altar
With the "Left Ancestor Right Society", during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the most important ceremonial music activities of the country were held at the Altar Temple in Beijing. As the core of the city, the three halls of the Forbidden City, designed by Ku Xiang, are built on the central axis, ruling to the south, showing the authority of the emperor, and the south side of the city is mostly government agencies and court palaces.
Small people from all over the city, literati merchants, gathered in the bell and drum towers in the northern section of the central axis and the surrounding commercial street markets.
Most of the common people lived in the outer city, and this area gathered a large number of guild halls and local guild halls, forming a bustling commercial area. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal also came to an end in Beijing, and the Wanning Bridge, a monument of the Yuan Dynasty on the central axis of Beijing, is the remnant of ancient Caoyun.
This is the "former and backward market".
Photo| Beijing Bell and Drum Tower · Photo network
In fact, whether it is Kublai Khan or Zhu Di, they are building a city that was set down thousands of years ago.
On the central axis of this culture, the home and country are united, and the ancient people's ideal capital order has been preserved to this day.
The central axis of history
Culture is passed down on the central axis of Beijing, and history is also intertwined on the central axis.
After Ming Chengzu moved the capital, he opened the fate of the Ming Dynasty's "Son of Heaven guarding the gate of the country, and the king died in the society".
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), the central axis of Beijing staged the last dynastic change in ancient China.
In this year, the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng, the king of the Chuang Dynasty, attacked the city of Beijing.
When the city was destroyed, the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian came to Banzai Mountain behind the Forbidden City. According to legend, Banzai Mountain once piled coal to prevent fuel shortage due to siege, so it is commonly known as "Coal Mountain".
Picture | From Jingshan Mountain, you can see the vein of the central axis · Photo network
The rebel army outside the city was fierce, and most of the civil and military officials in the city had scattered and fled, and only one loyal eunuch was following the Chongzhen Emperor.
On the central axis of Beijing, under a tree on Banzai Mountain, the Chongzhen Emperor chose to hang himself and be martyred for the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty achieved great success on the central axis, and also ended on the central axis.
In the same year, the Qing army entered the customs, and the central axis of Beijing ushered in the rule of the last feudal dynasty.
The picture | Qing's "Poetic Intentions of Jing Shi Sheng Chun" (partial), recreating the central axis of Beijing in the 18th century
Under the Ming Dynasty system, the city of Beijing completely inherited the central axis of the Ming Dynasty.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, this "Banzai Mountain", commonly known as Coal Mountain, was renamed "Jingshan Mountain". The crooked-necked old locust tree that took the life of the Chongzhen Emperor was reduced to "sin locust" and locked with chains, and whoever passed by had to walk until more than 300 years later, when the day was about to end, and the tree was eradicated by the garden department.
It is worth mentioning that the Qing Dynasty's design of Jingshan pushed the perfection of the central axis to the peak.
The Qing Dynasty meticulously carved the mountain front, back of the mountain, and the peak of the mountain, with the QiwangLou built in front of the mountain, the Shouhuang Hall built after the mountain, and during the Qianlong period, five pavilions (Guan Miao, Zhou Xiang, Wanchun, Fu Lan, and Yifang) were built symmetrically on the mountain, which were integrated with the central axis.
As the commanding height on the central axis, Jingshan is also a natural observation deck, and you can faintly see the vein of history when you climb the mountain.
In the eventful autumn of modern times, the country has suffered from wind and rain, and the central axis of Beijing has unfortunately suffered from war.
In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded Beijing and plundered the city, and an army broke into the Shouhuang Palace directly north of Jingshan. According to history, the Shouhuang Hall was originally a place where portraits of emperors of previous dynasties were hung and enshrined. Every year Chinese New Year's Eve, the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty placed the statue of Nur hachi, the ancestor of the Qing Dynasty, in the center, and lined up with the statues of the other emperors for worship.
The Eight-Nation Alliance looted a large number of cultural relics in the palace, and many precious paintings have since disappeared.
Photo| Arrow Tower, Zhengyangmen, Beijing · Photo network
The Zhengyang Gate, the southern gate of the inner city, which was built during the Ming Yongle period, also suffered a military disaster in the same year, and the Arrow Tower was burned down.
