Kyoto is an important city in the Osaka metropolitan area of Japan, and it is also a tourist city in Japan known as the "Ancient Capital of a Thousand Years". From Emperor Huanwu's relocation of the Capital of Japan to Kyoto in 794 to the relocation of the Japanese government to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration, Japan used Kyoto as its capital for more than 1,000 years. Due to the abundance of historical sites in Kyoto, many of Kyoto's places of interest were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994.
Walking on the streets of Kyoto, many people will have a strong sense of crossing - everyone seems to have returned to the capitals of the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an and Luoyang, and many of the characteristics of Kyoto are very similar to Chang'an Luoyang.
So, why does traveling to Kyoto have a "sense of crossing" back to Chang'an City and Luoyang City, the capital of the Tang Dynasty?
Above_ "Yongfu Painting Poster" - a picture depicting the scenery of the four seasons in Kyoto, Japan (partial)
First, from the perspective of the overall shape of urban construction, the shape and layout of Kyoto (Heian Kyo) is very similar to that of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty.
Tang Chang'an City as a whole is a symmetrical pattern of central axis, with an east-west length of more than 9,700 meters, a north-south width of more than 8,600 meters, and an area of more than 80 square kilometers. The central axis of the city is Suzaku Street in the north-south direction, and the east and west sides are lined with blocks of equal number and area. The streets of the urban area and the inner square are neatly arranged together, and the streets in the east- west, south-north directions show a grid-like intersection, and the outer city outline is divided into grid-like partitions, and each grid is the square. The layout of Tang Chang'an City was extremely tight and neat, and it was the most well-planned city in China at that time.
In order to facilitate foreigners and domestic merchants to do business, the imperial government opened the West Market and the East Market in Chang'an City, the West Market was the international trade center of the world, and the East Market was the distribution center for domestic commodity trading. Today, the tourist attraction "Datang West City" located near Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an has restored the bustling scene of Tang Dynasty West Market in relative integrity.
Above_ Layout of Heian Kyo (Kyoto).
The construction of Ping'an Jing imitated the Tang Dynasty Chang'an City in many ways.
1. Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty pursued an east-west symmetrical pattern with Suzaku Avenue as the central axis, and Japan's Heian Kyo also pursued east-west symmetry in urban construction. In the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an City was divided into two parts, called Xianning County to the east and Chang'an County to the west. Heian Kyo is bounded by a central axis and divides the urban area into two parts.
2. Among them, the street name of the axis is the same as that of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty, which is called Suzaku Street.
3. The Palace of Heian Kyo "Heian Palace" is on the north side of the entire urban area, while the Imperial City and Miyagi Castle of Tang Chang'an City are also on the north side of the city. The difference is that the miyagi of Heian Kyo is a combination of the imperial city and the palace castle, while the imperial city and the palace castle of Tang Chang'an City are two relatively separate cities. Heianjing Palace Castle is equivalent to the Palace Castle and Taiji Hall of Tang Chang'an City.
Above_ Tang Chang'an City West City and East City Layout Map
4. Tang Chang'an City has an east market and a west market for business, and Ping An Jing also has an east market and a west market.
5. The checkerboard streets of Ping'anJing divide the entire urban area into neat squares, which is quite similar to tang chang'an city.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that Japan's Heian Kyo has unreservedly learned many advantages of Tang Chang'an City in the overall urban planning, and Ping An Kyo can be regarded as a replica of Tang Chang'an City in a sense.
Above_ Floor plan of Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty
Second, although the overall urban planning of Kyoto (Heian Kyo) is very similar to that of Tang Chang'an City, the proportion of width and narrowness of Kyoto (Heian Kyo) and some details of the interior of the urban area are close to those of Luoyang City of Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Luoyang was the eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty, the "divine capital" of the Wuzhou period, and the "western capital" of the Song Dynasty. In 604, the Sui Emperor inspected the topography of Luoyang and then decided to establish the Eastern Capital City near luoyang's northern mountains. After the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin once changed the eastern capital of Luoyang to "Luoyang Palace", and during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi formally issued an edict to upgrade Luoyang Palace to the Eastern Capital, and the Tang Dynasty implemented the two-capital system. After Wu Zetian ascended the throne, the capital of the Wuzhou regime was set at Luoyang, and Wu Zetian also ordered people to build the "Tianshu", and Luoyang became another prosperous and politically significant city in China after Chang'an.