Later, when it was renovated, designers from Germany added Western patterns and ornaments to the Zhengyang Gate, which made the traditional Chinese arrow tower more characteristic of Western architecture.
Every step of the process of the great unification dynasty has left layers of imprints on the central axis of Beijing.
On February 12, 1912, on the central axis of Beijing, Empress Longyu issued an abdication edict in the name of Emperor Puyi of Xuantong in the Tiananmen Tower.
The abdication of the Qing Emperor marked the end of China's more than two-thousand-year-long feudal monarchy.
On this axis of history, the Chinese nation has opened a new chapter.
The | aerial photograph of the central axis of Beijing in 1940
The central axis of the times
After 1914, the former royal gardens and temples, such as the Taimiao Temple, the Temple of Heaven, the Sheji Temple, the Xiannong Altar, the Jingshan And other royal places on the central axis, were successively converted into museums or parks, and opened to the public.
The last emperor Puyi was a witness to this change.
According to the "Preferential Conditions for The Qing Dynasty", Puyi should have moved out of the Forbidden City after his abdication, but he became a "nail household" and lived for 12 years. The widows and widows in the palace still wear supplementary clothes, kneel down to be called subjects, and follow the xuantong era name, just like a small imperial court.
Picture | teenager Puyi on the roof of the Forbidden City
In 1924, when the two armies fought and the war spread to the city of Beijing, Feng Yuxiang led his troops to launch a coup d'état, and let the general Lu Zhonglin put the cannon on Jingshan to deter and expel the last emperor Puyi from the palace. Through discussion, the government at that time revised the preferential conditions and announced that all public property in the Forbidden City would be returned to the state, and that all the palace prohibitions would be opened to prepare for the construction of a museum.
When the Qing Dynasty was still messing around and asked Lu Zhonglin for a grace of ten days and half a month before moving, Li Shi, who later became one of the founders of the Palace Museum, stood up and righteously said: "The historical and cultural objects hidden in the palace are all national treasures, and can only be sealed in the palace and taken over to the state, and cannot be owned by Ai Xinjue Luo alone." ”
On November 5 of that year, Puyi officially bid farewell to the Forbidden City.
On the day of departure, the sign also reads "The ninth day of the first month of October in the sixteenth year of xuanunciation."
Subsequently, the Forbidden City had another well-known name- the Palace Museum.
The picture | the Forbidden City during the Republic of China
The forbidden garden of the emperor's family became the forbidden city of the people, and it also became the hottest punching point on the central axis of Beijing for nearly a hundred years.
Years later, Puyi, who had already obtained citizenship, returned to Beijing and wanted to visit the Forbidden City and had to buy tickets.
At that time, it was already an era when everyone was equal.
Picture | years later, Puyi (center) and Lu Zhonglin (left) "met and smiled and hated each other", and the right one is Xiong Bingkun, who fired the first shot of the Wuchang Uprising
South of the Forbidden City, a landmark building on the central axis of Beijing, Tiananmen Square, the main entrance of the Imperial City of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, opens its arms to the people. The thousand-step corridor in front of the door and the enclosed space with the wall were gradually opened to become a square open to the public.
On October 1, 1949, Tiananmen Square attracted the attention of the whole world.
On this day, the founding ceremony held in Tiananmen Square announced the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Photo | Dong Xiwen's oil painting "Founding Ceremony"
Since then, the monument to the people's heroes commemorating the indomitable struggle of the Chinese people in modern times has been laid on Tiananmen Square. Later, the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall also stood quietly on the central axis.
The culture of Beijing's central axis, such as the layout of the "Left Ancestors and Right Society", has long taken root in the city.
The National Museum and the Great Hall of the People, built after the founding of the People, continued the spatial relationship of "left ancestor and right society".
The National Museum, located on the east side of Tiananmen Square, tells the development of the Chinese nation from ancient times to the present; the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square solemnly listens to the voice of the times again and again.
On this central axis of the people, there are ordinary people who have a good time, and there are travelers who stop to look back, and they also carry the changes of the times that are closely related to each of us.
The central axis of the number
In 1951, the architect Liang Sicheng ascended to the top of Jingshan Mountain, looked at the central axis of Beijing, and sighed for the central axis: "The unique magnificent order of Beijing was born from the establishment of this central axis. ”
However, since the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to various reasons of the times, the cultural backbone and historical lifeline of this old Beijing city have been destroyed and destroyed.
For example, as an important representative of the central axis, the royal altar Xiannong Altar was originally the same size as the Temple of Heaven, but after entering the Republic of China, many buildings of the Xiannong Altar were demolished successively, and later converted into parks, stadiums were built, and even occupied and used by many units in the middle.
The Temple of Heaven, which echoes with the Temple of The First Farmers, is even more fateful. Although the Temple of Heaven has been listed as a world cultural heritage, its original building area has never been restored to its integrity, such as the original area of the Temple of Heaven's Kagura Department, the Sacrifice House, the Bell Tower and many other relics, scattered with simple buildings, and the old courtyard area of the Temple of Heaven Hospital, as well as machinery factories, schools and other units, breaking the spatial pattern of the Temple of Heaven's "round place".
Image| Temple of Heaven · Photo network
Fortunately, the story of Beijing's central axis may now have a new starting point.
In 2011, Beijing launched the work of declaring the central axis a world cultural heritage, bringing the central axis back to life.
With the joint efforts of all parties, in order to restore the original appearance of the central axis of Beijing, taking the Temple of Heaven as an example, in recent years, the simple building vacating project launched around the Temple of Heaven alone has demolished half of the simple buildings and provided new homes for thousands of demolished residents of the old city who contributed to the restoration of the original appearance of the Temple of Heaven. In addition, the Temple of Heaven Hospital, which originally occupied the huge space of the Temple of Heaven, was also relocated to the new campus in Beijing's Fengtai District.
In addition, the Xiannongtan also launched the tasks of cultural relics retreat and environmental remediation, and gradually restored its original historical appearance; Qianmen Avenue, Wanning Bridge, Zhengyang Gate and so on were renovated. If you go to Beijing today, when the lanterns first go up, you will appreciate an incomparably magnificent and magnificent central axis of Beijing.
On the basis of the gradual recovery of the physical axis, for the central axis to apply for heritage, another very important task next is how to achieve the publicization of the central axis? In the face of a huge area of 7.8 kilometers, more than 700 years of historical deposition, and thousands of years of cultural inheritance, how to enable the public to quickly and comprehensively understand and understand the unique civilization and tradition behind the central axis is not an easy task.
But today, the rapidly evolving Internet and technological means offer a whole new solution.
On December 29, 2021, on the renovated Zhengyangmen Arrow Tower, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage launched the "Digital Axis" project. Among them, one of the most important measures is to use game engine technology, physical simulation technology, and cloud game technology to directly help the construction of the Digital Exhibition System of the Central Axis of Beijing.
Imagine this: in the future, when you open the "Cloud Axis" mini program, you may be like Zhuang Zhou in "King-Man-Rong-Yao", sitting on a huge swift, pulling out the clouds, and what comes into your eyes is the whole picture of the entire central axis of 7.8 kilometers, and what you hear in your ears may be the twilight drum morning bell that rings through the bell and drum tower.
When you land, you may be in the same position as the Left Ancestor and the Right Society. At this time, you can walk into the building and most intuitively feel the solemnity and solemnity of the traditional architecture.
This is, of course, all my imagination. But for the ever-changing gaming technology, I believe it's not hard to achieve. Just like two years ago, after Notre Dame Cathedral was closed for repair due to fire, countless players opened the Thorn-Guest-Letter-Article to re-experience and reminisce about this great church in the digital world. More importantly, in the game, a sense of history is also constructed, so that everyone who enters it can feel the social conditions and fierce struggles during the French Revolution.
Who would have thought that the young medium of games could play such an important role in the inheritance of cultural heritage: the unique interactivity and immersion of games is the best way to truly feel and understand the past from the spiritual level.
We often say that an era has an era of cultural orientation and aesthetic taste. The central axis can last for seven hundred years, has continued to this day, and can have vigorous vitality in different eras, and the important reason is that each era is constantly injecting new content into the central axis. This is the true meaning of the "inheritance" and "protection" of cultural heritage.
As Shan Jixiang said, the application for the central axis is a process for us to realize our common dream, using digital technology to let the public have the right to know, supervise, participate in, and enjoy this matter, this process is irreplaceable.
Because it connects not only the past and the present, but also the future and even eternity.