According to archaeological excavations, the outer circumference of Luoyang City in the Sui and Tang Dynasties was 28 kilometers. From the air, Luoyang City is long from north to south and narrow from east to west. The walls were all made of rammed earth. There are 8 gates around the city wall, and Dingdingmen Street is the main road of Luoyang City. There are many lanes in the city, forming a checkerboard layout.
Above_ Floor plan of Luoyang, the eastern capital of the Sui Dynasty
According to archaeological excavations, Heian Kyo is 5.2 kilometers long from north to south and about 4.5 kilometers wide from east to west. Although the size of its urban area was not as large as Luoyang City, Ping'an Jing unreservedly inherited the shape characteristics of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Luoyang City's long north-south and narrow east-west urban areas.
In addition to inheriting the characteristics of Luoyang City's "long north-south and narrow east-west" in terms of the width and narrowness of the urban area, Ping'anJing also has similarities with Luoyang City in other aspects.
1. The Lifang of Luoyang City in the Sui and Tang Dynasties is square, and the Lifang in Heianjing is also square.
2. In the naming of Lifang, Ping'an Jing directly copied the Sui Tang Luoyang City. The names of the 8 workshops in Heianjing, such as "Copper Camel", "Jiaoye" and "Xuanfeng", were all copied directly from Luoyang City.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that Ping An Kyo (today's Kyoto) imitates Tang Chang'an City in terms of the overall layout of the city, and refers more to Tang Luoyang City in terms of the proportion of width and narrowness of the city and the details of the city. At that time, Japan, with an eclectic mentality, integrated the construction experience of Tang Chang'an City and Tang Luoyang City, and finally built it into a seemingly combined version of Chang'an City and Luoyang City.
Zhu Wen (9 December 852 – 18 July 912) reigned from the first year of Kaiping (907) to the second year of Qianhua (912).
Third, the change of dynasties in China has changed the fate of Chang'an and Luoyang dramatically, with the former glorious Chang'an City and Luoyang City becoming "passing clouds", while the Heian Kyo (Kyoto), which integrates the characteristics of Tang Chang'an City and Luoyang City, has been the capital of Japan for more than 1,000 years, preserving a large number of ancient streets and ancient buildings.
In 904, Zhu Wen coerced Emperor Zhaozong of Tang to move the capital to Luoyang. Before leaving, Zhu Wen demolished Tang Chang'an City into ruins. The former bustling Chang'an City has become history. The warlord Han Jian built a new city on the ruins of Tang Chang'an City, but its scale could not be compared with Tang Chang'an City. In the Yuan Dynasty, Chang'an City followed the new city rebuilt by Han Jian, and did not change much.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zhu, the King of Qin, established a new Xi'an Fucheng and built a bell tower and a drum tower, laying the most basic pattern of today's Xi'an City. Due to a series of reasons such as the repeated wars and chaos in the Guanzhong region, Chang'an ceased to be the capital after the Tang Dynasty. There are very few Tang Dynasty buildings left in Xi'an.
After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Luoyang became the capital of Later Liang, Later Tang, and Later Jin, as well as the Western Capital of the Song Dynasty, and most of the ancient Tang Dynasty buildings in its territory remained until the late Northern Song Dynasty.
From the late Northern Song Dynasty to the Republic of China period, Luoyang City experienced the Song-Jin War and the Bombing of Luoyang City by the Japanese Army, and there were few Tang Dynasty buildings left in its territory.
Above_ "Yongfu Picture Post" - a picture depicting the scenery of the four seasons in Kyoto, Japan (partial)
And Kyoto, Japan, its fate is much better than Chang'an and Luoyang. Although Kyoto's architecture was also damaged during the shogunate and the Meiji Restoration's coups and wars, the overall urban layout of Kyoto did not change radically, even after the end of World War II, when the Chinese architect Liang Sicheng advised the Allies not to bomb Kyoto and Nara, a thousand-year-old city that escaped the war.
Therefore, when we come to Kyoto today, we can see the relatively well-preserved Tang Dynasty architecture, as if there is a feeling of crossing to Tang Chang'an City and Luoyang City.
Author: Zhenguan Correction/Editor: Lilith
Resources:
[1] Old Book of Tang, New Book of Tang
[2] Archaeological Notes of Tang Chang'an City, He Shili, Shaanxi Normal University Press
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author